Creating Scenes

Scenes help you save different model views and properties. You can then present those views to show off different aspects of your model. Each scene you create appears in a tab along the top of the modeling window, just below your document tabs, allowing for easy navigation and management.

With scenes you can:

• Quickly change to a different view while modeling.

• Save a view you want to represent your model to stakeholders or when sharing to 3D Warehouse.

• Animate a sequence of scenes to make a presentation.

Adding a Scene

Before you create a scene, set the view and apply any styles, fog, shadows, or section cuts you want the scene to display. Also, hide any geometry or adjust tag visibility as needed. SketchUp saves each of these properties in the scene you create.

Once you have prepped your model, follow these steps to create a scene:

1. Open the Scenes panel.

2. Click Add Scenes (). SketchUp will add the new scene in the Scenes panel.
3. Click Show Details () to adjust the scene's details. You can rename it, add a description, or change saved properties.

Managing Scene Properties

When you add a scene, SketchUp saves the properties that affect the view of your model. You can also change the name or description at any time.

The following settings in a scene’s details can help control what properties are saved:

• Include in Animation – Select to make sure your scene is included when you animate your scenes as part of a presentation. 

• Camera Location – Preserves camera properties, including point of view, zoom distance, and field of view.

• Top-Level Hidden Geometry/Hidden Objects – For scenes with hidden geometry, enabling these options makes sure that geometry remains hidden every time you load the scene.

• Visible Tags – If you have tags controlling visibility in your model, selecting this makes sure the scene saves those settings.

• Active Section Planes – For models containing several section planes, this setting makes sure only active section planes are captured.

• Style and Fog – Applies all style and fog settings.

• Shadow Settings – Stores all shadow-related information like time and date.

• Environment Settings – Captures all environment settings like position of the sun and skybox.

• Axes Location – Captures the settings of the axes, including visibility.

Managing Scenes

The following options appear when you context-click a scene:

• Add Scene – Adds the current view as an additional scene.

• Update Scene – Updates the selected scene to the current view. In the panel controls, you can also click Update Scene ().

• Rename Scene - Opens a dialog allowing you to rename a scene.

• Delete Scene - Deletes the scene from your model. In the panel controls, you can also click Remove Scene ().

• Use Scene Thumbnails – When enabled, the current view for that scene will be its thumbnail in the Scenes panel. 

• Update Scene Thumbnail – If you made changes after setting the thumbnail, this changes the scene thumbnail to the current view. 

• Add Scene with Matched Photo – Creates a scene using a photo. For more details see Photo Matching.

• Edit Matched Photo for this Scene - You can only choose this option if a scene was created using a photo. Select this to edit the photo you chose for the scene.

• Show Details – Opens the selected scene’s properties.

• Apply Tags to Scene – Applies tags to the current scene.

You can also manage the scenes in the Scenes panel in the following ways: 

• You can use Move Scene Down or Move Scene Up in the Scenes panel to change the order they appear in.

• To change the order in which scene tabs appear in the modeling window, context click the scene you want to move, and select Move Left or Move Right as needed.

• To search for a specific scene from your scene tabs in the modeling window, use Search () option located left of the tabs.