You clearly make extensive use of SketchUp in visualising and documenting many of your projects, and it's almost certainly second nature to you now.
I would like to start using it, and would be grateful for a few pointers. I suspect that there's a bit of a learning curve.
What version do you use? I recall having heard it referred to as "Google SketchUp" but it seems that it is now owned by Trimble of navigation system fame. The PRO version is quite expensive. The only free manifestation of the current version seems to be only available as an online app.
However, you can download and install the 2017 version for free - which what I've done.
Is this a capable version?
Any hints for getting started? Better still, have you ever considered producing an "Idiots' Guide" and putting it in the DIY Wiki? I think that many DIY-ers would find it useful.
Mostly - in the sense that I can do most of the things I need to with it. However there is still plenty I don't know.
It is probably the most accessible of the 3D apps I have found - you can do some fairly impressive stuff very quickly. However more use and study aids that enormously.
If I were looking now, I would give the "free" version of Fusion 360 a good chance as well since it is in many way more capable, and can make better looking renders. (and being parametric can make models easier to change and maintain)
Yup it was google sketchup, and free for the standard version. They obviously though it would be a good way to get lots of contributions to maps for 3D building designs etc. They seem to have found other ways of doing some quite impressive 3D representations directly from their imagery now so perhaps figured they did not need it.
It is now Trimble and like many things they have repositioned it as a Software As A Service offering - i.e. subscription based. There is a free tier, but it is browser based.
Personally I am not a fan of SAAS, and don't relish being locked out of my models at some point in the future because they change policy or go titsup. As a result I have stuck with Sketchup Make 2017.
Yes, and there is still plenty of third party support with add on modules that can make some things much simpler.
One area it is suffering slightly is the 3D warehouse access. You used to be able to bring up an in app browser in a large window. That now no longer works (due to being based on a defunct web technology I understand). You can still find models in the pallet version of it, but it is not as good.
With time, this situation may deteriorate, and Trimble will presumably have no interest in fixing it, since it will drive users to the paid for options.
With where I am now, I would be content to pay for a pro version as a perpetual license, but not on subscription.
Yup, dive in a play. Watch some youtube tutorials - there are tons. e.g:
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Decide when you start a model what level of detail you want to capture. It is easy to create a bit of furniture that includes all big brush strokes, but skips things like modelling the joinery. Great for visualisation. However a more detailed model that shows joint construction, and that you can lift dimensions from can make building things faster and easier.
Learn a couple of tricks for selecting things - like draggin a box around objects from top left to bottom right only selects things that are entirely in the box. From bottom right to top left will select all the things that the box touches even if not entirely contained in it.
Master grouping of objects as a priority. Then components. If you draw something, then draw something that attaches to it, the natural result is that they are joined and become one object. That can lead to complications later as you try to move or resize a bit and fine something else goes with it. If however you group something, then that group is a separate entity that can be manipulated in isolation without sticking to things.
Components do a similar thing, but allow the things to be names and re-used. Also if you edit a component, then all the uses of it will update. E.g. if you make a table leg a component, and use it four times, then later decide it needs to be 2" shorter, you just change the component, and all four legs in the model will take on the changes.
Get used to re-dimensioning things after you draw them. You can drag out a box, but rather than try and get it mm perfect on both axis, just type
200,50 after drawing to make it 200 x 50mm (or whatever units you have chosen). Some of the other keyboard tweaks are also well worth learning like using shift with middle mouse button for shifting viewport rather than orbiting. Tap ctrl before moving to make a copy. Enter x5 on the keyboard after a copy, and it will repeat it 5 times with the same offsets. (you can make a staircase with one copy!).
Until you mentioned it just now, no not really :-)
However if you think it would be useful then I would be happy to contribute some stuff. I would probably help to have input from someone learning from scratch though, to know what bits are worth including.
Also happy to upload some of the models I have done in the past.
(ISTR there is also a book on sketchup for furniture makers)
Yup good idea, and possibly a niche that could be filled. My only doubts are that much of the teaching might be better done in video form rather than text and pictures.
I do pay for the pro version, as I found scaling of PDF output from the web version was not accurate, if it wasn't for that, I'd probably get by with the web version. It's quite impressive as a browser-baed app.
Yes, I started with versions earlier than that, not a great deal has changed over the years, renaming layers to tags and making them nestable, one version the only noticeable "upgrade" was the ability to have dashed lines!
Plenty of sketchup tutorials on you tube, I found it had a very shallow learning curve compared to autoCAD (I used to install it for customers then deny all knowledge of knowing how to draw *anything* with it) just works intuitively.
Not suggesting it's a "waste" of John's time, but there is a whole heap of good content already out there, from a woodworking perspective look at some of Jay Bates older videos, they're all still relevant, I think Gosforth Handyman did a few too?
Yes but, as far as I can tell, Fusion 360 seems to slowly be migrating towards a pay-for-more-and-more model.
FreeCAD, on the other hand, is properly open-source and what I've started using for my 3D printing models. It's not (yet) perfect, but I'm sticking with it. I used to use Sketchup 2017 but recently became frustrated trying to find free STL import / export add-ins, so I ditched it.
I had downloaded Sketchup 17. My main gripe is that it's difficult to dimension things. I now prefer FreeCad, which is difficult to learn but very comprehensive.
e.g. if the units for you file are mm, dust use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle, then without having to re-focus the point or anything type 1000,500 and hit enter
or type 12" and it'll use metric for that one measurement, even though the file is in metric.
I was not sure if Dave meant it was difficult to set the dimensions of what you draw (for which typing in exact numbers as you describe works well) or if he means adding visible dimensions to a drawing. e.g. like those on this design:
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To which I would say, yup adding dimensions can be tricky - sketchup likes to stretch a dimension between two edges of something, but the way it does it is quick but slightly counter intuitive.
Say you have drawn a square, and want to indicate the height. You would select the dimension tool, and then click on one of the vertical edges. Drag that off to one side and it will now create dimensions showing the height of that edge.
That works well, but can fail if the object you are working on it part of a group - you may need to open the group (double click it) before it lets you interact with the individual edges.
The other way is to select the dimension tool, click on a first point, and then click on a second one. That will show a length dimension between the two points. You can hen drag the dimension line away to the side to offset it from the model, and instead mark a distance between construction lines. The place this fails is that it does not let you attach the start or end of the dimension line to an arbitrary place - it will only snap to an edge or end etc. (you can work round this by using the rule tool first to create a construction line with an endpoint (which can be in an arbitrary position), and then snap the dimension line to that endpoint.
Yes, it does have a tendency to to make dimension lines cut across the diagonal, rather than stay parallel to the object, there are new keystrokes to fix the inference axis, though I must admin I'm not fully up to speed using them, so don't know if they fix the problem, or not.
Many thanks for your - and other people's replies.
I've spent a few days playing with it, and watching some of the you-tube videos, and have managed to design a reasonable-looking pergola. I have a few questions to which I've not managed to find answers in the online material, and would appreciate some input from regular users.
Does SketchUp have any concept of solid objects, or does it only know about 3-D spaces surrounded by surfaces - in other words, hollow objects?
Is there any way of defining (or displaying) the absolute position of a point in 3-D space, like you can in many CAD programs?
Where can I find freely available add-ons (like doors, windows, furniture) which don't have to be paid for? How are these installed and then accessed from within the program?
Is it possible to copy components from one model to another? [It doesn't seem possible to have more than one model open at a time]
Is it possible to create your own library of components which can be re-used in many different models?
What is the best way of creating a linear array of components? e.g. creating a line of fence posts where I know the total length, and how many, and want them spaced equally. [Some sources say to use dimensions like (50' 8/) but I can't make this work consistently]
When I use the Push-Pull tool to make (say) a 3-D wall from a surface, sometimes it works but more often than not it moves the surface back and creates edges to form an open rather than closed box. What am I likely to be doing wrong? [If it's not clear what I mean, I can post some pictures to show the problem]
Where can I find keyboard short-cuts - particularly things like using the arrow keys to specify which axis to move along?
just hollow, as you'll find out when you position yourself inside a cube, the inside surface and outside surface can have different textures
you can geolocate the origin using real-world coordinates, the "Utilities Tools" extension will show you the absolute location of a point.
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Tools extension manager, or use the 3D warehouse for e.g. furniture, or Extension warehouse.
open two instances of sketchup, then copy/paste.
I've only used components within a single model, probably you could upload them to the warehouse, not sure what that does to your rights to them.
sounds like you're punching part of an already 3D surface out the back of the object, which is a valid way to create a hole in an object? When pushing it will "stick" at the boundary, you might see "Z fighting" where things co-incide, then you can keep pushing and force your way out the other side ... but if it's just a 2D shape it should only pull to make it 3D
google for "sketchup reference cards" or "sketchup cheat sheets"
I think as far as it is concerned, everything is based on surfaces - although it is possible to generate 3D print instructions from it.
I would guess there is an internal co-ordinate space, but it doe not really make it manifest - any point is usually only at a relative distance from others.
There are two classes of add-ons that may be of interest. The foremost is the 3D warehouse. This is less accessible in the older versions than it used to be since the large window browser in sketchup make 2017 no longer works correctly.
If you use a normal web browser to go to:
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(it may need you to create a free account)
You should be able to search for items that are in the warehouse (these seem to be a combination of things that other users have drawn an uploaded, as well as catalogues of things uploaded by manufacturers / distributors)
Once you have found something you want and know its name, you can go to the "components" panel on the right hand side of sketchup, and search for it in the warehouse. You should then be able to import it directly into your model.
The second type of add-in are so called "Extensions" that add new drawing capabilities and automations to the package itself rather than
3D objects.
The curved brickwork in this:
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was done with a shape bender extension - so I drew it square, then bent it after. These normally install like normal software or need to be placed in the sketchup extensions folder (each will have its own instructions)
Yes you open sketchup multiple times - cut and paste then works as you might expect. (either run it again from its icon, or double click a .skp file to open another model)
Yup, if you define something as a named component, it in appear in the components panel under the "in model" category. You can then right click on the item and do a "Save As"
You can also create your own collections and load and save those.
There are a couple of tricks that work for this kind of thing. If you want multiple copies at repeated spaces...
Say I was copying the individual T&G boards on the back of this:
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I would use the move tool to make a copy of the first board, into where the adjacent one would go, and then type x10 to repeat that copy 10 times - it will make each additional copy at the same 3D displacement as used for the first. (and if 10 copies were the wrong number, I could type x12 immediately after and change my mind - using trial and error to get the right total span)
If you wanted copies at an even spacing - but did not want to have to work out what that spacing was, e.g. your fencepost example, then you could copy your first post to the position of the *last* post, and then type /10 to make ten copies spread evenly (the 10th would be the last manually positioned post). I suppose in reality, the former method might be better for fence posts that need to take standard size fence panels!
(sometimes you need to think a bit laterally and make an extra copies you don't need that overlap start and end positions - then delete the first and last after just leaving the in-fill)
If you grab an edge rather than a surface, that can drag just the edge. If a surface is not flat, then you can't extrude from it (although you can merge another extruded object into it)
You can also get odd effects when you push or pull something that is joined to something else and find that while it does extrude the object it also pulls along an edge of something else, and distorts its 3D shape. Grouping things before adding more to them helps keep then properly separated.
If that does not make sense, then yup, photo's might work. (or give me a bell, and I can watch what you are doing via remote control on the PC)
Yup, good point Andy, that is a very handy facility worth mentioning, using push pull to "subtract" from an existing object.
Say I were modelling a skirting board. I could start with a rectangle that matched the height and thickness. Then pull that out to however many feet I need - say getting a 10' long 1" x 8" plank.
I can then draw my bullnose profile on the end of the plank using a combination of the line and arc tools. That bisects the end of the plank into two separate surfaces that can be pushed or pulled. I can now push the bit I don't want away right up to the end of the plank. Effectively removing that from the object, leaving only the profile I want.
I often use this for rounding off or bevelling corners etc. Also useful for pushing holes or channels into something - say modelling a rebate or half lap joint.
Just had to remind myself how to use it, after install from the warehouse Tools/Utilities/Query Tool then hover over any vertex to get endpoint X,Y,Z tooltip
I've just tried drawing a rectangle, but could not click the dimension box to change the figures. So I tried typing as you said, and was amazed to find the figures get entered into the box. But it added a new rectangle of those dimensions on top of my original one.
This is typical of the way everything is hidden from an inexperienced user like myself, which is why I abandoned the program.
It shouldn't do that, I just tried doing "weird stuff" while entering dimensions, and entering them again, and again, all it does is resize the rectangle each time you enter either W,L or just W or just ,L
I can't understand what you might be doing different to get the "wrong" result.
I was an inexperienced user, I didn't even know how to draw a rectangle in autoCAD, I found sketchup a joy to learn ...
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