The plugin comes with built in features allowing us to select free hand, or by square and circle or by points in a click by click style fashion. It is well suited with Sketchup 7, Sketchup 8, Sketchup 2013, Sketchup 2014, Sketchup 2015, Sketchup 2016, Sketchup 2017, Sketchup 2018, Sketchup 2019.

It is a strong vertex editor for Sketchup that can take the lead over every vertex. Soft selections are inevitable for organic modeling and the manipulator gizmo facilitates you to keep control at the time of modeling.

Installation

Option 1

Download the RBZ package to your computer.

Open the Extension Manager Window » Extension Manager, click the Install Extension button and browse to the RBZ package. Sketchup will install and enable Vertex Tools.

Option 2

Extension Warehouse

Vertex Tools can be installed from the Extension Warehouse dialog within Sketchup.

1. Open Window » Extension Warehouse
2. Search for Vertex Tools
3. Select Vertex Tools from the search results
4. Click the Install button on the extension page

NOTE, if we create our mesh using the Sandbox tools, we need to explode the mesh and keep it selected in order for it to work with the Vertex tools plugin. Once we have our mesh selected we can use the tool in the Tools menu. It will be frustrating to keep having to go to the tool menu but we have discovered that we can create a toolbar shortcut by right clicking (on pc) and selecting the Preferences button and then checking the Toolbar and Context Menu boxes. Once we get a grip on how to use the tool it works great.

Updating

Vertex Tools can be updated via SketchUp’s Extension Manager or by simply installing the new version on top of the old one.

Using the Extension Manager is the easiest way to keep Vertex Tools up to date. Sketchup will notify us when an update is available.

Go to Window » Extension Manager then navigate to the Manage tab. From there, you can Update the extension.

Note: When updating Sketchup extensions you will have to restart Sketchup to see the effects of the update.

Selection type

The vertex selection tool has a variety of selection of selection types to allow for precise selection depending on the situation.

• Rectangular select
• Circular selection
• Polygon selection
• Freehand selection

Soft selection

Soft Selection is set by typing in a distance in the VCB while a selection tool is active. Vertices within this distance from the selected vertices are also affected by tools that modify the geometry. The further away from the selection, the less they are affected. This is illustrated by colour-coding the vertices from Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue – where Red is 100% and Blue is 0%.

It is a very useful plugin for general use but lacks the specificity to use the tool to its full potential. At the time of this , this plugin is $20 for a single license and is available at www.thomthom.net.

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The plugin is used to include standard and adjustable parametric components like flange beams, lumbers, piping and more to our Trimble Sketchup model. From within Sketchup – open the Engineering Toolbox extension, manoeuvre to component and choose insert and the component will be added to your model.

We can find more information on the plugin’s website, but basically what you need to know is that this plugin will allow us to insert Pipes, elbows, lumber elements, flanges, metal beams and columns including standard IPE (not IPN unfortunately, which would be the most time consuming to model actually), HEB, etc., stairs, channels, hollow sections, and more. It is useful are standard Beam sections, no more referring to the standard dimensions manual to model these elements.

The Plugin works as a web dialog. Once installed, simply go to Plugins –> Engineering Toolbox. From there a web dialog will open (we need to have an internet connection) and we will access the plugin’s website where we will be able to choose the elements we want to add to our model.

Open your Sketchup installation, select the Extension Warehouse Button, search for “Engineering Toolbox” – and install!

Alt. 2 Download the Plugin File

Download engineeringtoolbox_tools_v1.0.1.rbz and install the extension from “Sketchup > Preferences > Extension > Install Extension”, or download EngineeringToolBox.rb to your Sketchup plugins directory. (“Right Click” the link above and select something like “Save As”)

Exit and reload Sketchup:

Select the “Plugins” menu and the “Engineering Toolbox” submenu and a page will open The .rbz download is an extension and can be activated/deactivated in the “Sketchup > Preferences > Extension” window.

Note! that we can use the EngineeringToolBox.rb, in Sketchup 8 too. Save it to the plugins folder.

For Windows user

Be aware that some browsers in windows saves the plugin file EngineeringToolBox.rb with a .txt extension. The extension must be changed to .rb.

If we have problems with the saving permissions to the folder – try to download the file to your download folder – open two file manager windows – and drag the file from the download folder to the plugin folder. Change permissions if required.

Sketchup works with Linux under Wine. Since the engineering toolbox plug-in uses the Sketchup Web dialog feature implemented only for IE on Windows and Safari on Mac – IE on Wine is probably required. This is not tested and feedback is wanted.

How to use the Engineering Toolbox:

After loading Sketchup and the Engineering Toolbox from the menu – navigate to the wanted component in the navigation menu above – and select “insert” to add the wanted component to our Sketchup model.

Note – The Sketchup Engineering Toolbox is an online resource updated continuously. We need internet connection to operate.

For some components parameters like length, colour, offset and more can be modified before insertion. Customized components can be inserted by changing parameters in the dialog boxes at the end of the component lists – and clicking “custom!”

Selected objects in the model can be manipulated – rotated, moved, colours changed and more – from the Tools section. Assistant objects like lines, horizontal and vertical planes can be added.

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