Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual

Placing Components with Precision

Fitting the bench seat on top of the leg assembly takes a couple of steps to get everything positioned precisely. The width of the bench legs and the seat is the same, 12 inches, so the components fit snugly front and back without any overhang. The first step is to place the bench seat on top of the leg assembly and to make sure the 12-inch bench seat is centered properly over the 12-inch legs.

The bench seat is longer than the leg assembly, so the sides of the bench seat hang cantilevered over the leg assembly. So the second step is to center the bench seat over the leg assembly lengthwise. To do this, you use one of SketchUp's handiest tricks, known as an inference. An inference is SketchUp's way of helping you find a particular point. It may show up as a dotted line or a colored point on an edge. The following steps also illustrate why it's best to use the click-move-click method instead of dragging.

Note

If you hid the bench seat while working through the previous section, reveal it again now. Open the Outliner (Window → Outliner), right-click Bench Seat, and then choose Unhide from the shortcut menu.

1. Use the Move (M) tool to position the bench seat so it's close to the leg assembly.

   To accurately position objects, it's sometimes necessary to move the objects, change your camera position, and then move the objects again.

2. Use the Orbit (O), Pan (H), and Zoom (Z) tools to get a good view of the bench seat and the top of one of the legs.

   Be patient and ...