When you download SketchUp, it is by default, setup in a way awkward for furniture design. I think SketchUp assumes you are an architect designing a home or large building. When you draw a 6 inch long line, it is hardly visible and requires lots of zoom to find it. Also, there is the annoying horizon that separates the sky from the ground - good if you are doing home or landscape design, but not useful for furniture. A dimension under the default SketchUp setup, is in ft/in rather than fractional.

 

If you don't rearrange these default settings in a permanent way, you are faced with tedious multiple setting changes every time you start a new file.

 

The following outlines a procedure for saving your favorite settings such that they are effected anytime you start a new design. Also, I include those settings I find useful for my work and are in my default values.

 

Every time SketchUp starts up, it goes to a "Template" file for assigning default settings. And the default Template seems to be "Architectural Feet and Inches". So what you need to do is create your own Template having personalized settings that SketchUp uses when starting up.

 

To make your Template follow the steps below:

 

1. Open SketchUp
2. Click on the "Window" tab
3. Select "Model Info"
   1. Change Units to what you want with the precision you need. I use "Fractional" which is customary for furniture design in US. If you work in Decimal that option is also available.
   2. I also change Dimensions, Endpoints to "Slash", and Align to dimension, "Outside"
   3. You can also change text size and font for Dimensions, Text, and Leader Text
4. Close dialog box and again click on "Window" tab
   1. Select "Styles"
   2. Click on the little home model icon to display the Style
   3. Click on the "Edit" tab
   4. Click on the "Edge Setting" icon (there are 5 small cube icons and the Edge Setting is the first of these 5 on the left end)
      1. Change Profiles to 1
   5. Click on the "Background Setting" icon (this is the third cube from the left)
      1. Unclick Sky and Ground
   6. Click the "Update Styles with Changes" icon (this is a circular icon, with two half-circle arrows chasing each other)
   7. Close dialog boxes
5. Draw a 6" line and zoom into this line (I don't think this step 5 is necessary if you pick "Fractional" units in Step 3 above)
   1. Delete the line
6. Now save your file as "MyTemplate" or whatever name you want. SU will save this as an ordinary .skp file
7. Go to your "C" drive, Program Files/Google/Google SketchUp 6 folder
1. Find the subfolder called Templates
2. Copy your "MyTemplate" file over to this subfolder
3. Note:

   Depending on how you arrived at the current version of SketchUp (how many upgrades have been done, what version started with, etc.), some may find that their default template location is different than the one specified above: C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Templates\.

   To check the location of your templates, click on the browse button on the System Preferences Drawing Template location box, and pull down the drop down list next to "Look In:" at the top of the dialog box that pops up. It will show you exactly where SketchUp is looking for its templates. For example, your active templates folder could be located at: C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 6\Resources\en-US\Templates\. Mac users will see a different location, as could other SketchUp users. 

8.    In SketchUp, click on "Window" tab, then select Preferences

               i. In System Preferences, click on Template

              ii. Hit the down arrow and find MyTemplate in the list of templates

    9.    Select MyTemplate and close dialog box

You should now have a personalized standard setup which will be invoked each time SketchUp is started.

Tim

http://killenwood.com