- Hey guys, Alex here
from SketchUp School. Today, I'm gonna walk you
through seven easy steps to create your first 2D floor
plan using SketchUp Free. We'll go over the right
way to use SketchUp's tools and features to avoid
the most common mistakes that people struggle with
when they set out to draw a floor plan using SketchUp. Plus, I'll show you how to
style and export your floor plan for presentation. People reach out to us all the time to ask whether SketchUp
Free is a good tool for creating simple 2D floor plans, or if the 3D features of
SketchUp just get in the way. Well, as you'll learn by following along with the steps we're about to cover, SketchUp Free can be a
great way to accomplish this piece of the design process. And the best part of all, you don't need to worry about
investing in an expensive and difficult to learn
drafting program like AutoCAD. Now, before we dive into the steps, I should quickly mention two things, first, we'll be focusing on
SketchUp Free in this video. If you're using SketchUp Pro, be sure to check out the pro
version of this video instead, I've put a link to that
video in the carts. And second, this video isn't
for complete beginners, so if you haven't already, I recommend you watch our, "Getting Started With SketchUp Free" video and be sure you're
familiar with everything that we cover there. Okay, ready to create
your first floor plan in SketchUp Free? Let's bring up our list and
start with step number one, get SketchUp Free setup for 2D. As you know from our, "Getting Started with
SketchUp Free" video, SketchUp Free is a web based application, meaning it runs in your web
browser, like Chrome or Safari, and you'll need to be
connected to the internet in order to use it, which is
different than SketchUp Pro, the more traditional
desktop application version. You'll also remember from that video that I always recommend you pick a view that starts you with a plan view or a top-down view for all
your projects in SketchUp. Of course, this is even more important when you set up to create a 2D floor plan. As a quick refresher on how to do that, once you launch the SketchUp Free web app, we'll delete the scale figure, then, switch to a top
view from the scenes panel on the right of your screen. Now that we're in a plan view, the next step is, number
two, draw the floor. While we cover the workflow
for starting from a PDF or CAD file in our SketchUp
for interiors course on our website, you can only
import those types of files if you're using SketchUp Pro. Since we're using SketchUp
Free in this video, we'll focus on this scenario where we're starting
from field measurements and need to draw out our
floor plan from scratch. Once we've got all our measurements, we'll wanna start by drawing the floor. To do this, we'll need to use SketchUp's basic drawing tools, typically, either the line
tool or the rectangle tool. The line tool is the most versatile as we can go dimension by dimension around the floor to draw it out. To do that, let's click and begin drawing in either the red or green direction. The edge highlights red
or green to let us know we're drawing precisely in that direction. This is what's known as
an inference in SketchUp, and it will help us draw
accurately as we go. Once we have the red or green inference, we can type the desired
length of line on our keyboard then press the enter or return key. SketchUp will automatically
create the line with the exact length we specified. You can enter feet, inches, metric units, fractions, decimals, you name it. We cover more about
how to enter dimensions with SketchUp's drawing tools in our, "How to Model a House
with SketchUp Free" video. I've put a link to it in the carts. For now, let's focus on drawing our floor. Once we've drawn the first edge, we'll just continue on
around in that fashion, entering the dimensions one by one until we have the entire
footprint drawn in. The rectangle tool can be a quicker choice in situations where you
have a more straightforward, rectangular shaped to your floor. In that case, we'd start
with a bigger rectangle for the overall width
and length of the space, and then use either the line
tool or the rectangle tool along with the eraser tool
to either add areas to, or subtract areas from the main footprint. Now remember, in SketchUp, we're drawing at a one-to-one scale, meaning that if we draw a larger rectangle and it appears small, it's just because our
SketchUp camera is zoomed out. If that's the case, we can simply roll our
center mouse wheel forward to zoom in and get closer, or, if we've entered our dimensions and can't see the entire footprint, we can roll the center mouse
wheel back to zoom out. Okay, we're starting to get
a sense of the overall shape of our floor plan. Before we get too far, I
wanted to quickly mention, we're just creating a simple
example for this video, but every step we cover can be
applied to your own project, big or small. To help you do that, I put together some notes for you that will make it easy
to review all the steps we're covering. You'll find a link to
download them in the carts. All right, we're ready for the next step. Number three, draw the exterior walls. Once we've drawn the floor, the easiest way to
create our exterior walls is by using the offset tool. To do that, let's pick the offset tool, click once on the face of the floor, then move the mouse to
begin offsetting the wall. We'll type in the dimension
for our wall thickness on our keyboard and press enter or return. Next, we'll need to create
our exterior doorway openings. There are a few ways to go about this, but when you're new to SketchUp, I recommend you use the tape measure tool to set up guidelines to show you exactly where the openings need to be. To do this, using the tape measure tool, let's click once on the inside
edge of an exterior wall, then move the mouse towards
where the opening will be. We'll type the dimension on our keyboard and press the Enter or Return key, and we'll have our first guideline. For the second guide,
we'll repeat the steps, only this time, our first click
is from the existing guide, and our dimension is for
the width of the opening. Now, we can take the rectangle tool and draw a rectangle that snaps
to the intersection points of the guidelines on our walls, and then take the eraser tool and erase away the outside edge. And we can repeat these same steps for all of the door openings
around our exterior walls. Note that we shouldn't worry
about the window openings just yet, 'cause we'll handle those later. Now, as you know from our, "Getting Started With
SketchUp Free" video, hands down, one of the most
important things to learn in SketchUp is to group almost everything. If you don't group things at this stage, you might find yourself
with a huge mess later when you wanna move anything
or make adjustments, so group now and your future
self will definitely thank you. Alex, it's you from the future, just wanted to say, thanks. Okay, before we move on,
here's something new, after you turned something into a group, it's often a good idea to
assign a tag to that group. Tags allow us to control
the visibility of things in our model. We'll get into more reasons for why this will come in handy later, but for now, to assign a tag, let's open the tax panel, then click the plus to
create new tag and name it, then, right click on
the group we just made, pick entity info, let's click where it says untagged, then select the tag we just created. Now that tag is assigned to the group, and you can toggle on
and off it's visibility. Okay, we've got our floor
and exterior walls grouped, and we've assigned a tag, now, we're ready for the next step. Number four, draw the interior walls. Again, for new SketchUp users, I recommend using the tape measure tool to create guidelines
for the interior walls based on the dimensions from
your field measurements, then use the rectangle tool
to trace in each wall segment. As we go, we can use the eraser tool to delete any unnecessary edges and just repeat these
steps again and again to draw in all of the interior walls. If at any point along the way we end up with too many
guidelines getting in the way, we have two options. In some cases, we may only
need to get rid of one or two. To do that, we can just erase
them with the eraser tool. But in cases where we don't
want any of the guides we've created anymore, we can open the display panel and select the option
for delete all guides, that will clear all of them out so we can start again from a blank slate. All right, once we've drawn
all of the interior walls, don't forget our previous tip and do yourself a huge favor
and make them into a group, that way you'll avoid all the headaches of struggling with an ungrouped plan where everything is stuck together. Just be careful not to select the floor in exterior walls group. In fact, to make it easier, we can turn off the tag for that group, so all we see are the interior walls. And we won't stop there, once we've made the
interior walls into a group, let's go ahead and create a tag for them and assign the tag to that group. Somewhere, your future
self just thanked you. Okay, we're at an important
crossroads with this example. If your plan is to create
a 3D model of this space, then at this point, you can move on and begin building your 3D model on top of what you've created so far. You can cover the rest of that workflow in our, "How to Model a House
in SketchUp Free" video. But in this example, I wanna
show you what you need to do to finish a simplified floor plan in 2D without having to build a 3D model. In that case, our next
step will be, number five, add the windows and doors. Just like with the door
openings, for the windows, I recommend starting with
the tape measure tool to set up two guidelines that represent the width of the window. Since we're just setting
up a basic reference plan for this example, and not worrying about
adding all the details you may want for say,
construction documents, we'll just draw basic window symbol. But you're free to use
SketchUp's drawing strong tools to add as much detailed to
the window as you'd like. With our window drawn, we can select it all with the select tool. This time, instead of creating a group, I'm going to recommend
selecting the option for make component. A component in SketchUp is
similar to a block or symbol in other CAD programs, that is geometry drawn to
represent objects in your design, such as windows, doors,
fixtures, and furniture. In general, components are
for elements or objects that occur more than once in a design, or that might be used
again in a future design. All right, we've created
our first window component. To save time when we have
more than one of something in our plan, such as multiple windows
with the same dimensions, we can make a copy of it. The easiest way to do that
is by using the move tool. On a Mac, press and let
go of the Option key, on a PC, press and let
go of the Control key to turn on the copy function. You'll see a plus icon
appear next to the move tool to indicate that it's in copy mode, then, let's click on
the corner of the window and move our cursor to the
corresponding intersection where the copied window belongs, and click to complete the move. The best part about copies
of the same component, and it's what differentiates
a component from a group, is that when we need to make
a change to the component, we can edit one of them and all the copies of the
component will update, which can be a huge time saver. To do that, let's right
click and select the option for edit component. And when we're done making changes, we can right click outside the component and select the option for close component. Just like that, both instances
of our window component have been updated. But what about the case
where we have another window that's a different size. Of course, we could create
a new component from scratch that's the correct size, and in some cases, that
may be the quickest option. But it's also worth pointing out that we can modify our
existing component to fit. Here's how. We'll start by using the tape measure to set up guidelines for the new window and follow the steps from before to move another copy of
the window component. Next, we'll right click on the component and select the option for make unique. Then, we'll right click on the component and select the option for edit component. We can modify the window
to fit our new guides, and because we made it unique
from the original component, the changes we make to it won't update the other
instances of the component. All right, let's use the same
process to create the doors. First, let's draw a rectangle
with the correct width and thickness, then we'll use the art
tool to draw the swing. We can make it into a component and use the move tool to
copy it around the model. Sometimes it'll be oriented
the wrong way for the opening. In that case, with the move tool, we can hover over the component. When we do that, we'll see
it actively highlights blue, and four red plus signs will appear. If we hover over one of the red pluses, the cursor turns into a rotate icon. Then, we can click and
let go of our mouse button on that red plus to begin rotating. Now, we can move the mouse and hover over the tick
marks on the rotate cursor to rotate in 15 degree increments until we've rotated the proper amount, then, click and let go of the
mouse to finish the rotation. Other times, the door will
need to be mirrored or flipped. To do that, we can right
click on the component and choose flip along, and then we'll either need
to flip along the components screen axis or the components red axis, depending on its orientation. If you're not sure which
one to choose, just try one. If the result isn't right, you can undo back and
try the other option. And when we come to a door
that has a different width, it's probably fastest
to just draw a new one. Okay. Once we've created all
our windows and doors, it's time to add our
furniture and fixtures. But we don't have to
draw everything by hand, there's a faster way to add 2D symbols that we're ready to
cover in our next step. Number six, import furniture and fixtures. It's true that we can draw
all of our own 2D components for the things we need to
show in our floor plan. But a great thing about components, is that once they've
been drawn by someone, they can be easily shared
and reused again and again. If you're looking for 2D components that have been shared by others, a good place to start is
SketchUp's 3D warehouse. To access the 3D warehouse
in SketchUp Free, click on the 3D warehouse icon on the right side of the screen. In the 3D warehouse search box, let's type 2D and the name of the object we're looking for, and press enter. There may not be many or
any matching products, but, if we toggle over to the models tab, we'll see a bunch of results. Some of them won't be
what we're looking for, but there should be plenty
of usable options as well. When we find a component we like, we can click on the download button and download it directly into our model. When it finishes downloading, we can click anywhere in
white space to set it down. If the component isn't oriented properly after we import it, we can
always rotate it or flip it. Then, we'll move it into
place with the move tool. And remember, we need to
click on a precise point of the component and then click on a precise
point in the floor plan to match things up perfectly. In many cases, the component you choose won't work quite as it's been drawn. For example, often you'll
find that the component is the wrong size to fit in your design. When that happens, you
have a couple options, first, you can always delete the component and go looking for another
one on the 3D warehouse. Another option is to scale your component with the scale tool. Just know that when you need
your symbols to be accurate, this may create distortions. For example, if you scale
a real world product, you might unintentionally
warp key dimensions. Now, instead of using the scale tool, there is a third option,
you can edit the component. That's right, you can edit
a component you download from the 3D warehouse, just like you would if
you had made it yourself. To do this, right click on the component and pick the option for edit component, then, use SketchUp's
drawing and editing tools to make the changes you need. Now as you build your own components or find quality ones on the warehouse, one thing I always recommend is to add the best ones to a collection to use on future projects. To save you some time, we've already put together
a starter collection for you and put a link to it in
the notes for this video, along with directions on how to use it. As I mentioned, you can find
a link to download those in the carts. Whether you find symbols
on the 3D warehouse or you use the ones we've created for you, remember to assign tags to
the components as you go. Organizing your tasks correctly now will save a ton of time
and frustration later if you need to create different views or try out different schemes
with your floor plan. All right, we have all our 2D
symbol components in place, now we're ready for the last step. Number seven, style the
plan for presentation. We've got our floor plan
completely laid out, but it's not looking exactly
like a finished product that we'd share with a
client or colleague just yet. If we were using SketchUp Pro, this might be the point where
we'd wanna take our plan into layout, where we could
easily add a title block, labels or dimensions. And while we cover how to do all of that in the courses on our website, we don't have those same
options available to us here in SketchUp Free, but we can still do a lot to improve the look of our floor plan. First, unless we're adding
color and materials, we'll probably want our floor
plan to be black and white. To do that, let's open the styles panel, then pick default styles, then click on the hidden line style icon. At this point, we may also
want to hide the axis. To do that, we can open the display panel and uncheck the box next to axis. Then we can open the scenes panel and click on the plus
icon to save as a scene. If you get a warning, just pick the option to save
as a new style and click okay. Now we can get back to that
exact view anytime we need. And of course, our final step will be to export an
image of our floor plan. To do that, we'll click
on the top left menu icon and select the option for download PNG. We can set the dimensions
for our final image and then click export as PNG. Note that PNG files will be rasterize or have set pixel dimension, which means that the line
work may not be crisp depending on how you plan to size and present the final image. If you need more crisp line work that looks perfect at any size, you'll need a vector format like a PDF, which you can only export
using SketchUp Pro. Also be aware that any image
you export out of SketchUp Free will have SketchUp's logo
watermarked in the corner. All right, so now that
you've made it through all seven steps to create a floor plan using SketchUp Free, what's next? If you're thinking about building
out your floor plan in 3D, make sure to watch our, "How to Model a House
in SketchUp Free" video, which will help you avoid the biggest and most costly mistakes
that cause people to struggle when they set out to
model in SketchUp Free. And if you're not sure
whether SketchUp Pro might be a better fit for
your particular situation, then make sure to watch this video that compares SketchUp Free,
SketchUp Shop and SketchUp Pro, so that you can decide
which is best for you. Until next time, happy sketching.
