Making good selections in SketchUp is crucial to properly using many of the other tools
including Move, Rotate,
Offset, Follow Me, painting materials
or creating groups and components.
The basics are pretty simple. You can select individual entities by clicking on them.
This includes edges and surfaces
and objects that are grouped together.
You can also select entities that are connected by using a double or triple click.
One click will select the surface.
Double clicking on the surface selects both the surface and its bounding edges.
Triple clicking will select all connected geometry.
You can select multiple objects by dragging a selection window around several entities.
You can control what is selected by noting the direction of the selection window.
Dragging a selection towards the left will allow you to select
anything that the window touches.
This is known as a crossing window.
In this way you can quickly select objects by just dragging a window across them.
For more control, drag a selection window toward the right.
This is known as a selection window.
With this method you must completely encompass the entities you want to select
within the selection window.
Another method for controlling selections is to use modifier keys while making selections.
It works like this:
hold the Shift key down and watch the cursor change to show a plus and minus sign.
You can now add and subtract entities by clicking on them or dragging a window.
Hold the Control key on Windows or the Option key on a Mac
to only add to your selection,
and hold both the Control or Option key with the Shift key to only subtract.
Let's look at some different scenarios on making good selections and share some helpful tips.
Say we needed to grab all the windows at this level to move them together.
If there aren't too many we could just hold a modifier key down
and click to add all the windows working our way around the building.
Okay, so let's add a few more windows and this time the task is to select
every other row of windows.
We could select them individually but with this many windows there are better ways to work.
Toggle Perspective mode on from the camera menu,
then choose a front or side view of the building.
Now it is easy to drag a few selection windows around only the rows of windows we want
Remember to drag toward the right,
and choose the right modifier keys to add to your selection.
With the windows selected you can toggle the perspective back on
and change your windows as needed.
Let's move even further down the project.
When there is a lot of detail you may want to try this method.
We want to select several rows of windows again but now there is a lot more in the way.
Toggle Perspective off and pick a front view.
Now make a big sweeping crossing selection to select everything you need.
Then use the modifier keys to only subtract from the selection.
Do several crossing windows to remove objects.
You can also toggle other views if needed,
but the result is still a good selection that you achieved quickly.
One last tip is to use X-ray mode to check your selection.
This example shows how easy it is to select extra geometry when dragging a selection window.
X-ray mode shows that we don't have a clean selection.
Orbit our view and use the modifier keys to deselect the extra geometry,
or orbit to a view that would make a clean selection possible from the start.