---

Befriending Place

The Placify toolsuite is team effort. It is intended to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Place was the first command to be added to Placify. If Placify has lead tool, it probably is Place. After all, the extension was named with this in mind.

Place lets you place components and groups and rotate them in one and the same movement. Place lets you move and copy, create arrays, accurately controlling item spacings.

Compared with Sketchup's built-in Move tool, Place does something similar. Still, Place is both simpler and more advanced at the same time.

In Place, you do not set each operations's start point. You always use the Axes, also known as local origin, of your selection's lead container. This makes place quicker to use than, as you only need to decide the destination, never the start point.

Place is also quicker because it offers in-tool pickphase. Read more about it below.

In practice, users tend to mix standard item selecting with in-Place picking.

Place allows you to be quick and expressive. But you can also be accurate.

You can also make Place automatically shift the output, applying random rotation and scaling. This can be useful when working with filler vegetation, rocks and.

Place packs a lot of power. You can do many things with it. To achieve this, it offers several modes and phases. This makes the tool compact.

To get the most out of Place, befriend the different modes.

Control Place Behaviour via Placemodes

Place works differently depending on its current Placemode.

To learn all Place tool options, simply read Sketchup's status bar. Read the status bar carefully – there are several options.

Toggle Copy/Move with Ctrl Key

Sometimes, you want to place a copy. Sometimes, you want to move the selection source.

Control the mode by hitting the Ctrl key.

Toggle Plant/Stick with Alt Key

Sometimes, you just want to place your source item exactly where you click. For this, use placemode Stick. Placemode Stick will not change the internal relative positions of the placed items.

When working with landscapes especially, and you place swarms containing many items, you typically want to autodrop items to the terrain. For this, use placemode Plant. Plant will try to shoot all placed items up or down untill they hit Plant target.

You can control Plant target via tag names, in Placify Panel.

Toggle Plant/Stick by hitting the Alt or F9 key.

Toggle Autoshift with F9

Autoshift makes Place automatically vary output at each place. Shift applies random rotation and scaling. You can control the amount of Shift via your settings in the Panel. Shifting can be useful when working with filler assets like vegetation, rocks and similar, that are naturally varied.

However, when working with accurate mechanical assemblies, Autoshift should probably best be avoided. Sometimes you need it, sometimes you don't.

Hit F9 to toggle autoshift.

Discover further Placemodes

There are more placemodes to discover, for example using the F keys. To learn more, read the Place tool status bar.

Pickphase is In-Tool Selection

Place offers in-tool pickphase. This means that you can select source items to Place while still in the Place tool.

In contrast with e.g. native Move tool, you no longer not have to exit the tool, activate Select, use select, then activate tool, then use the tool.

Instead, when you are Placing items, and you wish to place something else, you can hit key Esc (or do a Select None). Note that you are still in in the Place tool. Now simply hover over an item, and click it to start an new placing session. Alternatively, in Place with nothing selected, you can do a left-to-right or right-to-left drag selection, and pick items that way. If you pick the wrong items, you can clear the selection and pick again.

The same thing is true if you start Place with nothing selected. Place enters a pickphase, and allows you to pick items, and start placing.

This should be the very fastest way to place say five different trees to five different locations.

Troubleshooting Place

If Place behaves unexpectedly, this is probably because you have activated a certain placemode. To fix this, don't panic. Simply turn off that mode.

Read the Status Bar

To see which modes are currently active, read the Place status bar. When you are in an active Place operation, the first part of the status bar should show in text which placemode you currently have active.

When you are placing items, Placify will show available modes and options in the status bar. You can also read about modes on this Learn page.

To change mode, try hitting Ctrl, Alt, F9, F11 or another key.