Way back when I was in design school (board drafting with T-square and pencil) one of my teachers mentioned that people who work with sheet metal duct work know more about practical geometry than anyone in the world. I was … Continue reading
Category Archives: SketchUp Tutorials
I don’t mind answering questions from readers, because good questions often become useful blog posts. In this instance, the question wasn’t quite clear so I’m showing two solutions. One way to solve problems in SketchUp is to consider how it … Continue reading
The good folks at SketchUp recently tweaked the features of the 3D Warehouse and it is now possible to “borrow” materials or components from a warehouse model without downloading the entire model. In this example I have a model of a … Continue reading
How far do you go with details in a SketchUp model? That’s a common question and the answer depends on what you’re making the model for versus how much time it will take to add the details. In my work, … Continue reading
I readily admit to being lazy, and that’s one of the reasons SketchUp is my favorite design software. I never have to model something a second time if I’m careful about where I put it. The Components window has some … Continue reading
In a good SketchUp model anything that is a distinct piece of wood in real life is a component. (Click here to read about why components are so important). With components, you rarely need to draw anything more than once; … Continue reading
If you’re learning how to use SketchUp you have a lot on your plate. As it is with any new software you need to remember what happens when you click on this or that, but SketchUp is more complex because … Continue reading
Question from a reader: I’m trying to do a simple paneled door; 2 rails, 2 stiles, and a panel in a groove all the way around. I made stiles no problem, the rails have a groove and a little tenon, … Continue reading
What do middle school students and amateur carpenters have in common? Neither group realizes how tricky and troublesome compound angles can be. Carpenters will have fits trying to run crown molding and one group of middle schoolers recently hit a … Continue reading
One of the most popular posts on this blog is my “SketchUp Shortcuts Cheat Sheet”, a handy list of the shortcuts I use all the time. Those are all standard shortcuts that exist when you install SketchUp. A few years … Continue reading
For efficient work in SketchUp, you should use keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking on the icons in the toolbars, at least for the most often used commands. One of the quirks of SketchUp is that the obvious way of doing … Continue reading
Twitchy Index Fingers & the Move Tool When I teach SketchUp in person I get reminded of the basic issues that confront many people. If you can get past these hurdles you’ll be well on your way to mastering the … Continue reading
SketchUp is a program that tries to make things easy. There are inferences at the ends and midpoints of every line. When you get close to one with the mouse cursor a colored dot appears along with a yellow tag. … Continue reading
One of the features of SketchUp that isn’t immediately obvious is the value of storing and retrieving complex objects. A case in point is a project I worked on this morning, building and organizing a library of moldings for a … Continue reading
SketchUp 2016 was released a few weeks ago, with a few new features and under the hood improvements. You can find the full list of features (and download the latest version of SketchUp) at this link. If you use SketchUp … Continue reading
Most good builders know and use the Pythagorean Theorem, even if they never heard of Pythagoras or slept through high school geometry. It’s easier to remember 3-4-5 than an ancient Greek and it’s a reliable way to make something at … Continue reading
In the cabinet business, good planning and keeping track of everything is essential. That’s one of the main themes of my book “The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker”. There are common tools used that have been around for quite a while to … Continue reading
The Massachusetts Department of Education links to this page as a valuable resource for learning SketchUp. If you’re a teacher and looking for ways to integrate 3D modeling into your Science, Technology, Engineering, Art or Math program, visit our “SketchUp … Continue reading
Back in 2012, I wrote a series of posts titled “10 Things I Wish I Had Known About SketchUp” The series grew out of a presentation I gave at a woodworking conference. It turned out to be a popular series, … Continue reading
A few years ago my son talked me into playing a video game, one where we had to run around an imaginary world with people shooting at us. I sucked at it, big time. I got blasted before I could … Continue reading
One of the ways SketchUp resembles woodworking is that it’s easy to get caught up in messing around with the tools and never get any real work done. In my classes this year I only hinted at the ability to … Continue reading
In my post on making a template for through mortises, I used a full-sized paper pattern that I printed from a SketchUp model. A reader posed the logical and obvious question “can you print a full-size pattern from the free … Continue reading
SketchUp is a great tool to quickly draw parts for furniture and cabinet projects. Even better is the fact that if you know how to organize all the bits and pieces of the model you hardly need to draw at … Continue reading
I think of a SketchUp model as a resource for building the real thing. Making the model is like a dress rehearsal, you go through all the steps of the process, and you can solve problems with the Undo command, … Continue reading
With the release of SketchUp 2013, many of the tool icon images changed. What hasn’t changed is that for efficient work in SketchUp, you should be using keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking on the icons in the toolbars, at least … Continue reading
Here is one of my favorite moves in SketchUp, exploding and redefining components to move geometry from one component to another. If you don’t speak SketchUp fluently, that means I can take an existing tenon from a table apron and … Continue reading
I recently received the following question from a reader, and as it is asked often it makes sense to post the answer here. At first glance it is a technical question, but my answer veers off into philosophy, and bounces … Continue reading
One of my favorite features of SketchUp Pro is the solid tools. I do a lot of detailed models of furniture, and these tools make my life a lot easier and my work go much faster. I can take a … Continue reading
When I teach SketchUp classes, I try to spend at least half my time looking over the shoulders of students, answering questions and coaching them past the hard parts. The answer to almost every question (and the solution to the … Continue reading
UPDATE: THESE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ARE FOR SKETCHUP VERSIONS 8 AND EARLIER. THE ICONS CHANGED WITH THE RELEASE OF SKETCHUP 2013 & YOU CAN FIND AN UP-TO-DATE LIST OF KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS HERE One of the quirks of learning SketchUp is that … Continue reading
You don’t need to be an expert in using SketchUp to use it. In fact, you can do some amazing things without ever drawing a line. The key is Google SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse where you can find thousands of models … Continue reading
Components Can Be Redefined SketchUp is a powerful tool for designing furniture and other woodworking projects. In the design phase, you can quickly make objects, copy and compare variations, and see how things will look in three dimensions. But that’s … Continue reading
Paste in Place is My Best Friend My primary goal when modeling a project in SketchUp is to get away from the computer as soon as I possibly can. One of the main reasons SketchUp is the ultimate design/planning tool … Continue reading
The Power of Reusing Details Designing on the computer can be far more efficient than drawing with pencil and paper. The advantage isn’t so much in making the original drawing, that takes some time no matter how you do it. … Continue reading
Don’t Draw if You Can Copy & Copy is Part of the Move Command It’s easy to miss the obvious when you’re learning something new, and that was my experience when learning SketchUp. Once again, my AutoCAD experience was more … Continue reading
Components Are Crucial My abilities in SketchUp took a great leap forward when I gave up on drawing and began modelling, and I was able to take that step when I got a grip on using components rather than dealing … Continue reading
Just Type The Number I think this post is more about me and the way my brain works than it is about learning to use SketchUp. Now that I’ve become somewhat adept at modelling, I really admire the simple and … Continue reading
Click and Let Go, ClickClick, and ClickClickClick One thing I plan on emphasizing in this year’s SketchUp classes is using the mouse effectively. Modeling in SketchUp is a very efficient process if you click the right way at the right … Continue reading
Navigate With the Mouse At SketchUp Base Camp I was in a group of people who teach SketchUp, and someone suggested that saying the program is “intuitive and easy to learn” may not be such good advice. It can be … Continue reading
Those Colored Lines and Dots Mean Something Learning how to use software that’s new to you is like adapting to the way things are in a foreign country. The language is different, the customs are different, and behavior that is … Continue reading