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Todd Burch
09-10-2004, 1:16 PM
Just wondering how many people have taken a look at Sketchup... Please respond to poll.

Jim Becker
09-10-2004, 1:27 PM
Well...that makes two of us! Awesome applcation. I hope I can get more time to learn it more, however...

Larry Browning
09-10-2004, 2:43 PM
I would guess that this is some sort of CAD program. I think I will have more interest in this type of program after I retire (9-10yrs) All the cad programs I have seen have a fairly long learning curve, and I just don't have the time/interest to learn. I would rather make sawdust with my limited time in the shop.
What's so great about this type of software and why should someone invest their time into using it? Also, what makes it so great (what can be done with it) from the perspective of the hobbist woodworker?

Chris Padilla
09-10-2004, 3:07 PM
Just too pricey for me, Todd. So pricey, that I have the shortcut to 3.1 sitting on my desktop for 6-8 months now and have yet to use more than 2 minutes of the demo time. I'm afraid I'll like it too much and $500 is a tough pill to swallow being that I'm not a professional. $200 is about my upper limit to s/w. I wish it didn't cost so much.

Jim Becker
09-10-2004, 3:34 PM
For folks not familiar with this application, you can learn more about SketchUp at http://sketchup.com/. This is a remarkable 3D illustration program that blends both free-sketching and many features of CAD into one. I have not found it to be a total replacement for DesignCAD yet, but that's likely a learning issue with me, rather than the fault of the program...

Chris Padilla
09-10-2004, 4:15 PM
I would guess that this is some sort of CAD program.
Larry,

Sketch-up is big on touting how they are NOT just another CAD program. Since I haven't used it much, I cannot comment further.

Todd Burch
09-10-2004, 4:25 PM
Larry, check out, let's see.... the Furniture Gallery on the SU website... http://www.sketchup.com/gallery.php?gcid=4

Jim Becker
09-10-2004, 5:30 PM
Larry, check out, let's see.... the Furniture Gallery on the SU website... http://www.sketchup.com/gallery.php?gcid=4
Hmm...that "Dual Tool" is an interesting application for SketchUp...:eek:

Rich Konopka
09-10-2004, 6:37 PM
Todd or Jim:

Does Sketchup give you any prebuilt templates? Does everything need to be done from scratch? For instance, if I were to design my new shop do I have to create the machines ( TS,DP,BS,DC,AC). I have been looking for a package but at $500 :eek:. I have the advantage of getting academic priced software because the LOML is in education and there are some good discounts to be had.

Chris Padilla
09-10-2004, 6:42 PM
Rich,

Does that mean your buddies here also get some academic discounts?? :D :D

Please!!! :)

Michael Cody
09-10-2004, 10:21 PM
Just wondering how many people have taken a look at Sketchup... Please respond to poll.

You need to modify #3 -- you saw, demoed, didn't buy cause 500$ will buy a lot of wood :D

Ken Fitzgerald
09-11-2004, 12:04 AM
Todd.....I went to their site sometime ago and viewed the demo. It was impressive. I have several cad programs, one of which is 3-D. While I actually like sketchup better than what I have.....it's hard to justify $500. First, finish the new shop.....build some shop cabinets.......purchase a bandsaw......then.....maybe.......sketchup

Todd Burch
09-11-2004, 12:37 AM
Rich, they do have a good acedemic license program. And, there are some "components" that come with SU for free, but many, many others are available for free on the SU website under FORUMS>Material & Components. Plus, there is objectivenetworks.com and pushpullbar.com where you can get premade items. Keith Starosta made a bessy clamp and sent it to me. He also found a whole bunch of tools that would make up a ww shop. Great for shop layout. There are also a couple web sites where you can buy components and have components custom made (for a fee) (thecomponentstore.com and 3D-figures.com)

Rich Konopka
09-11-2004, 7:33 AM
Rich, they do have a good acedemic license program. And, there are some "components" that come with SU for free, but many, many others are available for free on the SU website under FORUMS>Material & Components. Plus, there is objectivenetworks.com and pushpullbar.com where you can get premade items. Keith Starosta made a bessy clamp and sent it to me. He also found a whole bunch of tools that would make up a ww shop. Great for shop layout. There are also a couple web sites where you can buy components and have components custom made (for a fee) (thecomponentstore.com and 3D-figures.com)
This is what has prevented me from getting the edu pricing.

excerpt from su website:

"An EDU SketchUp license can only be purchased by a student or faculty member who is currently affiliated with an accredited educational institution. EDU licenses are valid for ONE YEAR from the date of purchase, and are renewable each year with additional purchase"

It's $99 a year.

I like what the program can do but I looking at TurboCad for $150.

Jim Becker
09-11-2004, 10:21 AM
Rich, check out the reviews of CAD programs in Fine Woodworking, October 2004, Page 54. The review article should be helpful to you in your decision.

Rich Konopka
09-11-2004, 1:47 PM
Rich, check out the reviews of CAD programs in Fine Woodworking, October 2004, Page 54. The review article should be helpful to you in your decision.
Thanks Jim !! I have it in my big pile of reading material and was almost to it and guess what I get in the mail? The new Lee Valley catalog. :eek:

Tony Falotico
09-12-2004, 4:59 PM
I too thought is was a little to pricey to justify for home use. Let's see, that's half a good bandsaw, 1/3 a Unisaw, 2 good hand helds ............

Keith Starosta
09-13-2004, 7:17 AM
I love the application, for more than just designing furniture. I used it to layout and design my entire backyard project, as well as some exterior design stuff for my sister. I haven't had a lot of time lately to play with it, but hope to soon!

Keith

Jim Becker
09-14-2004, 4:00 PM
Anybody in the Denver Co might want to check this opportunity to see SketchUp live.
----------


Live Demo of SketchUp 4.0!



<!-- ============= Change the date and location BELOW here ================== -->Tuesday
October 5, 2004
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
<!-- ============= Change the date and location ABOVE here ================== -->



<!-- ============= Change the date and location BELOW here ================== -->Marriott Denver City Center
1701 California St.
Denver, CO
303.297.1300
<!-- ============= Change the date and location ABOVE here ================== -->Come join us to see the new features of SketchUp 4.0

Free Beer, Wine, and Food… What else could you ask for?

Please RSVP david.gall@sketchup.com (david.gall@sketchup.com)

JayStPeter
09-14-2004, 5:23 PM
I answered I saw, I liked, I dropped it. The reason: price. I think something much cheaper can do what I need. Sketchup would be nice, but I'll get by w/what I got.

Jay

Kevin Swindle
09-17-2004, 9:24 AM
Todd or Jim:

Does Sketchup give you any prebuilt templates? Does everything need to be done from scratch? For instance, if I were to design my new shop do I have to create the machines ( TS,DP,BS,DC,AC). I have been looking for a package but at $500 :eek:. I have the advantage of getting academic priced software because the LOML is in education and there are some good discounts to be had.

Rich,

Some else posted this link previously but it is a good free 2D shop layout tool. It has all the mahines you listed above and more.

http://www.grizzly.com/workshopplanner.cfm

Dave Richards
09-17-2004, 2:47 PM
Rich, the tools shown in the following drawing are componets available in SketchUp. Would they get you started?
http://www.woodshopphotos.com/albums/Dave-R1s-Album/joinerytools.jpg
I did the shavehorse just for fun.
http://www.woodshopphotos.com/albums/Dave-R1s-Album/shavehorse.sized.jpg
I'm in the process of building this cabinet for my shop right now.
http://www.woodshopphotos.com/albums/Dave-R1s-Album/shopcab3.jpg

SketchUp is certainly useful for me and has an easier learning curve than any of the CAD programs I've used.

Jim Becker
09-17-2004, 2:54 PM
Here's a couple that I have available...so far...

Ian Barley
09-18-2004, 12:56 PM
I like it and have played with the demo a little but don't have the need enough to justify the price.

Rich Konopka
09-18-2004, 1:07 PM
Dave:


Your killing me !! Those are awesome !!! I'm talking about the cabinets.

Jim:

I read the FWW article this werk and I downloaded DesignCad 3d and have been checking it out. I am hopelessly a newbie on it and have a long way to go.

Dave Richards
09-18-2004, 9:00 PM
Rich, thanks on the cabinet drawings. Did you know you can add dimension, too? ;)

FWIW, I designed that cabinet to be built mostly from 2x lumber scrap I had on hand. Once you joint and plane it, some of it isn't too bad. I did come up a bit short on a few pieces and ended up ripping shorter pieces down and gluing them up like bricks to get the length.

Seriously on SketchUp, I know it is kind of expensive but the learning curve is very shallow and short. It will let you make drawings of just about anything you want and allow youand others to see concepts. Most people have a hard time converting 2D drawings into 3D concepts in their head. I still use an old 2D CAD program when I need that kind of thing but SketchUp is the tool of choice when I need to show something to others and many times it gives me more than enough information to act as a plan for me to work from.

Michael Perata
09-19-2004, 12:01 AM
Todd

I'm the one guy who bought it but doesn't use it - yet!

I've got AutoCAD 2004 which keeps me pretty busy on the learning curve, but when I started to play around with SU (v2.1) I was impressed. v4.0 is reported to have a lot more functionality and usability.

Jim Becker
09-19-2004, 12:06 AM
. v4.0 is reported to have a lot more functionality and usability.
Yes...I just used the "Follow Me" feature last night to wrap a molding profile around the top of an armoire I was playing around with. Pretty amazing, although it took me a few trys to make it work right!

Dave Richards
09-19-2004, 8:22 AM
That Follow Me function in SU4 seems to to be an incredibly powerful tool for doing moldings and edge treatments. If you can draw the profile, you can extrude it along the edge of a piece.

Jim, the trick I've found to using Folow Me is that the profile needs to start perpendicular to the line it will follow. Remember, if you want the molding to go all the way around, you can hold the ALT key after selecting the profile and drag the cursor across the plane formed by the edges.

Jim Becker
09-19-2004, 9:43 AM
Remember, if you want the molding to go all the way around, you can hold the ALT key after selecting the profile and drag the cursor across the plane formed by the edges.AH........missed that one! I wonded why it was being so ornary. I had to draw the molding profile twice to complete this one and then "join" them in the middle somewhere. Thanks for the tip! (Yea, I know...ReadTheFabulousManual)

Rich Konopka
09-19-2004, 10:30 AM
[QUOTE=(Yea, I know...ReadTheFabulousManual)
Is that a new SMC term? I have heard similiar expressions :p


Dave:

As I said before you are killing me !! You are slowly convincing me to look at SU with your drawings. Also, I have seen some beautiful pieces from 2x4's.


Is SU that easy? I really good with a computer but this DesignCad is killing me. The trial download is for 15 days and it did not come with a manual. I found one for an old version on Amazon. It is really worthless in that it doesn't explain the terms very well. IIRC, the author of FWW article had some previous experience and found this easiest of them all. This concerns me in that it will take a long learning curve. In the mean time I'll keep pluging away.

Cadless in Connecticut

Jim Becker
09-19-2004, 10:42 AM
I really good with a computer but this DesignCad is killing me. ...This concerns me in that it will take a long learning curve. In the mean time I'll keep pluging away.Rich, I've used DesignCAD for a long time, although not to the point that I would say I'm skilled at it. But I will say that the "lightbulb" that went off and made things a lot easier is when I finally "got it" that CAD is all about points, distance and angle, not "drawing". You have to think differently. Once I attained that understanding, I was able to become functional very quickly with the program, at least for the things I needed to do all the drawings for the kitchen renovation and some other projects over the years. So don't give up on it yet. (BTW, I also find that using the crosshair cursor helps a lot to bridge the gap between "drawing" and CAD in this program)

SketchUp! on the other hand, is truly a "drawing" program. It does have some things you need to understand up-front; largely about how the 3 dimensional space works and how to insure you are on the correct plane, etc. But the extensive tutorial videos online really help with that.

Frankly, I would not give up either program at this point--they both do what they do very well. If I need something extremely detailed with absolutely exact dimensions, than I'll work with DesignCAD at this point...I have not been able to work at quite that level with SketchUp! so far. But for really visualizing a project, I love SketchUp!, and in most cases, I believe I could build a project from the drawings I make with it since I believe in "field measurement, anyway, during construction.


Is that a new SMC term? I have heard similiar expressions
It's the SMC politically correct version...

Jamie Buxton
09-19-2004, 11:29 AM
That Follow Me function in SU4 seems to to be an incredibly powerful tool for doing moldings and edge treatments. If you can draw the profile, you can extrude it along the edge of a piece.

Jim, the trick I've found to using Folow Me is that the profile needs to start perpendicular to the line it will follow. Remember, if you want the molding to go all the way around, you can hold the ALT key after selecting the profile and drag the cursor across the plane formed by the edges.

Follow Me looked very good to me until I found that it doesn't work on curved lines. The function that it does do I can already do manually. Grump!

Bart Leetch
09-19-2004, 4:07 PM
It's a great program just way to expensive for a hobbyist.

As for the learning curve I can doodle a quick sketch on a piece of paper & write in a measurements & be building before I'd have time to learn how to use it.

I think learning to use it would be like having another hobby.

Dave Richards
09-19-2004, 4:24 PM
Follow Me looked very good to me until I found that it doesn't work on curved lines. The function that it does do I can already do manually. Grump!

Actually, Jamie, it does work on curved lines. The profile needs to start perpendicular to the first segment that makes up the curve.

Rich, I have found SketchUp to be very easy to learn and it takes very little time to make drawings that I can work from in the shop. As far as the time it takes to learn, it really isn't long. In my case, I have times when I can't be in the shop but can be working on my project if I can be working on a drawing of it. I find the time spent drawing shortens the time spent doing layout and machine setup because I've gone through it all in my head.

I guess like all parts of woodworking there are some who would rather just start making sawdust and others who like to spend time planning. To each their own.

Jamie Buxton
09-19-2004, 9:48 PM
Actually, Jamie, it does work on curved lines. The profile needs to start perpendicular to the first segment that makes up the curve.


I get an error message that says "cannot extrude curved face."

Don Selke
09-21-2004, 2:47 AM
I use Design CAD at the present time. I logged on to the sketchup web site and reviewed the product. It really looks interesting but I can not justify the cost of the program. I was going to download the demo but I hate to get attached to something that I can not purchase. I would have to purchase it out of my shop allowance or budget.

Dave Richards
09-21-2004, 1:15 PM
Jamie, I'm glad we got that figured out. ;)

What do you think of this, gang?
http://www.woodshopphotos.com/albums/Dave-R1s-Album/roller.jpg

Jim Becker
09-21-2004, 1:53 PM
Geepers, Dave, between you and Mr. Burch, I'm in awe with your SketchUp! skills!

Dave Richards
09-21-2004, 4:14 PM
Jim, you can do this stuff, too. I'm just playing around. I might build this thing although I might be able to buy the one from Lee Valley for less than the price of the casters.

Bart Leetch
09-21-2004, 5:16 PM
Here's a couple that I have available...so far...


Boy that one ugly lookin jointer. Where you fine one that ugly. He He He. :D :D :D

Jim Becker
09-21-2004, 5:29 PM
Boy that one ugly lookin jointer. Where you fine one that ugly. He He He.
Hey, it not only slices, but it dices, too, since it's a jointer/planer combo!! :D (Julienne-ing requires an option I didn't buy...)

Bob Winkler
09-29-2004, 12:01 PM
Great program, great company, great support. But the price puts it out of hobbiest use. Now if I can only convince my boss that I need it for work...:rolleyes:

Dave Richards
09-29-2004, 12:37 PM
Bob, if you do any woodwork for other people, you might find SketchUp gives you an edge in communicating your ideas to them. This can help avoid costly mistakes and delays. Maybe that's a way to justify it, anyway.

And just to tempt all of you a bit more here's a recent work in progress. It is the steering mechanism I designed, built and installed in the sailboat I built. I'm not finished with the drawing yet. I still need to model the roller chain and the sprockets as well as put in the steering cables, turning blocks and bottle screws. The spokes on the wheel are stylized and don't look exactly like the original but I like the way they turned out.

http://www.woodshopphotos.com/albums/Dave-R1s-Album/steeringmech.sized.jpg

Bob Winkler
09-29-2004, 12:49 PM
I'm amazed at your work Dave. And if I was in the business of doing woodworking for others, I would find it to be a valuable tool for sales (kind of like Todd).

But being in the electronics industry, as good as I am at BS, this would be a tough justification for company purchase. I almost convinced myself that I could use it to design 19" equipment racks with it- but then my guilty conscience said "who are you kidding." ;)

Maybe someday they will come out with a "Sketchup Lite" for the rest of us.

Bob

Dave Richards
09-29-2004, 12:58 PM
You could maybe tell your boss you're going to draw chips and resistors and capacitors and... :D :D

I know what you mean about the price. I thought it was pretty pricey but decided it was like adding another tool to my shop and there weren't any power tools on my want list right now. I expect it will work for me for a very long time. I don't really do any woodworking for hire but I might.

FWIW, I've completed the lower part of the shop cabinet (except the doors) I posted earlier. The drawing I did in SketchUp served as the only plans. I did all the dimensioning in SU. Since I put the various components on individual layers I was able to hide things that I didn't need for the portion of the cabinet I was working on at the time.

I'll have to take some pics of the base unit and post them.

Jim Becker
09-29-2004, 2:39 PM
Bob, you just reminded me of a drawing I did recently with SketchUp! to describe a communications solution in "3D". I didn't end up using it because things changed at the last minute, but it certainly created an impressive view from the "virtual enterprise" standpoint! (Sadly, I deleted the sucker, so I can't post it...)

Bob Winkler
09-30-2004, 11:31 AM
Jim, I'm sure I would use it for work if I had it. I make lots of presentations of systems that we put together for internal use. Most of the time I can get away with PowerPoint, or if needed, I use AutoSketch.

But as tempting as it is, I would know that the the main reason to purchase SU would be for Wood Working, and $500 is too much money to kid myself about. I would expect the same from the guys who work for me.

Who knows, maybe I'll get a big bonus this year.

Bob