SketchUp is the easiest program I have ever used! Most people don't need to take a course or even buy a book to learn SketchUp, it's that intuitive. Therefore within a few days your average newbie will feel like a SketchUp "Guru". Newsflash! You probably can increase your productivity. The reason I say this is because new users often fail to employ these fundamental guidelines when modeling in SketchUp.
Here is a checklist of things that every SketchUp user must do:
1. Make everything a group or component. This is a very important step to ensure that you are able to easily modify your model. Often times I encounter beautiful models that are poorly constructed because they did not use groups or components. Therefore it's a nightmare when you try to edit the model because everything is "stuck together." Take a little extra time and make sure you group items as you create them.
The two figures above look identical; the difference is that the fist set is not split into different groups and the second set is. Therefore if I decide to move the box to the center of the plane watch what happens to the first set.
Notice that the box stretched the plan to its new location; this is a result of the items not being grouped separately as they were created.
2. Make sure faces are oriented correctly. SketchUp has the unique ability to display a two-sided face (plane). You can also apply a material to either side of that face. However, there aren't many other programs that can do this, therefore if you want SketchUp to play nicely with other programs you need to flip any reversed faces. Otherwise the exported model will not display properly in the program you are using.
The image above shows a native SketchUp model with materials. However if you were to switch the model to monochrome mode as shown below you will see that the blue faces represent those that are oriented the wrong way. Those faces will not display correctly if exported to another program.
3. Control your file size and performance by using layers. It's really easy to load up your model and create a huge file size, especially with the Google Warehouse at your finger tips. Things like panning and zooming become a chore because it moves so slowly. Place items on different layers in a logical manner and turn off the layer when you are not manipulating those items and the speed of the model will increase.
That's pretty much it, from my experience these are the most common task that many SketchUp users fail to understand and implement.
Thanks!
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