Who's that scale figure?

Posted by John Bacus, Product Manager

You've probably noticed the little person who appears in every new SketchUp file you create -- in fact, you've probably deleted him more times than you can count. Or maybe you're one of the hundreds of people who delight in doing funny things to him and uploading him to the 3D Warehouse.

Here why he's there: Sometimes it's hard to know how big something is when you're just sketching it out for the first time. So we added a scale figure (a person, basically) to some of our default SketchUp templates. That way, you can rough out an idea by modeling relative to the person, instead of by paying close attention to the Value Control Box. Having a little dude on the screen also helps new users figure out which way is up.

With each new release, we've used a different member of the SketchUp team for that scale figure. In SketchUp 6, the lucky victim is Bryce, but we've also used Sandra, Greg and me in earlier releases. If you look in the "2D People" collection in the 3D Warehouse, you can see components for lots of other SketchUp folks, too. So next time you're deleting Bryce, remember that he's a real person, and that he has feelings, too. Then go ahead and erase him. I do it dozens of times a day – and I sit right next to him.

Permalink | Links to this post |