Pushing without arithmetic or pushing to an absolute value

SketchUp
1

Hi
I have an component that is some unknown height but I’m certain it is much taller than I want it to be.
I know want it to be 18" tall.
I could measure it discover it is for example 5’ 6" (66") tall and then do a push of -48 inches so it is now 4’ tall.
Is there a way to avoid the measuring and arithmetic and just enter in an absolute value?
I suppose I want a push till you hit 18" command.
Does that make any sense?

2

You can add a contruction line or point to avoid the calculation. If your situation allows the usage of the scale tool, you can enter the desired length instead of the scale factor.

3

Hi Cotty
The construction line works fine but apparently I didn’t understand the scale tool.
I couldn’t get the scale tool to work.
Well it works like it is supposed to work but I still had to put in a scale value.

Let’s say i have a component that is 2" in the direction where I want it to be 1 “.
I could grab the appropriate handle and pull it or push it in the direction I wanted and then in the window I typed in a value of .5.
That would give me a 1” piece where I used to have a 2" but I had to know that 2 scaled by .5 gives me one 1".
If I put .5 It would give me a 1" piece but I don’t want to have to do the arithmetic when the value is difficult to divide in half e.g. if you have 5’ 4 3/16" and you want it to be and inch then you have to do the math to work out you need a scaling factor of .015579357 to make it one inch tall.
Does this make sense?

4

When you Scale an object, the inputted number is taken as a ratio.
So if you input 18 it’s made x18 higher than it was before !
BUT if you suffix your scale value with a unit, then it’s scaled to be that height.
So…

    18    >>> x18 higher than it was before
    18"   >>> 18" high
    1'6"  >>> 18" high
    460mm >>> 460mm high [approx 18"]

and so on…
No need for complex scaling values at all.

5

How does one enter the quote (for inches) when pressing shift toggles uniform scaling instead of accessing the capitalized keys?

[edit: answered my own question: you must click to set the initial scale and then type in the desired size including quote character for inches]

6

Hi TIG
That works till I hit the shift key to enter " for inches.
The shift key is the toggles uniform.
How can I enter " without toggling the uniform scale?

7

Hi TIG
sorry for the post I started typing and went into the next room i didn’t see my question had already been answered by slbaumgartner.
Thanks to everyone!.

8

Hi slbaumgartner

" you must click to set the initial scale"
Umm umm ckick what?

9

You mouse-click on one of the handles presented by the scale tool to start the resize, move the cursor a bit to make it “take”, then click again to set the scale. After the second click you can type a value for the exact size.

10

Hi slbaumgartner
Yes yes mucho thanks.
That will save me so much time.