Tutorial
Spinning in Sketchup
What is it?
SketchUp allows you to spin flat shapes around circles to get complex solid forms.What's the tutorial?
Spinning
- Open SketchUp.
- Set up your view:
- Select the figure and press delete to remove the figure from the scene:
- Select View>Hidden Geometry to see latitudinal and longitudinal lines:
- If your large tool set is not visible, select View>Tool Palettes>Large Tool Set to make it visible:
- Select the figure and press delete to remove the figure from the scene:
- Adjust the view with the Orbit tool (O) so that the horizon line is more in the middle of the document:
- Select the Rectangle tool (R) to draw a vertical rectangle from the origin point (the point where the red, green, and blue axes intersect) to the left.
- Select the Freehand tool:
- Draw a line on your vertical plane connecting the top line to the bottom line:
- Select the Eraser (E) tool and delete the extraneous lines:
- Select the Circle tool (C):
- Click on the red axis line near your shape. Make sure your circle is lying on the ground plane:
- Drag the radius out to the origin point:
- Press spacebar to select the Select tool and select the circular plane:
- Click on the Follow me tool and click on the vertical shape:
- Select the Orbit tool (O) and move the view to the bottom of the form, then press spacebar and select the circle:
- Press the Delete key to erase the circle.
- If your form is blue gray
- Click on the spacebar and triple click on the form to select it:
- CTRL+ click on the form and select Reverse Faces
- Click on the spacebar and triple click on the form to select it:
- Edit the form as you'd like. You can navigate to top view (CTRL+1/Command+1) and select the Scale tool (S):
To scale from center, click a node while holding ALT/OPTION
Now what?
- Create a model by spinning.