(Editor's note: This tip on breaking edges in SketchUp is the third in a weekly series of blog posts about CAD and BIM software that comes to us from the very detailed technical tips on AECbytes.com. It is our final Google SketchUp tip for a few weeks. Next we will take a quick look at Autodesk's Revit Architecture.)

Breaking a 2-D drawings' edges in SketchUp 7 is relatively simple, not to mention helpful when dealing with intersecting lines. Take a house in need of a roof, for example.

Start with the roof faces and use Follow Me to create half of the roof. Then, move the copied face into position and the original roof face with break the new one into three faces. If you don’t want to new face to divide, copy the face and edge into a group.

Next, position the group, select which edges to use as the path and activate Follow Me. Right-click on the group and choose Edit Group, then click the roof face. It will be driven along the path within the group. Finally, close the group and explode it so you can intersect and trim as needed.

For more information, including screen shots and a comparison with Google SketchUp 6, check out Breaking edges in Google SketchUp 7 on AECbytes.com.