On 7/3/2013 10:21 AM, Leon wrote:
On 7/3/2013 8:45 AM, Greg Guarino wrote:
On 7/3/2013 9:03 AM, Leon wrote:
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.

I was not even aware that there was a 2D view; I mean that the screen
itself, and for that matter the movement of the mouse on my desk, only
have two dimensions. If I move the mouse to the right, Sketchup
"guesses" which axis I want to move the part in, and frequently guesses
wrong.

If you are only see 2 dimensions, height and width, you are in 2D
viewing mode.

I can assure you that I have never used Sketchup in 2D mode, unless one
can rotate the object in any direction and see it from any point of view
and still somehow be in 2D mode.

If the drawings of the "bridge" were done in Sketchup you were in 2D
view. If you only see one side at a time and everything appears square
on the screen you are viewing in 2D

The drawing of the bridge was done with a 2D CAD program.

If you go to the the menu bar and select View, Tool Bars, and add the
Views tool bar you will get a tool bat that looks like simple icons that
look a house. The first 3D icon of th house will put you in 3D mode
all of the rest will put you in a 2D viewing mode. those show the top,
and sides views.

When you are viewing in 3D moving along the correct axis is pretty simple.

It hardly seems so, in my experience. If I'm looking at a side of the
object straight on, then it tends to stick to L/R and Up/Down, but even
a relatively small angle opens up a can of worms. The arrow keys look to
be a very helpful tip.

FWIW if you type "O" for orbit you can click your mouse and you
instantly move and view in 3D mode.




Likewise I have many times drawn a line that seems to be in the
proper orientation only to find that it is somewhere else entirely when
I rotate the view. It's like being in one of those "false perspective"
rooms.

That is because when you draw in 2D mode it is hard to determine if you
are actually in front of or behind the object you are trying to add too
or move to. 3D lets you see what is actually going on. Additionally
when have drawn to or moved to a specific point, like the middle or end
of a line you will get a small snap to object indicating where the
modification is going to end up. When in 2D mode you may be 40 feet
away and not realize it even though you think you are on top of the object.






Just this morning, as per a suggestion here, I tried the arrow keys to
restrict the movement to a certain axis. That seems to work. I'm going
to try that when drawing (some) lines too to see if it helps.

The arrow keys help if you are in the correct location to begin with but
if your 2D drawing is not on the same 3D plane they act like you are
describing.





I should say that I've been blundering my way through learning the
program. I hate that the "Help" I found consists mostly of videos; it's
simply too consuming of time I don't have to watch through a video (or
several) to find the one tidbit I'm looking for at the moment.

I can assure the video's are well worth the time spent. Pay attention
to all of it as it sounds like you are really doing quite a few thing
wrong. FWIW I had the same problems.



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.

Yup. That much I knew. It can be a pain to select all of the entities
that make up a component when those entities are surrounded by other
components. That's another operation that usually finds me swiveling the
drawing in all directions to find just the right angle of attack.
Perhaps there's a trick for that as well?



It could be your mouse that makes this a chore. I use a Logitech thumb
marble track ball, I can orbit all over the place in a drawing, zoom
in, pan, etc with out moving my hand. All done with clicks, and
rotating the ball with my thumb.

And remember selection entities can be done by dragging a selection box
around them.

That's what I do. But it's most convenient to draw objects using
previously drawn objects as reference points. When there get to be a
bunch of them in close proximity, it can be a drag to select only what
you want.

Click and drag from top left and drag to bottom right and
every thing in the box is selected. Click bottom right and drag to top
left and only those entities that are totally contained in the box are
selected. That last selection method helps to not select a component
that you may be adding another part too that is not yet a component.
Still if you select too much you can always press the "Shift" key and
click on the item you want unselected.