Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual

Building a Model from a Picture

With the SketchUp modeling window and camera view all set up, you can create a three-dimensional model by tracing over the picture. Always begin your Photo Match modeling at the Origin and build from there. If you start drawing at some other point, it's deceptively easy to create entities that look good from one angle, but are actually way off in space. In the case of the Villa Savoye, you have a photo of the back of the building, too (villa_savoye_back.jpg). To use both the front and back images, you need a common reference point. The right-back corner in the front image works well, because you can see it in both photos.

Villa Savoye is obligingly rectangular, so the best tool to grab is the Rectangle tool. You draw the back wall, and then using the Push/Pull tool, you can create a box the size of the building by using the reference points in the photo.

Follow these steps to build your Villa Savoye model:

1. With the Rectangle (R), click the Origin, and then draw a rectangle for the back wall of Villa Savoye as shown in Figure 10-9.

   Your rectangle looks distorted because of the perspective. At this point, you can just make a rough guess about the location of the hidden back corner of the building. The important thing is that the rectangle is on the back plane.

   

   Figure 10-9. Start at the Origin and draw the back wall for the Villa Savoye model. Don't worry too ...