SketchUp components enable you to reuse objects. For example, pretty much every building has at least one door and window. Instead of modeling these common objects, you can insert a component that someone else has already made. Like all geometry in SketchUp, a component is still made of edges and faces. The edges and faces are simply part of a special component group. (You can also create components to reuse your own geometry, but that's covered in Developing Components and Dynamic Components.)

To create a 3D model in SketchUp, you're constantly switching among the drawing tools, views, components, and organizational tools. In this article, you find several examples that illustrate ways you can use these tools together to model a specific shape or object. The examples illustrate a few of the different applications for creating 3D models in SketchUp: woodworking, modeling parts or abstract objects, and creating buildings. The examples are loosely ordered from the simple to the complex.

What distinguishes solid construction and design from an M.C. Escher optical illusion? Accurate measurements. In SketchUp, the Tape Measure tool, the Protractor tool, and the Measurements box enable you to model precisely:

With SketchUp's flipping and rotating tools, your geometry becomes as nimble as an acrobatic troupe. The Flip Along command enables geometry to backflip 180 degrees along any axis. With the Rotate tool, your geometry can spin and fold like a professional gymnast.

In SketchUp, you can copy geometry by using