One for Dave - Producing a schematic with sketchup

[Chems]

I could probably find some answer to this on the googlenets but I thought Dave is always so keen to teach I'd ask here instead.

I want to product an nice 3 view schematic of a piece of furniture. In olden time I remember CAD programs I used to use where I just hit a button and it did it for me. Is there a similar way to do this in SU perhaps with a plugin?

Secondly, exploded model, can sketchup do that?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

There is a plugin for creating the 3 Views that you're looking for. Actually it creates 6 2D views and an isometric view but you can delete the views you don't want. For it to work you will need to make a component of the entire model. Go here for that plugin.

There are a couple of plugins that create exploded views of your SketchUp model. I have two of them but don't use either one because they don't move the parts correctly so I still need to manually handle all of the components anyway. When I make exploded views I don't generally explode the entire model either. You can check out this link Doing it manually though is very quick for me and gives much better control.

By the way, here's an example of the Make Ortho Views plugin.



And here is a couple of examples of exploded views done manually.

 

[barkwindjammer]

Hi Dave, if you were to make an 'exploded view' would you multi select the parts you want to move and then hold the shift key to lock the moving parts to the axis lines ?

Jim

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Jim,

It depends upon the specific model but generally I do select a number of parts and use the Move tool on them to move them away from the rest of the model. I may hold Shift to lock the direction but it depends. It's usually not so difficult to make the move on axis without locking the direction.

After I've moved the selection, I will hold Shift with the Select tool and reduce the selection before the next move. In most cases I just keep reducing the selection set and moving the selected bits. Sometimes I will select, say the right side components and move them to the right. Then change my vantage point so I can select the front components and move them to the front.

I never make the exploded view from the original model. I always make a copy of the model and move it off to one side. Then I make the exploded view from that copy. And of course every single part I've drawn is a component so that if I need to edit that part later, the editing carries through to the exploded view, too. Once in awhile I'll see instructions to new users indicating that they should make a group if there is only one of the part in the model. i.e. A table top. Even if it it was the only one in the model, I would make it a component but certainly, if you have a copy of the model for an exploded view, you no longer have only one table top.

 

[Chris Knight]

Unlike Dave, I like the explode plugin (exim.rb) from Smustard and use it a lot.

Here's an example from a Roubo style bench I am building at the moment.

The Ortho plugin mentioned by Dave is one of my most used plugins.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

That image looks nice Chris but it puts some components in bad locations behind others. I prefer to have more control over where they end up.

Of course it's one of those "to each, his own" sorts of things.

 

[barkwindjammer]

Your not talking about the sinister mug shot when you say 'image' are you Dave ?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

:lol:

 

[Chems]

I ended up doing it by hand in the end:

 

[SketchUp Guru]

That works.

One thing you might consider for something like your cabinet is that you don't probably need to explode the entire model. You could leave some of it assembled. That makes it easier for the viewer to get an idea of how it goes together and it makes it easier to create a view in which parts aren't obscured by other parts.

 

[Chems]

Yeah, its a series of images mixed with some schematic views.