Position Camera: Part 2 – Camera Target

In Part of this series, I showed how to use SketchUp’s Position Camera tool to navigate to a specific view of this news studio.

In this post, I’ll show a different feature of Position Camera: the ability to both place the camera and point it at the same time.

 

Here’s the entire studio – what you see when you click the “Overview” tab:

 

Choose Camera / Position Camera. Check the Eye Height – it should be something like 5′-6″ as before.

 

The view I want now is standing in front of the news desk, facing the center anchor. Click to place the camera on the floor, and keep the mouse button pressed.

 

Drag the mouse toward the target – the red anchor’s face.

 

Release the mouse to get the new view. Strangely, and I don’t know why this happens, the eye height reverts to zero and we get a lovely worm’s eye view of the desk. But at least we’re facing the right way.

When I set the eye height back to 5′-6″, I’m still facing up – it’s like the camera is on a pole that gets extended straight up.

 

Luckily we’re now in Look Around. So I can drag the mouse straight down, and arrive at the view I wanted in the first place:

 

Try the dragging feature again – this time drag from the studio floor to the sports screen.

 

After adjusting the eye height and dragging the eye back down, here’s the view you’d want your sports camera to see:

 

Position Camera is an essential tool for interior design, landscape architecture, and of course, entertainment design. SketchUp Pro users have the added benefit of the Advanced Camera Tools extension, which simulate real-world cameras much better than SketchUp does. But Position Camera is pretty useful.

 

 

About Bonnie Roskes

Bonnie Roskes has been writing tutorial-style projects on 3D modeling software, primarily SketchUp, since 2001. Her website, www.3dvinci.net offers a wide variety of learning materials for all ages, from kids in grade school through design professionals. Her materials cover general 3D design, 3D printing, geometry, interior design, geo-modeling, and more, and future books are in the works. Read more about Bonnie.

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