Struggling with Rotate tool

Hi. I am learning Sketchup and am trying to place windows in this house. I copy pasted window to fit into sidewall but because the direction was different, I tried using Rotate tool protractor. However, even after hours of trying, I was not able to fit it perfectly into the opening. Is there any shortcut or easy way to do so?h1,.skp (2.8 MB)

Select the window.

Use the Rotate tool (tap letter q shortcut).

Tap left arrow key to rotate about the green axis

Position the tool on the upper outside corner near you (as shown below).

Make a second click on the edge sloping down.
Move the mouse to the left until you see it indicate “On blue axis” (vertical) then click again to rotate the window vertical.

Similarly rotate it 180° about the midpoint of the top on the blue (vertical) axis (tap Up arrow to select blue axis) to get the right side outside.

Move into position using a corner (I used the top left front corner) to register it in the wall. Or use a midpoint - perhaps top centre front? - if you want it centred in the oversize opening.


Adjust the size and position of the window or the opening so they fit.

You should correct the face orientation of some of the wall faces and edges - showing grey blue in this Monochrome view:

1 Like

You can also do it with the move tool. The little red crosses are rotate points and they will snap to axis.
So it’s quite simple to snap to vertical the spin around and position without needing to change tools.

Move rotate

2 Likes

It’s interesting that in Box’s GIF and in my use of the Rotate tool, the window is very subtly off square - the rotate tool shows black, not green or blue, when oriented to the side or top face. I forced it ‘on axis’ using the arrow key.

The difference is very small - when I used Angular Dimension, it showed the corner angle as ~90.000° - the tilde indicates it is an approximate angle, not exactly 90°, but by less than 1/1000th of a degree.

1 Like

True, I missed that, a quick snap on the front will align it.

1 Like

Just a demo of what @john_mcclenahan was mentioning.
See how the ‘protractor’ is black when I first rotate the side, but then green after I have rotated the front. Showing that it is aligned to the red and green axis, blue too but I didn’t show that.
On axis

2 Likes

Nice tip there about the color of the rotation protractor as you hover over the rotation handles. Even though I don’t really have these issues anymore, I think I’ll start paying attention to them anyway.

Thank you all of you for your guidance :slight_smile:

This topic was automatically closed after 186 days. New replies are no longer allowed.