SketchUp for Interior Design

Chapter 4

Modeling Furniture, Cabinetry, and Accessories

Objective: This chapter uses SketchUp’s basic drawing and editing tools to create three models.

Tools: Pencil, Freehand, Eraser, Tape measure, Scale, Offset, Arc, Rotate, Circle, Component, Pencil

Concepts and Functions: edge, face, normal, geometry, rubber banding, fill, stickiness, group, nested group, bounding box, make a component, component axis, local axis, definition, instance, redo, grips, guide lines, guide points, shadows, hide, editing box, attributes, materials browser, collections, flip along axis, setting axis colors, cursor crosshairs, entity info box, Escape key, taper a leg, linear and radial array

In Chapter 3 you maneuvered your way around the modeling workspace. Here you’ll learn what a surface model consists of and how to use SketchUp’s most basic modeling tools. You’ll create a table, bookcase, and clock.

Faces and Edges

Open the Cube file made in Chapter 3. The cube, like all surface models, consists of edges and faces. Collectively, those edges and faces are called geometry.

Edges are lines. They’re always straight and have no thickness. You can apply styles that make them appear thick, but that’s just a display trick. Faces are coplanar surfaces, meaning flat like a piece of paper. They’re bounded by at least three edges and also lack thickness. The front, called the normal, is white; the back is blue.

You can’t have a face without edges, as the Eraser tool will now demonstrate.

The Eraser Tool ...