How Do I Take Out Contour Lines In My Sketchup Drawings

Ever wondered how to model terrain in SketchUp?

We will testify you how!

Giving your edifice design context is really important when it comes to 3d modelling. Your building needs to stand in its surrounding landscape in order to give it a sense of scale and demonstrate its human relationship with the environment. However, some of us may detect it fairly straightforward to model our business firm/building design, but things tend to go a bit more tricky when it comes to terrain, landscapes, and topography!

SketchUp has a variety of ways you can model terrain and topography. Sometimes beginners in SketchUp find it hard to get to grips with working on terrain.

In this post nosotros are going to expect at the different outcomes that can be achieved with the Sandbox Tools which come up equally standard in both the free and pro versions of SketchUp.

We will look at creating terrain from scratch, and too from contour lines that we have imported into SketchUp. Afterwards this, we will then go to grips with adding objects to our terrain. So, permit's get started.

Sandbox Tools

The sandbox tools can be found by opening up the View carte ==> Tool Palettes ==> Sandbox This will bring the Sandbox tool palette onto your screen.

From Contours

The first tool we will await is "From Contours". This tool allows us to import (or draw our own) contour lines, and and so create a terrain from those contours. This process is pretty simple. Import your profile drawing from cad (this is a SketchUp pro characteristic only I'm agape) – yous can learn how to import files from CAD by checking out this post .

Your import should contain profile lines, that are at relevant heights.

Make sure your contour lines are not grouped together. If they are, they need to be exploded. To explode a group you tin can select the grouping, right click, and select 'explode'.

Profile lines grouped

Contour lines ungrouped

Earlier proceeding, I recommend you save your drawing as creating terrain from contours can sometimes consequence in SketchUp crashing as it is a resource intensive task. Now select your profile lines, and click "From Contours" from the Sandbox Toolbar. Your contours should now be connected together by surfaces.

From Scratch and Smoove

It is also possible to create your own terrain from scratch using the "From Scratch" tool. Activate the "From Scratch" tool by clicking on the icon from the Sandbox toolbar.

You are then to draw a grid every bit a starting signal for your terrain. Notice in the left paw corner of the screen a grid measurement is specified. Information technology is possible to amend this number by typing in the grid size you want and hitting enter before y'all start to describe the grid.

Once you accept drawn the grid you lot can activate the "Smoove" tool to start creating your topography. Now the Smoove tool is activated, you volition have the option of amending the radius of the tool to your requirement. In this example yous tin can see the radius of the Smoove tool is larger than the filigree I accept created, so I desire to better the radius – to practice this I type a new radius, 2000mm and striking enter. I can so beginning working in a like fashion to the push/pull tool to create my landscape.

Postage

The stamp tool allows us to place objects onto our terrain. Lets imagine we have created a setting for our edifice to be positioned. Nosotros tin use the stamp tool to create a apartment surface for the edifice to be placed. Start past positioning our building over the terrain where nosotros would like it to exist placed. We then select our building and click on the Stamp tool to activate it. A red line will appear around our edifice, nosotros can now click on the terrain we would like our building to sit on. SketchUp then gives us the option of how we would similar the platform to be positioned. One time we are happy, we click to complete the process.

Drape

While the Stamp tool lets us create a apartment surface on our terrain with a transition from the terrain to the surface, the Drape tool allows us to transfer edges from a face onto a terrain. One of the most common examples of this is a road or path. To curtain a surface onto the terrain you need to draw your surface and position it directly in a higher place the terrain. A good way to check if information technology is in the right position is to go to Camera ==> Standard Views ==> Top. Once your road/ surface is in position, you lot select your surface, then actuate the Drape tool, so yous click on your terrain that you want the surface to be 'draped' over.

You can besides explore using the "Add Detail" tool and the "Flip Edges". These permit more control over the editing of your terrain. So this concludes a basic introduction to working with terrain in SketchUp. There is so much more you lot can do, and lots of plugins available both free and paid that volition help enhance your terrain modelling and make the process easier. For at present, hopefully this will help you get started. Equally always, if yous have whatsoever questions comment below, or if you found this helpful I would love to know, so drop me a comment 🙂