Leon wrote:
Greg Guarino wrote:
On Tuesday, July 2, 2013 5:11:39 PM UTC-4, SonomaProducts.com wrote:


Moving in 3D on a 2D screen has always been a difficult thing to emulate
in any 3D CAD system (Ia m in the business and I know).


For Sketchup, I have found that to move you have to pick an exact point
on the object you want to move and move it to another exact point on
another object. You do this by picking on a corner and then again a corner.

Sure, and that's exactly what I do. In this case I chose one of the inner
corners of the dado and the point at the mating edge of the shelf. And
that works perfectly when the mating parts are already pretty close
together. The program "gets" what I'm trying to do without much rigamarole.

But when I have to move a piece, say, to the other end of a 5' shelf, the
problems start. There are only two dimensions on the screen, but the
object can move left and right, up and down and fore and aft. All too
frequently, I want it to move right, and it moves aft instead, to pick an
arbitrary example. So I reposition the "view" and try again. I frequently
need to do this several times, hoping to get the part a little closer to
where it's supposed to go with each step.

It sounds like you are describing a situation that happens when trying to
remain in a 2D view when working with a 3D program. Naturally the object
may move along three different axis. When moving anything in a 3D program,
especially Sketchup, you need to be viewing in 3D. Learn the program!
You will be glad that you did.

The 2D view is for "viewing" and or adding dimensions or remarks. You do
not want to be drawing or modifying in 2D.

Draw in 3D and then you can revert the view back to 2D if you wish. Once
you learn how to draw properly in Sketchup it really really is a simple
program to use.




AND as a follow up to what I just mentioned, always immediately make each
piece of your project into a component before attaching/moving it next too
another piece of the project. If you don't, both objects basically become
the same object and that opens a whole new can of worms.