The Scale Tool

The Scale tool is another familiar tool from other software—it changes the scale, or size, of an object. The Scale tool in SketchUp is driven primarily by the Object or Geometry bounding box and can change the scale of the three axes independently. That means that it can stretch something to be skinnier in one direction and taller in another—the Geometry does not have to keep the same proportions. There are two modifier keys for the Scale tool: Shift for scaling uniformly, and Ctrl for scaling about the center. The modifier keys for the Scale tool are required to be held throughout the workflow, unlike other tools’ modifier keys. The Scale tool is represented by a square with an arrow showing how the square could increase:

Figure 5.37: Scale Tool Button

The Scale tool can be activated by doing the following:

• Clicking on any of the Scale tool buttons
• Hitting S on the keyboard

The Scale tool can be used on...