I draw a rectangle but cannot edit the dimensions!
Select the rectangle tool
Click the start point.
Move mouse to end point
click to set endpoint
And then…
How the hell do you edit the dimensions? The Dimensions input box in the lower right is NOT editable?
If you change to the select tool, select the rectangle, the “Dimensions” changes to “Measurements” but you cannot edit the empty box.
If you right click and select “Entity Info” in the properties box you cannot change the Face/Area of the rectangle.
It seems once the rectangle is created it cannot be changed! What am I missing?
I’ve searched for the help and tried the “Tape Measure Tool”. That is a joke and got me nowhere. You can select and endpoint and type in a “Length” but nothing happens.
The SketchUp video classes are a great idea but the videos DO NOT USE THE WEB PRODUCT, therefore the interface in the video’s doesn’t match the product.
The Scale tool is close to what I expect, EXCEPT, the rectangle is resized the actual dimensions are NOT SHOWN! The lower right shows the “Red Scale”, which translates to what? Length? width?
Showing the Area of a Face is MEANINGLESS if you don’t know the length and/or the width! It’s just an arbitrary value.
I just want to quickly type in the length and width (and height?) and resize the rectangle.
THIS SHOULD BE EASILY EDITED IN THE ENTITY INFO! Think Visual Basic property editors.
Any help or links to meaningful and accurate videos would be appreciated.
You should probably spend some time with the fundamentals at learn.sketchup.com.
It IS editable and it is not difficult.
Start the rectangle and drag the cursor in the general direction of the diagonally opposed corner. LET GO OF THE MOUSE. Type the dimensions with the appropriate separator. That’s a comma in the US. Press Enter. DO NOT move the cursor into the Measurements window. DO NOT click in the Measurements window. If it’s available for input just ype. There is never ever any reason to click in the Measurements window.
Thank you for the video and the feedback. The video provided only describes how to set the dimensions when first creating the rectangle. I can’t seem to change the dimensions directly after creation.
The Dimensions tool seems to only create a label based on the endpoints selected.
The Scale tool almost does what I am trying to do, however it only shows changes based on a “Scale”.
I would think I could use the select tool on a rectangle and type in new dimensions, i.e. “2,6”.
For example:
Draw a rectangle, enter 2’,4’ as the dimensions.
Change to select tool
Select the rectangle
At this point there doesn’t appear to be anyway to change the dimensions to 2,8. This is my question.
One workaround is to:
use the Dimension tool on an edge (to show/label the length)
use the select tool and select the rectangle
switch to the scale tool
scale (drag) the rectangle to the desired length.
repeat the process for the width
Using the above process, if the entity info window is open, the Face->Area section could have the length, width as editable inputs.
The Push/Pull tool does EXACTLY this. You can select any rectangle using the push/pull and just type the desired value and that rectangle’s height is modified.
Is there another way to change a rectangle’s dimensions after it has been created?
No, you cannot simply select a previously made rectangle and type new dimensions. It must be modified with other tools like move and scale
Incorrect. The scale tool also accepts absolute dimensions, as well as scale ratios. Apply or start a scale operation then type in the dimension you desire including the unit symbol, like 14mm or 5’.
As written by ateliernab, you can use the move tool. Remember that you can add a guide to help you in snapping the move. For example, with a 2,32 m x 4,0528 m rectangle that you want to stretch an additional 3,3 m, place a guide at, for example, 3,3 m from one side and then move this side until you get a snap from the guide. You don’t need to do calculations. Delete the guide when done.
Another possibility is to use the Scale tool. This tool use pure numbers as scale factors but, if you follow the number with a unit abbreviation like m for meters, it uses this value instead.
For a 2 m x 4 m rectangle that you want ro resize as 2 m x 4,5 m, use 4,5m as the scale factor.
Observe the Status Bar at the bottom of the Modelling Window. It always gives you pertinent info for each of your moves and/or clicks.
I suggest that you open the Instructor Window immediately after starting SketchUp. Observe what this windows is telling you for each of the tool that you select. You will learn a lot. Scroll down the bottom of this window to get a link to the help for even more useful info. When you are done, you can close this window. You can reopen it at any time for a refresher on a particular tool.
To clarify, SketchUp is not a parametric object modeler in general. Once rectangle is drawn, it is just four edges with no recognition that they form a single thing called a rectangle.
The exception is circles and circular arcs, for which SketchUp appends some metadata to remember the parameters of the true circle the segments represent. Various edit operations will force it to drop the metadata, losing this notion of the circle as a single thing.
Hi, you may know this, if not this may help, for you and others.
I have been making a plan and wanted to change the depth of a panel as the measurements were changing as I tried to understand how it will look.
Do this to change the dimensions of a rectangle.
Triple click the object
On the face you want to adjust, simply push or pull, as you start moving in the direction of change, simpy type the number, for me in millimeters and it will adjust it by that amount.
For some reason, I cannot type in the Dimensions box. It’s not taking my input. I picked the rectangle tool, clicked on a blank space before doing the last click, went to the Dimensions as shown on the video, and viola, it’s not allowing me to type anything.
The correct procedure would be to click and release to set the first corner, move the mouse in the general direction of the diagonally opposed corner. Let go of the mouse and type the dimensions. Also make sure you are using the exact same separator as is displayed when you are dragging out the rectangle. And do not move the mouse to the Measurements window and do not click in the Measurements window.
I start the drawing operation (Rect), click and release to set the first corner. Without clicking any where went to the dimension box to type the dimensions (w,h) but does not allow me to type.
Your double posting is creating confusion. I replied to you in the other thread too.
You have to move the cursor after setting the first point. It won’t let you enter the dimensions of the rectangle until you tell SketchUp where the rectangle needs to be. A single point doesn’t do that.
Based on your video you were clicking in the Measurements window. It will never work correctly if you do that and there’s never any reason to click in the Measurements window.
Wrong! You can use the Move or Scale tools to resize the rectangle later if you decide it needs to be resized.
Well, there’s a window of time where you can. As soon as you’ve drawn a rectangle, and before you touch or do anything else, you can type new numbers plus enter and it will change. You can do this again and again. As soon as you start drawing another rectangle or touch another tool or command, you’re done and it’s set.
After that, you’re options are to move an edge or use the scale tool as @DaveR describes.
(BTW, I rely on the “draw it arbitrarily wrong at first and then type the right numbers” method all the time because I use a pen tablet, and it doesn’t work well with the intended method of taking your hand off the mouse to type.)
