ADVANCED CAMERA TOOLS in SketchUp
In this video, learn to use SketchUp Pro’s Advanced Camera Tools to customize your camera views within SketchUp!
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THE SKETCHUP ESSENTIALS COURSE
http://www.thesketchupessentials.com/course
ADVANCED CAMERA TOOLS PAGE
https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/advanced-camera-tools
Introduction to Advanced Camera Tools
One of the toolsets that comes along with SketchUp Pro is the advanced camera tools extension. This extension is designed to help you create optically accurate physical cameras within SketchUp.
There’s a fairly comprehensive help file linked within the SketchUp extension warehouse page for Advanced Camera tools that I will link to in the notes below.
Initially, the reason this extension was created was actually to provide a tool for visualizing different shots in Video and TV work, but it can also be used to create much more precise cameras, as well as cameras with pitch and roll.
If you’re looking to mimic an actual physical camera, you can access the different types by going up to tools, advanced camera tools, and selecting an actual camera type. This will give you access to many different camera types.
If you’re less worried about an actual physical camera type, you can add a camera by clicking on the first button on the advanced camera tools toolbar. This will set your view into view editing mode – you’ll note that there’s a lot of information about your current view in the lower left hand of your screen.
Notice as you click and drag your mouse button, information about your view like the tilt and height will be recorded in the information in the lower left corner.
You can adjust things like the pan, tilt, height, and other things about the camera view by following the instructions at the bottom of the screen.
For example, you can hold the shift key and drag to move forward, back, left and right, and the control key to adjust the roll of your camera. If you’re not using this tool to create actual video scenes, this is likely the reason you’ll use this tool – to be able to control the pitch and roll of your camera.
Once you have a camera view set the way you’d like, right click and select “Lock Camera.” This will lock your camera view in so that you can’t change it accidentally.
Note that this will create an actual physical camera reference point in 3D space. You can turn on the camera frustum lines and volumes to see a physical indicator of the view of the camera.
To edit this camera, simply click on the button for “Look through a camera created by create camera.” Then right click and select “unlock camera” to edit your view. Make sure to re-lock your camera when you’re done editing.
You can also edit aspects of your camera by right clicking and selecting the option for “edit camera.”
About Justin Geis
Hi, I'm Justin Geis, and I'm the founder of The SketchUp Essentials. I started using SketchUp as part of my work as a general contractor in 2008. I quickly realized the power of the software and started using it for personal projects. I started The SketchUp Essentials as a place to share easy to follow SketchUp tutorials and tips to help everyone harness the power of 3D Modeling in their lives. When not working with SketchUp, I enjoy playing soccer and spending time with my wife and our two dogs.
