Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual

Bench: Starting Your First Model

If you're building a bench in the real world, you need to go to the lumberyard and buy some lumber. For this project, building a bench in SketchUp, you're going to mill up your own lumber. You'll create the four boards you need for your bench, making sure that their dimensions are just right. No sawdust or wasted short ends in SketchUp! Then you'll fit the pieces together.

Note

The exercises in the remainder of this chapter focus on building a simple bench. If you'd like to jump ahead to see the finished bench, you can download the file bench_finished.skp from the Missing CD for this book found at http://missingmanuals.com/cds.

Building a Board

The board that makes the seat for this bench is a 2 x 12 that's 72 inches long. These boards are kind of expensive at Home Depot, but with SketchUp, you've got your own lumber mill. All SketchUp objects start as 2-D drawings, which you'll learn all about in the next chapter (Drawing Lines with the Line Tool). They get their third dimension when you use the Push/Pull tool to give them shape. Follow these steps to get a feel for the full procedure:

1. Open a new SketchUp document with File → New.

   A new SketchUp document opens in Iso view. You see colored lines that are guides for the three axes in your SketchUp world. In this view, the blue line runs somewhat vertically, representing up and down directions. The red line runs somewhat horizontally, representing left and right. The green line represents near (closer to ...