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  • Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
    Results 21 to 38 of 38

    Thread: DevilDog's SketchUp Tips

    1. #21
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      Lets make a copy of our doghouse so we can work with a few versions.

      If you have already made a Group out of your doghouse, Right-click on it and choose Explode from the Context Menu. Just like it sounds, Explode breaks your Group into the entities that compose it.

      Now choose the Move Tool (Should be called the Move/Copy Tool), Mouse-over your doghouse and press the Control Key on your keyboard. You should see a small "+" sign appear next to your Move Tool cursor.

      Click-and-drag (or Click-mouse-click) across and you'll get an exact copy of your doghouse. Note SU Inference Engine offering to move the doghouse directly along the Red Axis for you. Now press the letter 'x' on your keyboard then '2' then 'Enter'.

      Should have something like this now:
      Attached Images Attached Images  
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

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    2. #22
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      Groups and Components

      So there's basically three ways SU will let you work with things.

      1. As Geometry (An unrelated collection of Edges and Faces)
      2. As a Group (A selection of Edges and Faces that you have designated as a Group
      3. As a Component (Similar to a Group but with some important differences)

      Using doghouse #2 (the middle one) Triple Click anywhere on it to Select it all. Now Right-click and choose "Make Group". Now use the Move/Copy Tool to make a copy of that house behind your first row.

      Using doghouse #3 (the right one) Triple Click on it, then Right Click and choose Make Component. Then use the Move/Copy Tool to make a copy of it behind the row. Like this:
      Attached Images Attached Images  
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    3. #23
      CplDevilDog is offline Senior Member
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      So house #1 is just Geometry. If you try and drag it around by the roof without selecting it all each time you will just stretch it.

      House #2 and #2a are Groups and SU thinks of them as two separate entities.

      House #3 is a Component and house #3a is an instance of that component.

      Anything you do to House #3 or any of its "children" will be mirrored across all of the instances of that component.

      Try painting the roof of House #2 with the Paint Bucket Tool and you'll see that nothing happens to the roof of House #2a. However, if you paint the roof of either House #3 or #3a, both roofs will be painted at the same time.

      Using Components has advantages like reducing the size of your SketchUp File, improving system performance and allowing you to make changes to a lot of Entities by just modifying one of them.

      The reason behind this is the way SU stores and works with Components in the PC's memory. If you have two Groups (House #2 and #2a) SU has to remember all of the details about both of them. With a Component, SU remembers the details of one version and keeps a running count of how many "children" (instances) of that component you have. Each time it draws an instance of House #3 all the attributes are just links back to the original Component.
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    4. #24
      CplDevilDog is offline Senior Member
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      Sizing things correctly

      Sorry for the delay.

      So, a lot of tings we want to do in SU we want them to be "to scale" so they are useful in construction.

      The Tape Measure Tool and the Measurement Toolbar are the primary means of doing this.

      The Tape Measure Tool works exactly as you would expect in the real world. Select it and click on one corner of the Doghouse, now mouse over to the back corner of the doghouse and hold there. You should get a small pop-up next to your Tool that shows you the length. Also, this value will be displayed in the bottom right corner of the Status Bar in the Measurement Toolbar.

      Mine says my doghouse is 4' 2 and 7/16ths" which is going to be a real pain to work with once I'm ready to start cutting in the real world.

      So, I want to adjust the dimensions of the my doghouse.

      Lets erase the Geometry Version (Far Left) and the Component Versions (Far Right) and one of our Groups so we're left with just house #2 to work with.


      On second thought, let me show you how to draw accurately from the beginning and then we'll come back to scaling something that you just free-handed.

      Lets draw a second house right next to #2. We are going to make it 3' Wide, 3' High (not including the roof) and 6' Long (Deep).

      Grab your Rectangle Tool and draw a square on the ground next to house #2. Don't worry about the size, just click-mouse-click (An aside: SU recommends that you limit your click-drag-click style as focus on using click-mouse-click as most tools will function that way, it really is more convenient).

      Got your square of arbitrary size? (Don't know why that makes me think of ROUS's Rodents Of Unusual Size) Ok, now type "3',6' " ENTER on the Keyboard. As you type, notice the Measurement Toolbar in the lower right corner keeping track.

      When you hit ENTER you Square Of Arbitrary Size (SOAS) snaps to your measurements.

      Now Grab your Push/Pull Tool and start pushing the ceiling up. Once its moving, type 3' ENTER into your keyboard and watch your cube snap to 3' tall.

      Play around and I'll cover Guides and Resizing during lunch.
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    5. #25
      CplDevilDog is offline Senior Member
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      So, returning to our original doghouse, which we free handed.

      We want to make our freehand dog house the same size as our properly dimensioned one.

      Take a second to raise the roof on our new doghouse using whichever method you like.

      Now you should have this:



      Lets make the 2nd doghouse the same as the 1st.

      The quickest way to it would be to copy doghouse 1, delete doghouse 2 and then paste doghouse 1 back in its place but we want to learn something about the Tape Measure Tool

      So, select the Tape Measure Tool and click on the corner edge of the doghouse:


      Ahhh....

      I sat down to write a quick update and realized I painted myself into a tutorial corner. We were going to resize the 1st doghouse to be the same as the 2nd but I forgot most everyone's doghouse is hollow which gets us into problems.

      I'll have to try again later, I'm out of time
      Attached Images Attached Images  
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    6. #26
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      TL/DR: Use the Copy/Paste and Scale Tools to make a smaller version of doghouse #2.

      OK, rather than try and fix doghouse #1 we're going to get rid of it and make a smaller version of doghouse #2.

      Make a Group out of Doghouse #2. Now delete Doghouse #1 and Copy/Paste Doghouse #2 right next to it.

      Now we're going to use the Scale Tool to make Doghouse #1 arbitrarily smaller than Doghouse #2.

      In the Menu Bar Click on View --> Toolbars ---> Large Tool Set

      Your work space should look something like this now:

      Name:  Large Tool Set a.jpg
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      Select Doghouse #1 and then choose the Scale Tool from the left side. It looks like a white sheet of paper with a brown square on it and a little arrow.

      Click anywhere on Doghouse #1 and watch the Scale Tool add green reference points handles around the Object Doghouse #1.

      Name:  Large Tool Set.jpg
Views: 1764
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      Now the Scale Tool will allow you to make Doghouse #1 Shorter/Longer, Wider/Thinner or Scale Proportionally depending on which handles you grab.

      Play around with it and use Edit --> Undo Scale until you get back to the original. Notice that as you scale in and out, the Measurment Toolbar window in the bottom right corner keeps a running value for the percent scale.

      Now lets make doghouse #1 exactly half the size of doghouse #2. Grab one of the corner handles with the Scale Tool so your Cursor says "Uniform Scale About Opposite Point". Right click and then type .50 ENTER into the keyboard.

      Doghouse #1 should now look like this.

      Name:  Resizing 1.jpg
Views: 1290
Size:  29.7 KB
      Last edited by CplDevilDog; 04-17-2012 at 07:47 AM. Reason: Cleaner Reading
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    7. #27
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      TL/DR: Use the Tape Measure Tool to create three Guide Lines to use in resizing the doghouse.


      Now lets use the Tape Measure Tool to create some Guides that we can scale doghouse #1 to.

      Lets make doghouse #1 4' Wide x 40" High x 5.5' Long (Deep)

      Take your Tape Measure Tool and right click on the front corner of doghouse 1:

      Move your mouse along the right wall and you'll notice that the Tape Measure Tool has created a dotted Guide line parallel to the Edge that makes up the right front corner of the house:

      Name:  Guides 1.jpg
Views: 1232
Size:  45.4 KB

      Type in 5.5' ENTER and the Guide Line will snap 5.5' back along the green axis.

      (Make sure you are inferencing the building's right face when you hit ENTER it is very easy with Guides to set them in unexpected planes and hard to tell when you've made a mistake until you try and drag something to the Guide)

      Now work your way around the building and set a Guide that is 4' off the front right corner along the Red Axis (across the face of the building)

      Name:  Guides 2.jpg
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      And a 3rd Guide from the floor straight up through the peak of the roof.

      Name:  Guides 3.jpg
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Size:  41.8 KB


      Now you should have three Guides around your model. Notice how hard it is to tell what plane they are in.

      Name:  Guides 4.jpg
Views: 1224
Size:  46.4 KB
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    8. #28
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      Scaling To Guides

      Now you can select your Scale Tool and use the Scale About Opposite Point Handles to stretch your house up and over to the Guide Lines

      Name:  Scale Up 1.jpg
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      Once you grab the handle mouse over the Guide Line and SU will infer that you want to scale the house along the selected axis to that line. Notice the pop-up "On Line" with the dashed line leading back to your handle.

      Name:  Scale Up 2.jpg
Views: 1274
Size:  29.1 KB

      Go ahead and scale the house up in all directions, using the Guide Lines
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    9. #29
      CplDevilDog is offline Senior Member
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      Change of plans - Downloading and Modifying Models

      Ok, so rather than working on two projects at once (designing the plumbing for my pond and this tutorial) I'm going to let you follow along as I design the plumbing.

      This way we can cover some real world examples and I can get my work done at the same time.

      Lets download a Model from the Google Warehouse.

      Go to File --> 3D Warehouse --> Get Models...

      In the Search Window type "Water Barrel". One of the first Models you'll get back is "30 Gallon Water Barrel" from bemace.

      Click Download Model and the Warehouse will ask you if you want to "Do You Want To Download Directly Into Model?"

      For this example choose Yes. The next Model we are going to get is quite large and detailed. We will choose No because if we imported it directly into our Model it might tax our system to the point we'll get some serious lag problems.

      Now you should have something like this:

      Name:  Barrel 1.jpg
Views: 1506
Size:  48.7 KB

      Right-click on the barrel to bring up its context menu and choose Entity Info.

      You'll get a little pop-up window:


      Name:  Barrel 2.jpg
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Size:  45.5 KB

      Which shows alot of details about the barrel. The one I'm interested in is the Volume because I want to know if this barrel is really 30 gallons. Some Models posted up for free have defects and some can be serious enough to make them tough to work with.

      The Volume says it is 4.83 Cubic Feet, which a quick Google Search tells me there are 7.48 Gallons/Cubic Foot so this barrel is 36 Gallons, which is pretty darn close and you have to remember that SU is calculating the volume of the barrel from the outside extremities of the model, without taking into account the wall thickness or the fact that the lid appears to be integrated into the model.

      Now, I want a 50 Gallon Barrel so I am going to make a copy of this barrel and use the Scale Tool to bring it up to 50 Gallons.


      I want to leave the original barrel unmodified so if I screw my version up I can easily start over. Remember this barrel was a Component and we made a copy of it so our barrel is just an image of the 1st barrel. Any changes we make to our barrel will be reflected back onto the original barrel.

      Right click on our barrel and choose "Make Unique" from the context menu.

      Name:  Barrel 3.jpg
Views: 1208
Size:  48.4 KB


      Now there are two components that just happen to look the same. Any changes and/or copies of Barrel #2 will only reference Barrel #2
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    10. #30
      CplDevilDog is offline Senior Member
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      Scale our barrel up

      Lets use the Scale Tool to make our barrel 50 gallons. Right-click our barrel and choose Entity Info.

      50 gallons divided by 7.4 gallons/CF = 6.68 CF that our barrel needs to be.

      Select our barrel and use the Scale Tool to adjust its size until we get right around 6.68 CF for its volume.

      Right click on our barrel and change its Definition Name to 50 Gallon Barrel
      Last edited by CplDevilDog; 04-17-2012 at 09:52 AM.
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

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    11. #31
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      Using Intersect With Model to create hollows and voids

      TL/DR: Use the Intersect With Model Function to hollow out the barrel. Covering a big concept, any questions PM me and I'll edit the post.


      OK, since I'm retentive, I want my barrel hollow so i can see all the good stuff going on inside.

      We are going to use the Intersect With Model Feature to hollow out our barrel.

      Imagine you had a ball of Play-doh and you wanted to make the shape of a dice corner into the Play-Doh. You could mess around all day trying to cut out just the right pieces of Play-Doh, or you could just "mash" a dice (die) into the Play-Doh.

      That's what the Intersect With Model function does. You create your Object (in our case a barrel) and then you create your die (an object you are going to "push" into your Object, in our case a cylinder).

      So

      Step 1: Open the barrel Component by Double-clicking on it. Notice the areas around the barrel are grayed out so you know you are working directly with that object.

      Step 2: Find the center of the top of the barrel by using the Tape Measure Tool to draw two Guides Lines through the center of the barrel top.

      Name:  Barrel Bisected.jpg
Views: 1662
Size:  63.8 KB

      Step 3: Create a Guide Point a few inches above the center of the barrel by using the Tape Measure Tool and inferencing along the blue axis.

      Step 4: Use the Circle Tool to draw a circle centered on your Guide Point.


      Name:  Barrel Circle.jpg
Views: 1251
Size:  66.7 KB

      Step 5: Pull your circle down through the top of the barrel and stop just inside the bottom of the barrel. The easy way to do this is view the barrel from underneath and pull until you see "On Face" then back off a little.

      Name:  Barrel Cylinder.jpg
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Size:  45.6 KB

      Step 6: Make a Group out of the cylinder you just created. This is your "die" that will "scoop out" the inside of the barrel.

      Name:  Barrel Top.jpg
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Size:  50.9 KB

      Step 7: Right click on the cylinder Group and choose "Intersect With Model" from the context menu.

      Step 8: Right click on the cylinder and choose Erase

      Step 9 Notice there is now a circle on the face of your barrel.

      Step 10: Push that circle down into the barrel.

      Name:  Barrel pushed.jpg
Views: 1209
Size:  58.6 KB
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    12. #32
      CplDevilDog is offline Senior Member
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      Calculating Surface Area and Volume Quickly

      Assuming you have drawn things to scale, SU will do Area and Volume Calculations for you quickly.

      In my pond concept, I select the Edges bounding my pond water column and Copy them

      Name:  Volume Calc 1.jpg
Views: 1313
Size:  63.3 KB

      I then move off to the side a little and Paste them. Use the Line Tool to close up any gaps (I had a gap where my skimmer was) and you should get a Face.

      Right-click on the Face and choose Entity Info from the Context Menu. Your Area is there.

      Name:  Volume Calc 2.jpg
Views: 1209
Size:  43.6 KB

      Now use the Push Tool to make your Face into a column of water, the depth of your pond, in my case 4' deep. Triple-click on the Face and make a Group out of all the geometry.

      Now right-click on the Group and choose Entity Info. Your Volume is displayed in the window in cubic feet. Multiply by 7.48 to get Gallons.

      Name:  Volume Calc 3.jpg
Views: 1243
Size:  45.3 KB

      If you want to get detailed you can calculate the volume of undwater structures such as egress steps, plant shelves, etc and subtract them from your total volume.

      Onward!
      Last edited by CplDevilDog; 04-18-2012 at 09:27 AM.
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    13. #33
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      Using the Follow Me Tool for plumbing

      So the Follow Me Tool is useful for extruding shapes. Its handy for plumbing type projects.

      The two second version: Draw an Edge along the path you want your plumbing line to follow. Then draw a circle Perpendicular to and at one end of your path.

      Name:  Extrude offset 4.jpg
Views: 1315
Size:  29.7 KB


      Select the Follow Me Tool. Click on the Face of your circle and then on your Line path


      Name:  Extrude offset 5.jpg
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Size:  40.5 KB
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    14. #34
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      Using Arrays to make lots of things quickly

      Often in SU you want to make a lot of things quickly and spaced evenly. Designing decks, railings and fences where you might want to show floor joists, pickets or ballisters at a certain On-center spacing.

      SU handles this well with Arrays:

      To start with make a model of what you want. In this example, I'm making a "jig" to quickly "drill" holes in a bucket so my model is going to be a simple cylinder.

      Name:  Mech Filter Drill 20 1.jpg
Views: 1540
Size:  61.0 KB

      Once I have my cylinder I need to turn it into a Component. Any time you are getting ready to use the Array function to create numerous copies of something you need to make sure you are working with Components.

      Remember that Components are stored in computer memory as one "thing" and a bunch of pointers referring back to that thing. If we don't turn our object into a Component and make 20 or 30 of them, each with its own memory storage, we are going to crash our system.

      So, once we have a Component select it and use your Move/Copy Tool to make a copy of the Component. With the Move/Copy Tool hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard, click on the Component, move your copy over now before you click again type 2" ENTER into your keyboard. Notice that your Component Copy has moved 2" along the axis you were inferencing. Now type 6 X ENTER into your keyboard.

      Name:  Mech Filter Drill 20 2.jpg
Views: 1388
Size:  68.5 KB


      Since I'm going to make several more copies of my row of cylinders I'm going to turn them into a Component as well.

      Name:  Mech Filter Drill 3.jpg
Views: 1335
Size:  52.6 KB
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    15. #35
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      Rotating Entites

      Understanding the Axes.

      So the work space has a 3 axis system which we looked at a little bit.

      Blue --> Up and Down (Think "blue sky")
      Red --> Right and Left (Red Right)
      Green --> Going and Coming (Green Going)

      Each Face, Group and Component has its own Axis as well which is the same as the default unless we change it.

      Name:  Rotating 1.jpg
Views: 1193
Size:  41.0 KB


      In the cube you can see the Faces that are associated with each axis are color coded. Note that I have my camera view rotated away from the default.

      When you rotate an object think of its axis as a barbecue spit running through the center of the of the entity.

      To rotate an Entity select the Entity and then choose the Rotate Tool from the toolbar.

      Notice that as you mouse over the various Faces and Edges of the cube, the inference engine will offer you choices about which axis you want to rotate around.

      Name:  Rotating 2.jpg
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Size:  39.6 KB[ATTACH]Name:  Rotating 4.jpg
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Size:  42.7 KB[/ATTACH]


      When you start to rotate your entity you can keep your mouse close in to the protractor to snap to inference axes or you can type in the angle you want to rotate by just as if you were moving something with the Move/Copy Tool.

      Name:  Rotating 5.jpg
Views: 1168
Size:  47.1 KB
      Attached Images Attached Images  
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    16. #36
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      Using Google Earth to and SU together

      So, if you haven't tried Google Earth yet, I highly recommend it. Its a lot of fun.

      Anyway, SU interfaces with Google Earth to allow you to download terrain and satellite images of your site.

      Choose File ---> Geo-location ----> Get Location... from the Menu Bar.


      Type the address of the site you want to work with into the Search Field and hit Enter. Once Google has found the site you want choose Select Region and adjust the blue push pins until you have the exact area you want to work with.

      Name:  Import Location 1.jpg
Views: 1409
Size:  50.5 KB

      Now choose Grab and SU will import the Google Earth satellite image as a flat photo into your SU file.


      Now choose File --- > Geo-location --> Show Terrain to toggle the contours of your site on and off.

      Name:  Import Location 2.jpg
Views: 3222
Size:  54.9 KB


      Tomorrow, we'll learn how to use Google Street View to go through your neighbor's underwear drawer.
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    17. #37
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      Using the View --> Face Style --> X-ray

      When working with objects that you want to line up or move around inside of each other, it is often difficult to get them exactly in the right place because one of them is invariably in the way of the camera.

      One way to deal with this is to Select the Entity that is in the way, Right-click on it and choose Hide from the Context Menu. Abracadabra, its gone! To get it back, choose Edit---> Un-hide ---> Last (or all if you have a lot of stuff hidden and want to bring it all visible at once).

      Hide doesn't work so great if you are trying to align two Entities though because one of them is invisible.

      In that case choose View ---> Face Style ----> X-ray from the Menu Bar. Now you may look through your Entities.

      Name:  Pipe xray.jpg
Views: 1144
Size:  58.1 KB
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

    18. #38
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      137
      Another way to keep copmlicated projects orderly and neat is to use Layers and the Layer Manager to organize the Model.

      Think of Layers like Transparency Sheets (Do they even use Overhead Projectors any more? ) If you were designing a house you might draw your Footing on the first sheet, and then your foundation on the second sheet, your framing on the third sheet and so on. If you pull any individual sheet out of the stack and look at it it wouldn't make sense to the project as a whole but if you stacked them all and aligned them you could look through the stack and see the whole design.

      Then, if you wanted to change something on the Framing of the house, you could just pull that one sheet out and work on it. When you were finished with your edits, you could just slide it back into the stack and your model would be whole.

      When you first launch SU, Layer 0 is your default and only Layer. To create new Layers choose the Layer Manager from the Menu Bar, it looks like a stack of Transparent Sheets with a blue I on them.

      In the pop-up window is a list of all Layers within your Model. The Radio Buttons on the left show you which Layer is Active (Which Transparency Page is on top of the stack and ready to be edited). The Check Boxes on the right show which Layers are visible. Hiding a layer is the same as pulling its page out of the stack.

      Once you have more than one Layer in your model you need to be sure you are working in the correct Layer. For example, assume you were drawing Framing details on your Framing Layer transparency and then you decided you wanted to check something on your Foundation Layer. SO you pull out your Foundation sheet and look at it but then you forget to put it back and start drawing Framing Details on the Foundation Layer.

      Later you'll go to Hide all of your Layers except Framing and half of your house will disappear, because the Framing Details you added were on your Foundation Layer.
      Can correctly identify Shinola 3 out of 5 times*

      *Under ideal conditions


      Every Success is nothing more than a string of Failures laid end-to-end.

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