Adding Doors to Our 3D Model

Quick-Door Component

Previous 3D Model

Chapters in a project are expected to be done in chronological order. However, if you want to start from this chapter, please download the last model created from previous lesson(s) from the 3D warehouse.

The one and only door component used for the entire Project I is a Quick-Door dynamic Component. Although you can use other components, but I suggest we stick with this component because of it can be sized  accurately and scaled easily.

Because the goal is to create SketchUp 3-Model quickly and accurately, these components do not have ornamental details such as panels and fancy handles. When you have finished the entire house design and satisfy will all the dimensions, you can replace them with more better looking components or may be you can be happy by applying some wood pattern to these components.

The main options of a Quick-Door component are as follows:

1. Structural width.
2. Structural height
3. Jamb thickness. For wooden frame, usually the same with wall thickness,
4. First door leaf  net width (non editable)
5. Door leave thickness.
6. Second door leave width (0 if none)
7. Rabbet depth
8. Jamb width.

Doors Basic Dimension

Here are some common door specification we use during the Project One modeling:

1. All doors height are 210 cm.
2. Jamb thickness is the same with wall thickness (15cm).
   
3. Jam width: 5 cm.
   
4. Door leaves thickness: 4 cm
5. Structural opening varies between 80, 90 and 100 cm.
6. When a door is placed near a wall corner, a 3 cm space will be added between the door and the wall corner,
   

Adding bedroom doors.

Additional specification:

Tips and Trick

Placing and Moving Component Placing component into a model will automatically invoke Move/Copy tool. Active at its insertion point. An insertion point is the component's axes. Normally, the axes is placed at one of the component's corner. Use this point as the focus when placing a component to your model. If somehow the new placed component is not selected because you click something else, select it using Move/Copytool tool and proceed with the component placement.

1. Both bedroom doors are 90 cm wide.
   
2. The rear bedroom door has left hand swing and the front bedroom door has right hand swing.
   

First, add the rear bedroom door by placing a Quick Door component on the designated wall right at the floor line. Adjust door specification using Component Options window. Move the component so it is exactly 3 cm away from a wall corner and use Measurement Box to ensure accuracy by typing [3] from your keyboard immediately after moving the component.

Use the same procedure for the front bedroom door and change it to a left swing door by flipping it using Context Menu -> Flip Along -> Component’s red.

1. Adding the rear bedroom door.
   

   1. Set your view/camera so most the east bedroom wall can be seen clearly
      
   2. Open Component window and select Quicky folder.
      
   3. Click at Quick-Door component and point the mouse to the line separating the floor and the bedroom wall. Left Click to place the component on that temporary location.
      
   4. To see the component’s dimension, active Context Menu by right-clicking the door component and select Dynamic Components -> Component Option.
      
   5. Since all options do not need further adjustment, close the Component Options window.
      

2. Placing the rear bedroom door to its designated location.

   The doors is positioned 3 cm away from the wall separating the two bedrooms. Move the door along the floor line to a point which is parallel to the corner. If the component is already selected, you may start from (b). Otherwise you will have to start from step (a) and use Selecttool and Move/Copytool.
   

   Tips and Trick

   Auto Select Most SketchUp tools are able to auto select an object just by hovering on it, An object is selected if it is highlighted in blue box/lines. Auto select is active only when no object is already selected. Press [Esc] to unselect any object or use Selecttool to individually select an object.

   1. Use Select Tool and click at the newly placed door component then select Move/copy tool. (see: Tips and Trick).
      
   2. Click at the top left corner of the door and move it parallel to the floor line.
      
   3. When a green dotted line appears press and hold the [Shift] key. The line is an inference indicating the movement of object is parallel to the green axis. Pressing [Shift] will lock the inference to limit to movement only according to the inference.
      
   4. While keeping [Shift] key pressed. Point your mouse to the corner point to use it as reference and left click to place the door at a new temporary location.
      
   5. Select again one of the door corners and move it away from the wall corner parallel to the green axis.
      
   6. Without clicking the mouse button, type in [3] using the keyboard. This will complete a measure box procedure to enter the length of the movement by 3 cm from the origin (the wall corner).
      

3. Adding the front bedroom door
   

   The front bedroom is a mirror image of the rear bedroom door. Therefore, we just need to place a door component into its designated location and reverse its  opening.

   1. Place another Quick-Door component using the Components window and on wall and the floor line somewhere near the rear bedroom door.
      
   2. Click at the top left corner of the door and move it parallel to the floor line (parallel with Green axis) When the green inference line appears press and hold the [Shift] key.
      
   3. While keeping [Shift] key pressed, point your mouse to the corner point to use it as reference and left click to place the door exactly at the room corner.
      
   4. Select again one of the door corners and move it away from the wall corner parallel to the green axis.
      
   5. Without clicking the mouse button, type in [3] using the keyboard. This will complete a measure box procedure to enter the length of the movement by 3 cm from the origin (the wall corner).
      

4. Reversing Door Opening
   

   As you can see, the front bedroom door opening needs to be reversed to be a right hand swing door. To reverse the door opening from right to left, we need to flip the whole door using Context Menu -> Flip Along  -> Flip Along Component’s Red.
   

   1. Point your mouse the front bedroom door and activate Context menu by pressing the right mouse button and the following pop-up menu will appear.
      
   2. Select Flip Along -> Components' Red and the whole door component will be flipped so that the handle now is at the right position.
      

Adding the bedroom doors

Placing the Rear Door

The rear door is also 90cm wide. Since its location is adjacent to the bedroom door, it has to open away from the inside (out swing door) so both door leaves will not bump to each other. To do so, we need to place the door component from the inside. As usual, place a Quicky-door to a temporary location at the floor line on the designated wall. Move the door to exactly at 3 cm away from a wall corner. Just like in bedroom door placement, we need will use axis inference, but this time we are going to use red axis inference. If necessary, use Selecttool and Move/Copytool.

1. Tips and Tricks

   DC's insertion point Normally, a component will always have the same insertion point as the focus when placing it into a model using the Component window. However, insertion points of Dynamic Components behave differently. SketchUp will remember the last point you previously selected to move a dynamic component and use it at the new insertion point the next time you add the component using Components window.

   Move your view so that the interior side of the wall to the backyard can be seen clearly.
   
2. Open Components window and select Quickies folder.
   
3. Select Quicky-Door and put the door component at the floor line of the wall.
   If you previously moved a Quicky-door component using a point other than the two lowest corners of the door component (see Tips and Tricks), just place the new door anywhere on the wall and follow this procedure:
   1. Click at the left bottom corner of the door component.
      
   2. Move the door component to the corner of the wall and the floor line.
      
   3. Left click to place the door component at the temporary location.
      
4. Move the door so it is 3 cm away from the wall corner using similar steps when placing the two bedroom doors. Only this time we will use the red axis inference.
   
   

Placing the rear living room door.

Adding the bathroom door.

The structural width of the bathroom door is 80 cm (or 70 wide door leaf). Customary, the bathroom door is an in-swing door. This is a rather small bathroom. Therefore placement of the door and the way it opens is important so it will not bump with other objects in the bathroom. The door is a right-hand swing door.

After a Quicky door component is placed at a temporary location on the designated wall, change its width to 70 cm using Component Options window. Afterward, place to its final location which is exactly 3 cm away from a wall corner and flip it using Context Menu - Flip Along -> Component’s Red. If necessary, use Selecttool and Move/Copytool.

1. Move the camera/view so the outer side of the bathroom wall where the door is to be placed can be clearly seen.
   
2. Add Quicky-Door component using Components window and place it on temporary place at the floor line of the bathroom wall.
   
3. Right-Click at the door component and select Dynamic Component -> Component Options. Change its width into 80 cm and click [Apply] to finish changing its dimension (these steps are not included in the animation because they are beyond the screen capture.
   
4. Move the door so it is 3 cm away from the wall corner using similar steps when placing the two bedroom doors. Remember to always use axes inference so the movement is always accurate.
   If necessary, use step (3) of the rear door placement if the insertion point  prohibits you from placing the door component at the floor line.
   
5. Change the door opening using Context Menu-Flip Along-Component's Red just like we previously did to the front bedroom door.
   

Adding the bathroom door

Placing the Front Door

The front door is the main door so it will have a bigger width of 100 cm. Since the door is in-swing door, we need to place it from the outside of the house. However, after the door is placed at a temporary location at the front wall, we need to change our view/camera (orbiting) so the wall is viewed from the inside. We need to change this view because we want to place the door right at the floor line, which can not be seen from the outside.

As usual, after placing the door component at a temporary location, we will move it to so it there will a 3 cm space between the door and the wall corner.

1. Placing and sizing the front door
   

   The front door is left swing door and has 100 cm structural wide

   1. Move the camera so the front wall of the house can be clearly seen from the outside.
      
   2. Add a Quicky-Door component using Components window and place it anywhere on the living room wall.
      
   3. Change the door structural opening width into 100 cm using the Component Options window. (This step is also not captured during the animation).
      

2. Changing view/camera position.
   

   Tip & Trick

   Moving the camera/view without pressing any tool. Previously we use the Orbit tool to change camera position. Instead of moving the camera, We can also change the view by panning the model using the Pan tool This tool can be activated by simultaneously pressing/holding mouse middle-button and [Shift] key. Move the mouse until desired view is achieved. When the mouse button is released, you will be back to whatever tool you previously selected

   To make the door component an in-swing door, we need to place it from the outside. To move the door component to its designated position, we need to use the floor line and a wall corner as references. At this point, the floor line is hidden behind the front wall so the camera must be moved so it will view the wall from the inside.
   See Tips and Tricks on how to move your camera/view.
   

3. Placing the door to its designated location

   1. After moving the camera, click at bottom left corner of the door component and move it to left wall corner.
      
   2. Click at the top left corner of the door and move it parallel to the floor line.
      
   3. Without clicking the mouse button, type in [3] using the keyboard. This will complete a measure box procedure to enter the length of the movement by 3 cm from the origin (the wall corner).
      

Placing the main door

Door Opening

At this point, all doors have been placed at their designated locations. Notice that each door will automatically create an opening on the wall. This is the Cut Opening feature of a SketchUp component. The opening will also move when the component is moved. However, SketchUp components can only make automatic opening only on one face. Since the Quicky Door component has opening animation, when we click each door to animate door opening, we will see that the other side of the wall still exists.

Select ToolInteract from the Dynamic Component toolbar and click at the front and read bedroom door. Since the dynamic components has animation feature, the doors will open by 45° (half of maximum door opening we set earlier)
Notice that after each opening, the other side of the wall still blocking the door entrance, especially when they are viewed from inside the room as seen on the following animation. Repeat the process so all doors are open

Bedroom doors opening animation

Creating wall opening manually.

To have more realistic model of the house, we need to manually create an opening for each of the door. Creating opening in SketchUp is a straight forward process. Just make a rectangle the same size with the door and push it as deep as wall thickness and voila … a hole is created.
However, since manually created opening will not move when the component is moved, you have to also move it manually when you move the component.

Make a rectangle the same size with the door structural opening using Rectangletool. Then, push the inner side of the rectangle using Push/Pulltool. To ensure opening, use the other side of the wall as reference when pushing the rectangle.

1. Move the camera so the front bedroom door can be clearly be clearly seen from the inside.
   
2. Select Rectangle Tool and click at top left corner of the door component and click again at the bottom right corner of the door to create a rectangle exactly the same size with the door component.
   
3. Select Push and Pull Tool and click within the rectangle/door and push it to wall thickness. We don’t need to use measurement box to make 15 cm deep push, just point the mouse to and click at the top edge of the opposite side of the wall as illustrated in the animation.
   

4. Tip & Trick

   Healing When we remove a line that divides two coplanar faces, the faces will automatically “heal” into one face.

   After an opening is made, a line between the room and the living room wall still exist. We want the rooms to have the same flooring style, so we need to remove this line so all floor are within the one polygon. Select Erasetool and click at the redundant line so the bedroom floor and the living room floor now will be merged into one polygon.
   
5. Repeat all the above steps to every other door in the model so all door will have a nice wall opening.

Manually Create Wall Opening

Lesson Learned ....

No	Topics
1	Using Quicky-Door dynamic component and modifying its options to add doors to modify it to our specification's.
2	Moving a new placed component to its designated position using component insertion points.
3	Selecting an object using Auto select or by using Select tool and move/Copy tool.
4	Moving an object by a specific length using the Measurement Box.
5	Flipping an object to be its mirror image by flipping it around a specific axis using Flip along ... command.
6	Understanding insertion point behavior in Dynamic Components.
7	changing camera/view without clicking the Orbit tool or the  Pan tool.
8	Using Interact tool to animate the animation feature of a Dynamic Component.
9	Manually creating a hole/wall opening using Rectangle Tool and Push/Pull Tool.
10	To heal two coplanar faces into one by erasing a dividing line between the two faces

This is the image of the 3-D model we have created so far. The next chapter will adding windows to this model.

Enjoy

Harrynov