Creating Section Elevations With SketchUp

• Intro/TOC
• Terminology: Which One is Correct?
  • Cross Section or Section
  • Elevation
  • Section Elevation
• Different Workflows for Going from Plan View to Section View
  • Using LAYFRZ and Work Areas to Export Just a Selected Portion of a Design to SketchUp
  • Using Work Areas With Layer Suffixes
  • Exporting Lines and Topo as 2D vs. Section (from SketchUp)
• Useful Tools & Plugins
  • Land F/X SketchUp Connection
  • SketchUp Sandbox Tool
  • Instant Road Nui: by Vali Architects
  • Color by Slope & Color by Z: by Chris Fullmer – Extension Warehouse
  • Toposhaper: by Fedo6 – sketchUcation
• Section Cut Tools
  • Super Section: by Daiku – Extension Warehouse
  • Section Cut Face: by Tig – sketchUcation

0:00 – 5:43: Intro/TOC

5:43 – 10:09: Terminology: Which One is Correct?

Cross Section or Section (5:55)

Refers to a view that is cut

 

 

Elevation (6:20)

Refers to the outside of an object, with no cuts. Elevation view is typically a plain, flat view.

 

Section Elevation (6:50)

Merging a section and elevation view. It includes an elevation view as well as cuts to show context.


Sending layers and blocks into SketchUp using the Land F/X SketchUp Connection tool (10:10)

10:30 – 16:30: Different Workflows for Going from Plan View to Section View

Using LAYFRZ and Work Areas to Export Just a Selected Portion of a Design to SketchUp (10:30)

Sending only selected items (for example: just trees and no shrubs) into SketchUp using the LAYFRZ (Layer Freeze) command (10:30)

 

 

 

Using Work Areas With Layer Suffixes (11:30)

Isolating a specific area of the drawing to send to SketchUp using Work Areas with layer suffixes (11:30)

 

 

Using Match Properties to apply a layer suffix to several blocks (such as trees or shrubs) (13:00)

 

 

Exporting Lines and Topo as 2D vs. Section (from SketchUp) (14:10)

Importing the trees into SketchUp and deleting a face in SketchUp to allow the trees to import into the proper terrain and elevations (14:20)

 

Importing additional Work Areas into SketchUp (15:00)

16:30 – 33:17 Useful Tools & Plugins

Land F/X SketchUp Connection

Using the Land F/X SketchUp Connection to send layers to SketchUp (17:00)

 

 

SketchUp Sandbox Tool

Using the SketchUp Sandbox tool to create a terrain mesh (18:00)

 

 

Instant Road Nui (Vali Architects)

Using the Instant Road tool to create roads automatically on specific terrain (18:30)

 

Color by Slope & Color by Z (Chris Fullmer)

Determining the steepness (not grade percentage) of a slope using Color by Slope (19:29)

 

Showing a slope by entering the highest and lowest points using Color by Z (22:20)

 

Toposhaper (Fedo6)

Editing and adjusting contours using Toposhaper (23:40)

 

 

Question: The path in the topo model earlier in this webinar seemed to have been up above the terrain. How did you get it to lay back down? (27:30)

Answer: The Instant Road Nui tool

 

 

Demo of the Instant Road tool (29:00)

33:18 – end: Section Cut Tools

Using the Unconnected Lines/curves to walls tool to create a section plane to use as a temporary guide for section cuts (33:18)

 

 

Creating a section cut using the SketchUp Section Cut tool (34:05)

 

 

Right-clicking on a section cut to see menu options such as Align View and Create Group from Slice (34:55)

 

 

Super Section (Daiku)

Using Super Section to create a scene – a profile of a section elevation – and display everything in parallel projection (flat, straight-on look), and create a separate layer for the scene (35:40)

 

Creating a section slice and exporting it as a DWG (36:42)

 

 

Section Cut Face

Using Section Cut Face to create a section slice (37:55)

 

Exporting the section slice to a DWG (40:43)

 

Dropping in Spot Elevations and Slope Callouts (Land F/X tools) to show the elevations and slope of the section slice (42:15)

 

Exporting a view in SketchUp as a 2D graphic (either as a JPG, PDF, or DWG linework) (43:20)

 

Attaching an image of a SketchUp view to a DWG drawing as an Xref (44:30)

46:50 – end:

Creating a new User Coordinate System (UCS) to set up a view based on the view of the section cut (47:20)

 

 

Assigning the UCS to a particular Work Area (48:45)

 

 

Using our Restore UCS tool to move between views (49:15)

 

 

Selecting plants from within one of our Work Areas and aligning their positions  (50:50)

 

 

Dropping blocks into the section views (52:40)

 

 

Using our Site Color to add color to a section view (55:00)

 

Question: Did it take very long to prep the drawing and model for this webinar? (55:30)

Answer: It took a while to get the techniques down, but once we did, we were able to do the prep relatively quickly, if not in real time. It was a lot of work because of the copies that were necessary to show the different steps.

 

 

Creating a Section Cut in Real Time (56:05)

 

 

Cleaning up linework by stitching it together using our SuperJoin tool (58:30)