Workshop design

[Anonymous]

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[SketchUp Guru]

Dave, good on you to make a componnet for the joists. Get in the habit of making components for all dsicreet elements in your model. It'll save you lots of trouble later.

The method used to resize the frame of the floor will depend upon how you drew it. If it is all drawn as a single component, you can edit it and draw a left to right selection box around the part of it that needs to move and then use the Move tool to move those selected lines as needed.

If the individual elements that make up the frame are separate components, you simply move the components that can be moved and edit the ones that need to be longer using Push/Pull to add to their length.

If the joists will end up getting longer, edit them the same way using Push/Pull.

Take a look at the video at this link for ideas. http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=855969972

As far as joist spacing goes, there isn't an easy way to specify a new spacing. You can just enter a new spacing and have them move. Delete all but the first joist and then make a new linear array with the Move tool and specify the new center-to-center distance.

Hope that helps.

Dave

 

[Anonymous]

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[SketchUp Guru]

Dave, the linear array is created using the Move tool. Toggle Copy on with the Ctrl key after selecting the Move tool.

To create the array, select the original copy of the joist component. Select the Move tool and hit the Ctrl key. There'll be a little plus sign next to the cursor. Grab the joist component and move it in the desired direction. This will make a copy of the joist. Let go of the mouse and type the distance, say 400mm and hit Enter. (You don't need to type the mm if your units are set to millimetres.) Next type the number of copies of the original that you want. Suppose you want a total of 10 joists (the original plus nine more) type 9 and hit Enter. Presto! You've created a linear array.

Don't use Copy and Paste for this sort of thing. You'll create more work for yourself.

 

[John McM]

I don't understand properly your comment on the 'linear array' for the joists. I have been using the move tool to help with the spacing but given a single joist it would be good to do something like a copy and paste and get the same spacing.

A linear array is a number of copies set the same distance apart.
eg. Make 1 joist, make it a component. Select Move tool and hit control key, plus sign appears to show you want to make a copy. Move cursor over end of joist. You can move it from either lower end point or lower mid point. If you move it from lower mid point to where you want last joist to be by typing in distance and hit return you have the 1st and last joists in position. Now without doing anything else just type /10 it produces another 10 joists spaced about the mid point. If thats too many just type /6 etc. Hope that all makes sense. You may have to zoom in a bit to get the mid point inference.

Check out Daves videos they've helped all of us here a great deal.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thanks John.

Dave, here's a video that I did that shows a linear array being made.
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1078793782

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Not quite sure what I did wrong but I've moved a couple of lines and everything is back to normal. Used the move tool with absolute coordinates to sort it out.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Dave, the blue box is the bounding box for the component. No getting around that. The bounding box will be aligned with the axes of the component although these axes may not be aligned with the major edges in the component. The component axes (and the edges of the bounding box) will align with the "global" axes when the component is drawn although if you rotate the component afterward, the axes won't align with the global axes.

If you drew your component off axis, you end up making alignment later more difficult. You can confirm that youre lines are being drawn on axis by setting Line color to By axis. This is done under the Edit tab in the Styles dialog box. Click on the little wire frame cube you see after clicking on the edit tab. At the bottom of the dialog box there is a little drop down menu which you can change to By axis. The lines in your drawing will be colored to match the axis they are parallel to (assuming they are parallel to any). You can always set back to All the same later.

I would suggest that as a matter of course, you draw your components in the model you are working on. If you are making components of every part as you draw it, You can use those parts as references for the next parts you need to draw. Think in terms of making each board you need for the project. Make the first instance of it in place and, with the Move tool make copies as needed.

To carry this thought a bit further, draw the board to the full size it'll need to be and draw joinery in as needed. Cut away the waste. Don't draw the piece and then add the joinery bits to it. For example if you are drawing a box that will have its sides dovetailed together, draw the boards to the full length or width of the box. Then cut the dovetails and sockets. This is much easier than trying to add the pins and tails to the boards.

In the case of your shed, unless you are doing post and beam construction, you aren't likely to have any joinery to draw but the idea is the same.

Hope that explains it a bit.

 

[Nick W]

Next type the number of copies of the original that you want. Suppose you want a total of 10 joists (the original plus nine more) type 9 and hit Enter.

To enter the number of copies you need to type *9, otherwise you're just changing the offset.

As John says later you can also use /n to similar effect.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Thanks Nick. That's correct.

See what happens when I am trying to multitask? :roll: