Moving – Points, Edges, Surfaces

Movement in Sketch Up is guided through the use of inference lines much the same as during creating lines and surfaces and 3D objects.

Movement is the most basic of operations you can perform on your 3D objects but at the same time there are a few things to consider.

We will first look at moving parts of a straight object (an object without any curved surfaces). As a simple exercise create a basic box, using either lines or a the 'Rectangle' tool and the 'Push/Pull' tool.

Exercise:

1. Starting with a basic box, from our earlier exercise, select the 'Move' tool.
2. Now click on any of the 8 points that make up the box and move them around. (Make sure to select just the endpoint. Clicking on a point will highlight it in green, clicking on an edge will highlight it blue, while clicking on a surface covers it in a dotted pattern)
3. Notice that as you move any of the points, one or more surfaces connected to that point begins to split. You can see new edges created. The reason for this is that moving a point that formed a rectangle (or square), moves it away from the plane formed by the other 3 points (see – coplanar surfaces). SketchUp does its best to divide the surface and create new sub-surfaces as you move these points. You might notice that you are unable to move the points in certain direction or along certain axis. This is because moving the point in that direction or axis will cause the surfaces attached to it break in unpredictable ways or the surface can be split up in more than one way.
4. Moving lines works similarly. Click on a line (notice it highlights in blue), now try and move the line around. Again as before SketchUp will allow you to move the line only in the directions which do not cause the existing surfaces to split up in unpredictable ways.
5. Moving surfaces works the same way. Notice that as you move a surface, all attached surfaces, edges and points move too.
6. To move an object you need to select the whole object, which means all the points, edges and surfaces that belong to the object. So when you want to move the whole box, make sure you select the complete box. Click the 'Select' tool, and draw a rectangle around the whole box. You should see all the edges highlighted in blue, and the surfaces highlighted with a dotted pattern. Now you can move the complete object around in any direction.