As of November 4, 2020, SketchUp no longer offers new Classic Licenses or renewals of Classic Licenses. This includes the Classic Maintenance & Support plans. We've updated our policy regarding supported versions of SketchUp to help with any questions you may have. For more information, please see our End of Support article.
When you first create a model, your model will not contain any geographic orientation or coordinates. You can always use one of the three axes as a placeholder for a cardinal direction. For example:
The Credits feature in SketchUp requires your Google Account to have a Nickname associated with it. To add a Nickname to your Google Account, visit the 3D Warehouse and click the Sign In link in the upper right-hand corner.
If you're using the Vector rendering feature in LayOut, you may see the background color of your SketchUp model in cases where it shouldn't be visible. This can happen if there's a hole in your geometry that shows the background color or if the SketchUp window in LayOut clips any geometry. To resolve this problem, you may consider the following steps: Try using a Model Style that doesn't include a background color. If possible, change your viewport size to include all model geometry. Use Hybrid rendering rather than Vector rendering.
The Quick Answer Download and install the most current video card drivers from the manufacturer's website. Disable 'Fast Feedback' on your system. Make sure that your video card supports OpenGL 1.5+. There are two likely causes of display issues like this:
Clipped or Missing Faces If you orbit around your model and you see an effect that looks like a section plane attached to your view at a fixed distance you may be worried that something is wrong with your model. Worse yet, objects may disappear or appear to shake when you try to zoom in.
This is a known issue with some OpenGL graphics drivers. We have built a workaround option into SketchUp: In SketchUp, open the "Window" menu. Click "Preferences." Click "OpenGL." In the "Acceleration" section, select the "Correct reversed picking driver bug" option. Click "OK."
This can happen when your SketchUp window is larger than your monitor's screen. You can display the SketchUp status bar by clicking the "Maximize" button to maximize the SketchUp window (the "Maximize" button has an icon that looks like a computer screen and is just to the left of the "Close" button, the red button with the white "x"). You can also manually resize the window so that it is smaller by dragging down the top bar, and then moving the entire window up.
SketchUp supports real-time 3D drawing, you must make sure your display settings are optimized for 3D. If you see a white or black outline around your cursor in SketchUp, you can usually fix this by increasing the color quality for your display. Note: For some older graphics cards, this might not work. In that case, you should try updating your graphics driver.
When creating a model you may run into some unique issues. Here we'll take a look at some known issues not related to a specific tool or technique. Some common issues include: