When drawing rectangle, what determines which direction is first dimension in the dimensions text box aligned with

While drawing rectangles, I typically like to use the dimensions text box to enter exact dimensions, but I’m having difficulty figuring out which dimension is first. Sometimes when drawing in the red/green plane the first dimension is aligned with the red axis, and sometimes it is aligned with the green axis. Also, by pressing the up arrow on the keyboard to force the rectangle to be in the green/red plane, it sometimes switches the alignment from green, red to red, green.

I spent some time trying to divine what it is doing, but I have failed to find consistency. When drawing rectangles how is the direction of length and width assigned?

Which axis is length and which is width? What determines how sketchup associates these things.

thanks

It depends on a number of things. When on the ground plane, it’ll be red before green. Other times, it’s different. I quit trying to figure it out many years ago and just start by dragging out the rectangle so it is very obviously longer in one direction than the other. Then I look at the Measurements window to figure out which order to enter the dimensions.

5 Likes