Like many SketchUp users, you may want to use your CAD files to create excellent, useful, and lightweight SketchUp models. Importing and exporting common CAD file formats has always been part of SketchUp's DNA, but CAD files imported into SketchUp do have a few known quirks that you can sidestep if you know the tips explained in this article. Here are the known issues that you may find after you import a CAD file into SketchUp:

Imagine shrinking into a tiny person and jumping into your computer to check out (or show off) your 3D models. That's basically what SketchUp's walkthrough tools enable you to do. But instead of altering your entire body composition, you just click a few tools - namely the Position Camera, Look Around, and Walk tools. Tip: Remember that SketchUp uses the metaphor of a camera to change how you see your model. Here's how each tool enables you to tour your model:

In SketchUp, section planes cut a model along a plane so that you can peer inside the model - without moving or hiding any geometry. In a 3D model, an active section plane hides everything on one side of the plane, as shown in the following figure. You can use section planes for all types of applications:

Whatever your experience level or modeling style, the way you model impacts SketchUp’s performance. Using the recommended system requirements helps, but there are a few other things you can do to optimize your SketchUp experience.

When you create a dynamic component you add attributes with specific values to a basic component.For simple dynamic components, the process is easier than you think. The easiest way is to start with SketchUp’s predefined attributes, be familiar with SketchUp’s basic drawing tools, and know how to use common spreadsheet functions. 

What Happened to Layers? SketchUp’s Tags are an updated form of what was called Layers in older versions. Tags provide the same functionality that Layers provided and more.Tags help you organize the objects in your SketchUp model and control their visibility. SketchUp allows you to hide tagged objects in one click rather than select each object individually. Hiding large chunks of your model using tags helps to find things faster and even speed up SketchUp a bit too.

Components in SketchUp turn geometry in a model into reusable entities. . For example, most buildings have at least one door and window. Instead of modeling these common objects, you can insert a component that you have already made, or even one made by someone else. .Like all geometry in SketchUp, a component is still made of edges and faces. The edges and faces are part of a special component group.Check out the following articles for more information:

Materials, environments, and textures add images, colors, lighting, and textures to parts of your model. Applying these effects to your models adds an extra level of detail and realism. 

As you create a model in 3D, you need to view it from all sides. In SketchUp, you orbit, zoom, and pan all the time as you draw:

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.