What is it that, as a woodworker, you want to model that you feel you can’t do in Sketchup?
Hi, DaveR. Sketchup can do vastly more than I will ever need for my woodworking. My problem is that plenty of fairly simple, standard things that I need to do often are slow and confusing for me to implement in Sketchup. For people who are very fluent and skilled, this may not be the case. But I’ve taken three classes, worked through about 80 hours of videos on Sketchup.com, Lynda.com, and Youtube, and I still had to spend an hour, read six additional web pages, and watch three more videos, and try and fail several dozen times, to get a few of the dimension labels to display correctly on my fairly simple drawing, last night. The first five dimension labels took two minutes, and the last three took an hour. That’s just one example of yesterday’s frustrations.
I have your book (I’m guessing), and I am grateful for it. I continue to learn, and yet I still run into significant barriers on every simple project, and it takes me a great deal of time to find ways around what seem like bizarre limitations to me. I’m in a local Sketchup for woodworkers users group, and similar frustrations come up at every meeting.
Perhaps if I knew exactly what you were trying to accomplish, I could show you an easier way.
Thank you.
It could be the instruction you’ve gotten from some sources. It could be that you need to see a different approach that clicks with you or it could be you just need more practice.
I have to say, if you are looking at YouTube for tutorials, you have to be discerning. There are a lot of them that teach poor practices in SketchUp. Some of the so called “tutorials” look like they were done by people who only just learned how to open the program. Even some of the tutorials n Lynda leave a lot to be desired.
I’m grateful for your willingness to try and help me, DaveR. There is probably a better forum or communication method than this message thread, so please let me know if we should continue the discussion in another way. To describe two of the problems that I had, imagine the side view of two stair steps. I want to display dimensions indicating the height of the first step, the height of the second step, and the overall height from the top of the top step to the bottom of the bottom step. My workpiece is a little more complex than this, with rounded corners on the edge of the steps and different step heights, but this gives the basics of my problem. I wanted each of the dimension labels to the left of my drawing, with the largest dimension furthest to the left.
I can draw the first dimension label with no difficulty. The second dimension label gave me trouble, because I didn’t have two points directly above one another. I had an endpoint for one line above the appropriate line that I wanted to measure to, but not one point right above another point. I could start the dimension at a point on the correct level, and move my cursor to the line below, displaying the needed dimension, but I couldn’t find any way to “fix” or “hold” or “submit” that dimension, and turn it into a label. When I moved the cursor, the displayed dimension changed, which is logical, since my mouse pointer was now a different distance from the starting point. I couldn’t find any way to tell Sketchup that I was done, and to accept the indicated dimension and make me a label, when I didn’t have two measurement points lined up vertically. I tried drawing a guideline off to the left at the right height, but I didn’t find a way to create a dimension label using the guideline, either.
The technique that I eventually discovered wasn’t covered in the text of any of the web pages that I looked at, nor explicitly in any of the videos, but I did see something in one video, as the author was drawing, that seemed like very inconsistent behavior. I tried it out, and it was repeatable inconsistent behavior. I will mention it here, in case it helps another user who comes to this thread in the future. I’m sure you already know, DaveR. I clicked one point, from which I wanted to measure. I then moved my cursor to a different point on the drawing, not vertically aligned with the first. The displayed dimension at that second point was large and of no relevance to my drawing, nor to labeling the desired dimensions. I clicked this second point, still showing the irrelevant pseudo-dimension. Then I dragged to the left, and suddenly the dimension changed from being the distance between my chosen points, which I didn’t need, to the needed vertical distance between the two horizontal lines, on which my chosen points resided. I can still scarcely believe it. This gave me the second of the three dimension labels that I was going for (in this simplified example).
The problem that I had in trying to create the third dimension label is that I wanted it to use and measure the vertical distance between two lines that already had dimension labels attached to them. Every single thing I tried to create a new dimension label, from the top step to the bottom of the bottom step, put me into edit mode for one of the previous dimension labels. Even when I just clicked the first point for the new measurement, and I clicked a point that I hadn’t used previously, I found that Sketchup instantly went into edit mode for an older label. I don’t think I ever found a solution to this. I ended up labeling another object on another part of the drawing, which had the same dimension. What is the proper way to address this problem? I’m using Sketchup 2018 Pro for Mac. Many thanks. [edited for clarity]
Thank you for your help, DanRathbun.
Better to start a new thread or send me a private message and I’ll dig in as soon as I have time. Send the SKP file if you can.
Before you click, hover your mouse near the point you want until you get the green dot. If the existing dimension is highlighted blue, slowly move the mouse away from it until it is no longer hightlighted but the green dot is. Then click to select your point.
It will save you time in the long run if you pause for a second to get the inference point.
Thank you, McGordon. I tried to figure out how to use the inference points, but I failed. I think your description may make the difference for me. I will try again.
From your description I’m not quite getting what your issue is.
Perhaps it’s just a misunderstanding of how the dimension tool works.
You need to click on two endpoints, but they don’t need to be in a perfect line for where you want to place the dimension. They just need to be two points and Sketchup will give you the dimension between those points relative to how you position the Dimension. With curves you may need to turn on hidden geometry to select the correct endpoint. (Endpoint in this case includes midpoints and other inference-able points.)
As you see here I keep starting from the same point and work my way through various other points. Plus the added bonus of being able to drag a dimension straight off an edge.
As others have already said, start a new thread and include a sample model with which you are having problems and we can address them specifically.