Show us YOUR Quick Win

[TheOnlyAaron]

Some of you may have seen one or two of our Quick Win videos on our YouTube channel (if not, check out the link below).

The general idea is presenting SketchUppers (like yourself) a quick, easy-to-digest tip in under a minute.

Even though our SketchUp staff has plenty of tips and tricks, we thought it might be fun to poll you all and see what sort of tips YOU want to share with the SketchUp community.

Here’s where you come in: respond below with a 30-second tip that you think SketchUp users NEED to know. This can be text, a GIF, or a video. The important part is that you show us a quick piece of advice that you think would make a helpful Quick Win.

We’ll peruse through your submissions and turn some into official SketchUp Quick Win videos. These will be shared on our YouTube channel (with a shout-out to the submitter, of course)!

You’ll get to bask in the glory of a YouTube mention AND feel good about spreading your SketchUp knowledge.

So, quick: What’s your winning idea?

[DaveR]

How about my trick for working on small geometry?

[MikeWayzovski]

Here is a little concept I was thinking about. You would have to assign the proper shortcuts (eg. Paste in place, Make Group and Substract) and be aware of the concept of solid tools and its limitations.
Sometimes, It is very instructable to see how parts fit and what part goes where and with the solid tools, the Uncoloured faces inherit the color of the intersecting or, in this case, subtracting parts:

I would like to refer to this as the MOEL-Method

[Box]

Scale to Unit is one that people can go years without finding. Using the unit changes scale from a factor to a precise measurement.
An added tip within this is that you can mix imperial and metric when you are inputting as SU recognises both.

[Forestr]

Sometimes clipping gets in the way of examining tiny geometry, like when you need to select a tiny line segment or something.

You can adjust the “field of view” to zoom in on the tiny stuff. Just activate the zoom tool by pressing “Z”, then hold “shift” and click-drag.

[IanT]

Adding keyboard shortcuts for “Hide similar components”, and “Hide rest of model”. Now you see it, now you don’t…

Also keyboard shortcut for Paste in Place, that’s useful too.

[Box]

Explaining Cardinal Points would be a good one, and why you should draw on axis and in multiples of 4.

[Cotty]

Some ideas maybe in here too:
https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=17315&sid=da0c82ece66ac86d1fc81c68ce63bee9

[DBJ]

Where is this Scale to Unit? Is it a Ruby?

Thanks

J

[eric-s]

How about moving content from one layer to another by deleting layers? Of course don’t forget to mention moving back to Layer 0 once done!!!

[GSTUDIOS]

Just type it in.

[MikeWayzovski]

Well, we have all been there: Create a model, set up some scene and layers and of to the client with the proposal:

Guess what: the client wants a green elephant:

Ok, no worries, I create a new layer to not get chased by it all the time…

‘Hé, that layer would be on all scenes, wouldn’t it? I only want it on the first!’

Since the elephant is on a newly created layer, it appeears in all scenes, so: untick the visibilty of the newly created layer, select all scenes but the first and then click the update button. Uncheck all porperties but the layers and, off you go!

[IanT]

I never really bothered with Section Planes, until I saw in the thread “Out of the Box” that you could place one temporarily to get at those pesky internal faces quickly and easily…

[Cotty]

Looks like the next months are already covered…

[dezmo]

I think this feature with a following "bug" has been introduced in SU2018.

Recently (sometime in a past year) it has been taken a while for me, to recognize what magic is going on with the rectangle tool, if I draw the rectangle precisely by typing a length value then width value.
There were no problem with mouse, and I have been aware of the new feature with Ctrl key.

You know what happens: Each odd rectangle is drawn from the center and every even is drawn from the corner.

Explanation:

I have a different keyboard and language settings than English, so I have to use a comma , to indicate the decimal place (decimal separator) and a semi-colon; to separate the dimensions (list separator). To get the semi colon first I have to push AltGr (or right Alt key) and the key above it.

Since the AltGr ≈ Ctrl+Alt , you see, it is initiating the Ctrlkey too. … to toggle between center and corner-based drawing.

Unfortunately, I still tend to forget about it …

[wmeilge]

I would also like to know where to find “Scale to Unit”. You’re right I’ve gone years without finding it so far. Thanks.

[DaveR]

All you have to do is add the units when you type so it’s not a scale factor. See the Help article on Scaling.

Scaling Your Model or Parts of Your Model | SketchUp Help

Specifically,

1. Move the cursor to scale the entity. The Measurements box displays the scale dynamically. Press the Esc key at any point to start over. To set the scale from the center instead of the opposite corner, hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) or the Option key (macOS) while you move the red corner grip.
2. Click to set your selection’s new scale. Or type the desired scale dimensions and press Enter.

Note: Technically, in Step 5, you can type a dimension, such as 2m or 3" , instead of a scale dimension. However, scaling based on a dimension with the Tape Measure is generally more intuitive.

[MikeWayzovski]

@DaveR

However, scaling based on a dimension with the Tape Measure is generally more intuitive.

If you hold shift when scaling, you can also use one dimension. The scaling would be Uniform, just as with the Tape Measure and you won’t have to type all dimensions

I find scaling more intuitive when you only need to set one ore two dimensions, fi only the width of a board or thickness

[DaveR]

Of course that’s not my statement. It’s a copy and paste.

I usually prefer to resize things with the Move tool, anyway.