Using the Array tool

We'll be using the Array tool to construct parts of the bookshelf. Let's go ahead and make the shelf proper. Go to the Create panel, choose ChamferBox, drag that out in the Top viewport and then drag upward to set the Height. Click and drag left to right to set a Fillet amount. Click again to complete the box, and then right-click to exit the tool. Move that up in the Front viewport and then go into the Modify panel and set the dimensions.

I'll set the Width to be 1 foot and 2 inches, hit the Tab key. The Width is going to be 4 feet 7 inches, hit the Tab key. The Height is going to be only .5 inches and the Fillet amount, once again, it will be an eighth of an inch or .125 inches. All right, let's get in closer on that, Alt+W, and I want to just center it. I'll give it an X value of 0 and a Y value of 0, and the Height we will just eyeball the position and that's my shelf.

Now for the sides here, I am going to clone these guys again. Select those, I can use the Ctrl key to select them both, and then hold down Shift and drag, and these are going to be copies once again. We can rename them here too. I'll call that bookshelfSide001 and the Height of these is going to be a foot and 3.5 inches, 1' 3.5. Okay, I'll just get in a little bit closer here to make sure that things are lined up.

Don't want to have any overlap, if I can avoid it. All righty, I forgot to turn off Smoothing on this bookshelf piece, so I'll do that now. All right, and then I can take these three, and in fact, clone them. I'll rename this too, call that shelf001. I am going to select these three with the Ctrl key, and I can clone them in a clever way using the Array tool, under Tools > Array, and what this allows me to do is to make multiple copies of selected objects and create one-dimensional, two-dimensional or three-dimensional arrays.

I've got a number of copies that I want to make here and I am really only going to need four copies, and I'll also want to position them. I want to move them up in Z. Now it's very useful to see a preview of what I'm doing. I'll click the Preview button over here and then adjust the Z value, and you can see I'm getting four copies. Wow, that's pretty cool! And in fact, it looks like a value of 1 foot and 4 inches, which is right.

I'll get in really close on this to make sure that that's clean. That looks good to me. Very nice! And by the way, the Array tool is now non-modal, which means that I can make adjustments in the main window while I'm previewing the array. Excellent! And these are Instances by default. I'll click OK. All righty, so I just need one more of these, I'll hold down Shift and drag that up, and I can make that an Instance too, and I'm almost finished with the structure of this.

I just need a little bit more up at the top here. I'll take these guys, Ctrl+Select those, hold down Shift and drag that up and those will be copies. I'll need a different height to those, and I'll call this one bookshelfSide and the Height here is just going to be 3.5 inches, 3.5, and finally I have got these two little bits down here, Ctrl+Select those. If you accidentally select the wrong thing, like I just did, you can use Alt to unselect, here we go, hold down Shift, bring that up and I'll call those bookshelfTop.

All right, so I have constructed my bookshelf out of ChamferBoxes.