The first time you use SketchUp, you need to sign in to activate your trial or subscription. After you're signed in, the Welcome to SketchUp dialog box appears, as shown here. This dialog box is your starting point for creating a model and appears every time you start SketchUp (unless you choose to turn it off in the SketchUp Preferences dialog box).
In the Welcome to SketchUp dialog box, you can; choose a template for your model, set the default template, open recent files, browse for an existing file, or license a copy of SketchUp Pro (see Understanding Your License for details), and learn more about SketchUp.
The place to share and download SketchUp 3D models for architecture, design, construction, and fun. SketchUp is an easy-to-use 3D modeler that lets you think through and pre-build projects on the computer before you tackle them in real life. Plans & Pricing Try out design variations in 3D.
Tip: If you’re new to SketchUp, this article is a great place to warm up your 3D modeling skills. You find an overview of how to select a template, move around the SketchUp interface, create a basic model, and save your model.
Table of ContentsSelecting a template
Every model in SketchUp is based on a template, which has predefined settings for your model’s background and units of measurement. When you begin a new model, selecting a template with the correct unit of measurement makes modeling easier.
Here’s how to select a template in the Welcome to SketchUp dialog box:
Tip: While you’re working in SketchUp, you can access the Welcome to SketchUp window anytime. On the menu bar, simply select Help > Welcome to SketchUp. After you become comfortable creating 3D models in SketchUp, you can create a custom template that reflects your preferences.
Exploring the SketchUp interface
When SketchUp opens, ready for you to start creating a 3D model, you see a screen that includes the following:
Title bar
The title bar contains the standard window controls (close, minimize, and maximize) and the name of the currently open file. When you start SketchUp, the name of the currently open file is Untitled, indicating that you have not yet saved your work.
Menu bar
The majority of SketchUp tools, commands, and settings are available within the menus on the menu bar. The menus are: SketchUp (Mac only), File, Edit, View, Camera, Draw, Tools, Window, and Help.
Getting Started toolbar
When you begin using SketchUp, the Getting Started toolbar is the one you see by default. It contains the basic tools you need to begin creating 3D models.
To display additional toolbars, select View > Toolbars. In the Toolbars dialog box that opens, select the toolbars you want to see and click Close. In macOS, you can display tool palettes by selecting View > Tool Palettes. (Learn more about the toolbars and how to customize them in the Customizing SketchUp section of the Help Center.)
Tip: This article introduces you to a few basic tools. As you continue learning how to create 3D models in SketchUp, the Instructor can teach you (or remind you) how to use each tool. See Learning how to use SketchUp tools for details.
Drawing area
The drawing area is where you create your model. The 3D space of the drawing area is identified visually by the drawing axes, which provide a sense of direction in 3D space while you work.
The drawing area might also contain a simple model of a person to give you a sense of 3D space.
Status bar
When you’re getting started with SketchUp, the two important elements on the status bar are the tips in the middle and the Measurements box on the right:
Tip: Did the Measurements box disappear? The most likely reason is that your SketchUp window size is larger than your available screen viewing area. To recover your view of the Measurements box, click the Maximize button in the title bar.
If you’re a Windows user and enable the Auto-Hide the taskbar option, the Measurements box can slip behind the taskbar when you have the taskbar displayed. In this case, the Measurements box reappears when you’re done using the taskbar.
Note: On the left side of the status bar, you find buttons to geolocate and claim credit. These options help you work with advanced SketchUp features that are beyond the scope of this article.
Default panels
On the right side of the screen, you see a tray of panels, including the Instructor, Materials, Styles, and so on. The Default Tray appears when you open SketchUp, but you can close the Default Tray of panels by click the Close button in the upper right. Toggle the tray so it's visible or hidden via the Window > Default Tray submenu.
On the right side of the screen, you see a tray of panels, including the Instructor, Materials, Styles, and so on. The Default Tray appears when you open SketchUp, but you can close any tray by clicking its Close button. To reopen a tray, select it from the Window menu.
Learning how to use SketchUp tools
As you use SketchUp, the Instructor and the status bar give you pointers on using each tool.
The Instructor teaches you how to use the currently selected tool. To turn on the Instructor, shown here, select Window > Instructor, or click the question mark icon in the status bar. Here’s what the Instructor has to offer:
The Instructor teaches you how to use the currently selected tool. To turn on the Instructor, shown here, select Window > Instructor, which you find in the Default Tray. Here’s what the Instructor has to offer:
The Instructor teaches you how to use the currently selected tool. To turn on the Instructor, shown here, select Window > Instructor. Here’s what the Instructor has to offer:
If the Instructor offers more detail that you need, remember that the status bar also offers tips on using the selected tool. See the Status bar section earlier in this article for details.
Viewing the SketchUp Quick Reference Card
The Quick Reference Card is an easy-to-print guide to all the SketchUp tools and their modifier keys. Keep it handy as you start using SketchUp and you’ll learn to model quickly and efficiently. Here's what the Quick Reference card looks like:
To download a PDF of the Quick Reference card, click the link that corresponds to your operating system:
Note: Looking for the LayOut quick reference cards? Click here.
Creating your first 3D model in SketchUp
If you’ve never created a 3D model in SketchUp (or any other modeling program), the following steps offer a quick overview the basics:
Saving and reopening a model
To save your model, follow these steps:
Backing up a SketchUp file or restoring an Auto-save file
SketchUp creates a backup file the second time you successfully save your SketchUp file and any subsequent saves. This file is an exact copy of the previously saved version of the file. The backup file uses the naming convention
FILENAME.skb on Windows and FILENAME~.skp on macOS, and it's located in the same folder as the original file.
If SketchUp crashes while you're working on a model, the recovered file is not deleted. By default, SketchUp automatically saves your files every five minutes while you're actively working. You can recover your work from the point the last automatic save was performed by opening the recovered file. To find and open a recovered file, open the Welcome to SketchUp window, select the Files tab, and select the file you want to recover from the Recent list.
Binary numbers, based on 1s and 0s, reflect the practical essence of computer hardware: electricity is either on or off. Learn how to write in binary numbers, and the (not so secret) code to transform English language letters into binary numbers and back again.
When is the letter A not the letter A? Well, computers don't use the letter A. They use the eight character binary number 01000001 to represent A. This binary numbers tutorial describes what binary numbers are and how to calculate them.
Computers transport, calculate, and translate binary numbers because computer hardware circuits only have two electrical states, on or off. These two states can be represented as zero (off) or one (on). All letters of the alphabet, numbers, and symbols are converted to eight character binary numbers as you work with them in software on your computer.
How you create and translate binary numbers is a good way to learn how computers process data at the lowest level, in their hardware circuits.
Also, I provide a free Excel spreadsheet linked at the bottom of this article to help you visualize and calculate binary numbers.
The [Not So] Secret Formula
To represent the letter A as 01000001, the computer (and you, to follow along) Â need several basic tools. One tool is an ASCII conversion chart. Without diving into too much technical detail, the ASCII chart maps a unique number between 1 and 255 to all letters of the alphabet capitalized (A-Z) and lower case (a-z), as well as numbers (0-9), spaces, and other special characters. The unique ASCII number that maps to each character, for example, the capital letter A, is used to calculate a unique eight-character binary number, a combination of ones and zeroes like 01000001.
It's basically a two-step secret code. The first step is to grab the unique ASCII number for a letter. The second step is to create a unique eight character binary number, a combination of ones and zeroes to represent the ASCII number.
And, of course, going from the eight character combination of ones and zeros to the letter or character reverses this process: first turn the binary number into a number between 1 and 255 then use the number to look up the letter in the ASCII chart.
How to Create Binary Numbers
Binary numbers are eight characters in length where every character is either a 1 or 0. The placement of each 1 indicates the value of that position, which is used to calculate the total value of the binary number. Each position of each of the eight characters represents a fixed number value, as shown below.
If you read these Default Value numbers from bottom to top, can you tell how each number immediately above is calculated? They're doubled. So binary numbers start on the bottom with the first position equal to 1. The second position from the bottom has a value 2, the third position 4, and so on.
If you add up all these numbers (1+2+4+8+16+32+64+128), can you guess what number you'll get? 255, the highest number used in the ASCII table. There is a perfect mapping between all possible numbers 1 to 255 in the ASCII table and the calculated values for all possible eight character binary numbers.
To calculate the number value of a binary number, add up the value for each position of all the 1s in the eight character number. The number 01000001, for example, is converted to 64 + 1 or 65. The ones in this binary number are in the first and seventh positions, counting from the bottom to top, or reading right to left. The first position has an assigned value of 1 while the seventh position has an assigned value of 64.
Let's Convert a Letter to a Binary Number
Now that you know the [not so] secret formula to convert letters to unique ASCII numbers to binary numbers, and how to create binary numbers, let's do the whole process step by step. Let's start with the letter C.
First, we need to use an ASCII chart like this one below to look up the unique number assigned to the uppercase letter C. The unique decimal number to use is 67.
To convert the number for C, 67, into a binary number:
Remember how binary numbers are read bottom to top, first position and Default Value to top position and Default Value, with each of the eight character positions assigned a unique number value? With the chart below, what combination of values would equal 67?
You're correct if you said the Default Values 1 plus 2 plus 64 would equal 67, the ASCII number for the capital letter C. So let's change the first, second, and seventh position zeroes to ones, counted from right to left. The binary number is for the capital letter C is:
Can you decode this binary number? Add up the 1s to get 64+16+4 or 84. Look up the decimal number 84 in the ASCII chart to find the letter represented below:
Sketchup 19 0 1684 – Create 3d Design Concepts Worksheet Answer
If you converted this binary number to the capital letter T, you're correct. Here is the letter A as a binary number to represent the ASCII decimal number for A, which is 65:
If we combine the binary numbers we've looked at so far, we can spell CAT:
01000011 01000001 01010100
Sketchup 19 0 1684 – Create 3d Design Concepts Worksheet PdfBonus: Pseudo-Code to Design a Binary Number Converter
With an understanding of how letters and numbers are converted to binary numbers, and back, let's look at how we might create a software application to make these conversions on the fly. The application has no real value. But it provides a chance to discuss how a process can be converted to software.
Instead of actual code, however, we'll write up a series of statements or pseudo-code.
Let's take the word cat to start. What process do we need to convert these letters automatically into binary numbers? Here's one possible set of steps we could code:
Sketchup 19 0 1684 – Create 3d Design Concepts Worksheets
Imagine if we skipped the last step: what would be the result of these steps? We'd only have the last binary number, for the lower case letter t in cat. It's important we capture each binary number as they are created.
Other observations about this pseudo-code process? We need to distinguish between capital letters and lower case letters, don't we? Otherwise, our binary number conversion might translate from binary number to ASCII letters as CAT or cAT or Cat. Our lookup to match letters to the ASCII table might grab the wrong number.
Bonus Bonus: A Final Puzzle
Can you decode the phrase in this set of binary numbers? Remember, these are eight character blocks of 1s and 0s.
01000011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01101001 01110011 01010000 01101111 01100101 01110100 01110010 01111001
Here’s a fairly easy way to convert any letter into a binary number. Grab a calculator, find the ASCII decimal value for the letter, from the chart above, then look at the binary number chart for the nearest value to the decimal value. Subtract the nearest number Default Value in the binary chart to get a remainder value. Look for the nearest binary Default Value for the remainder. Repeat until you run out of binary values.
If you’re clever, you’ll also note the sum of the values below any of the eight Default Values equals one less than the value: so below the binary value 4 are the values 2 and 1 which equal 3. Below the binary value of 8 are 4, 2, and 1 which equal 7. This also can help convert letters to binary numbers. If your remainder is 7, for example, then you know to put a 1 at the 4, 2, and 1 positions to create that part of your binary number.
To convert binary numbers to letters, just grab a piece of paper and a pen or pencil and add up the binary values of all the 1s. Then look up your total number as an ASCII decimal in the chart above.
Here’s a hint to help determine if you have solved the binary numbers above correctly: I majored in American poetry in college and love the old tagline used for WordPress publishing software.
If you want more binary numbers, check out our article about Bakuro binary number puzzles which work like Sudoku.
Learn MoreBinary Number Worksheet (Excel format)Sketchup 19 0 1684 – Create 3d Design Concepts Worksheet AnswersBinary Numbers Worksheet (PDF)Binary ConverterA Tutorial on Binary NumbersBinary Numbers (Wikipedia)ASCII TableComments are closed.
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