Starting SketchUp
Let’s fire up SketchUp and see what we’ve downloaded. After getting it started in this task, we’ll get used to a few essential tools in the following task.1. Double-click the SketchUp program file to start it, or, in Windows, select it from the Start menu. The dialog box you see in Figure 2.5 appears.
FIGURE 2.5 Starting SketchUp.
2. Click the Choose Template button. The template you select will determine the drawing background (if any) and the units of the drawing (feet, meters, and so on). You need to select a template before SketchUp will start, and the template you choose will become your default template the next time you open SketchUp. When you click the Choose Template button, a list of templates appears, as shown in Figure 2.6.
FIGURE 2.6 Selecting a template.
NOTE: Changing the Default Template Selecting a template makes it the default when SketchUp starts up, so when you start SketchUp from now on and click the Start Using SketchUp button, you’ll be using the Simple Template selected in step 3. To change that, click the Choose Template button and select the template you want, then click the Start Using SketchUp button.
3. Click the top template to select it, as shown in Figure 2.6. We’ll use other templates in the following lessons, but the Simple template gives us a blue sky, green Earth, and a person standing in the middle for scale—a good template to get started with.
4. Click the Start Using SketchUp button. SketchUp appears, as shown in Figure 2.7, using the template we’ve selected as background.
FIGURE 2.7 A Simple Template in Google SketchUp.
NOTE: Listen to the Instructor
Note the dialog box along the right side, showing information about the Select tool. This dialog box is called the Instructor, and it’s very useful to learn about the tools in the toolbox, which appear at the top of the SketchUp window. The Select tool (an arrow much like the default mouse pointer) is the default tool in SketchUp, active when you start SketchUp, which is why the Instructor is explaining its use in selecting items in SketchUp.
Leave the Instructor open for now because it’s a very useful guide to the tools in the toolbox. When you close the Instructor later, you can get it back by clicking the round question mark button at the bottom of SketchUp.
Thanks :
Steven Holzner,
SamsTeachYourself Google SketchUp 8 in 10 Minutes
