Two inputs for the Move tool

It’s likely that you find the Move tool to be very intuitive and easy to use. But have you ever thought about the two things SketchUp is looking for whenever you move an entity? Once you identify those two things, you can unlock even more flexibility in how you move things in SketchUp.

Direction and Distance

Ultimately, SketchUp looks for two things whenever you move something. (Technically, three, if you want to count the selection set, so it knows which entities are being moved.)

• Direction – Along which axis are the entities being moved? This doesn’t have to be along the red, green, or blue axis, although it could.
• Distance – How far along the directional axis are the entities being moved?

Every time you move an entity in SketchUp, you are providing a direction and distance, whether you know it or not. Sometimes you literally know the specific direction and distance you want to move and provide that input to SketchUp by typing it in. Other times, you provide the direction and distance by inferencing other points in the model.

Known direction, Known distance

Let’s say you want to move a group 2′ along the red axis. This is pretty straight-forward since you know both the direction and distance.

1. Select the entities you want to move with the Select tool.
2. Activate the MoveM tool.
3. Click once to start the move.
4. Tap the Right Arrow key to define the direction.
5. Type in 2' ENTER to define the distance.

Something to note here is that you don’t need to click on any particular point in the model, or on the entity you are moving, as long as the entity is preselected. It’s irrelevant because you are overriding both direction and distance input via the keyboard.

Unknown direction, Unknown distance

There are other times, where you don’t know the direction or distance that an entity needs to be moved, and you need to rely on snapping to points in the model to define both of those inputs.

For example, if you wanted to snap a column to the corner of a deck, you’re essentially moving point A to point B.

1. Select the entities you want to move with the Select tool.
2. Activate the MoveM tool.
3. Hover over and snap to “point A” on the object you are moving. Click to start the move from that point.
4. Snap to “point B”, or where you want the object to align to. Click to finish the move.

Even though the direction and distance are arbitrary, you’ve technically provided that input to SketchUp, by referencing two points in the model.

Known Direction, Unknown Distance

There are other situations where you know you want to move an object along a specific direction, to an unknown distance. You can figure out the distance if you did some math in your head or created some guides with the Tape Measure tool, but most times you can skip that by simply snapping to other points in your model to infer the distance.

Perhaps you want to move this light to the other column. You know it is on the Red axis, so you can lock the axis, and snap to the mid points of the light and the column to infer the distance.

1. Select the light with the Select tool.
2. Activate the MoveM tool.
3. Snap to the midpoint of the object you want to move. Click to start the move.
4. Tap the Right arrow key to define the direction along the red axis.
5. Move your mouse to the midpoint of the column you want to align the light to.

Notice how you don’t need to keep your mouse on the object when you lock a direction. You are free to snap to any point in your model.

There are other ways to lock a direction too. Tapping the down arrow key while hovering over an edge will toggle a parallel or perpendicular inference. Holding Shift while snapped to an axis or point will lock that direction temporarily.

Aligning objects

Another very common move workflow is aligning objects along each of the three axes, one at a time.

So instead of trying to get objects in position in one step along an arbitrary direction and distance, it’s better to think about how the object needs to align along each of the red, green, and blue axis, one at a time. This makes it much easier to move because you can lock the direction during each step, and only have to worry about the distance along each axis.

1. Select the object with the Select tool.
2. Activate the MoveM tool.
3. Click on a point on the object that you wish to make in plane with another point or face in the model.
4. Tap an arrow key to define the direction along that axis.
5. Snap to the edge or face you want to be in plane with, and click to finish.
6. Repeat for each axis.

Whether you know the direction and distance or not, the Move tool is incredibly flexible when coupled with the inference system. Hopefully, this tutorial has enabled you to think about the move tool from a slightly different perspective than what you are used to.

Leave a comment below if you have some other creative ways you use the Move tool!