Sketchup - Am I missing the point?

[Marty Tippin]

So I finally spent some time over the weekend playing with Sketchup. My purpose was to model a simple bookcase that I built in a class at the local Woodcraft store a year or two again so that I could make another one. The bookcase is simple enough that I could have scribbled out some dimensions on a sheet of scratch paper and had no problem getting the pieces cut and assembled, but I figured I'd use this as an opportunity to learn a new tool.

It took longer than it should have, but I was eventually able to get the model created, complete with rabbets, dados and tongue & groove joinery where needed. I downloaded the "Cutlist" add-on and was able to generate a cutlist and layout for the sheet goods, so that was helpful and almost made the time spent worthwhile.

What I *really* wanted, however, was to produce a actual printed plan that I could work from - something that included both a cut list and various dimensioned views showing the location of the rabbets, dados, etc. But to do that, as far as I can tell, you have to spend $500 or more on the "professional" version and use the "Layout" application.

Until you become extremely proficient at using the software, you'll waste hours upon hours making a pretty virtual model of whatever object you want to create, and then you're left without anything that you can actually print and take to the workshop. And I can't imagine that very many hobbyist woodworkers are going to spend $500 on the professional version, so I'm left wondering why a hobbyist would want to bother with Sketchup at all?

Am I missing something here?

[Dave Richards]

Marty, I think you're missing a lot.

Were you proficient at hand cutting dovetails after you cut the first joint? Were you fast? Proficiency at anything takes practice.

As for creating a plan, I think I already wrote to you in a PM that you can make plans using the free version. A lot of folks do just that. I like using LayOut and find it makes it easier but it isn't a requirement. And it's more than just making a plan.

I know from personal experience and from talking with many woodworkers, that they've found SketchUp to be a very useful tool for woodworking.

[Phil Thien]

I'm less concerned about plans and more concerned with a model that helps me with proportions. I cannot tell you the # of times I've built something (of my own imagination) and on first glance thought "I wish the legs were a little taller or thinner" or whatever.

So now when I'm making a table or stand or whatever, I'll typically model it in SketchUp until I like the looks, then I print a few views with measurements I need, and I'm good to go.

[glenn bradley]

I agree that practice will yield greater results in less time. Think how much better you drive now then when you only had 9 hours behind the wheel.

I use scenes to create orthogonal views and views with exploded dimensional details of complex joinery. This would be fairly error prone with a pencil and paper for me but, I have not studied mechanical drawing since high school and my skills are as good as non-existent.

Here are parts of three scenes pasted to a single image like I might carry out to the shop:

301811

[Judson Green]

I agree with Phil.

I'm not currently a SU user, but I'll draw something in CAD, sometimes well into the project, just to get the proportions right.

[Jim Becker]

I'm with Phil on this, too...I need a tool like this less for "plans" (although I'll occasionally work out some dimensions for something), but rather, for visualization and getting the proportions correct. I can't afford to make prototypes for many things, both in material and time. Prototyping visually in SketchUp, which is something I can do when I have snippets of time available, has been a very valuable tool. To take things to a macro scale, I did the original designs for our 2200 sq ft home addition a few years ago so it was easy for me to provide a visualization to the contractor and architect who in turn, provided the required plans and execution.

[Mark Bolton]

All good info here Marty. I will add my +1 to what these guys have said.

While I agree with you that for a simple shape or a simple item there is no value in sitting down and modeling the entire thing in SU. That said, when you get into more and more complex work it becomes a very very valuable tool. The thing I always remind people is that as impatient as you may be, if you cant build it in the computer, you cant build in in the shop. EDIT** I just want to clarify that I didnt mean if you cant run a computer you cant build something. What I mean is if it wont go together in the computer (part too long, to short, too thick, wrong angle) it wont go together in the shop either. EDIT** So to me, this means you can either work through endless pitfalls and things you missed or didnt realize until you saw it first hand, all the while burning through expensive material and valuable shop time, or you can work those kinks out in software.

There is a reason why nearly everything made today is modeled first in software. Its because its cheaper than making the mistake in the expensive "real world".

Again, a simple bookcase, or other fairly simple project I would never bother to model (though to be honest once you get use to working from a very precise cutlist and plan and the thought it saves it gets hard to work without one) but the more complex you get the better it is. And as Phil said, it can really be a bonus for gaining a feel for proportion and visual weight, though even when rendered in software the real world piece can feel a little different than you'd hoped.

To me it would seem you really have to evaluate the type of work you do and whether SU is a good compliment. If the bulk of your work is easily done in a quick hand sketch than yes, SU isnt going to help you a lot. If however you come across a pretty complex piece, or some kitchen cabinets, and so on, its an invaluable too.

I cheat a little bit and use a paid plugin for most any case construction I do and would never do without it. It makes rendering an entire kitchen just a few hours work. I would have days and days into doing it on paper and I will guarantee you there will be things that are wrong, made wrong, and that you just accept because you missed it. In SU I can head off 99.9 percent of those.

If your doing any work that requires you to express your views/visions to a customer or wife, and they to you, the 3D is amazing for that as many people simply cant convey/translate their ideas effectively.

[Matt Day]

+1 to what Phil said.

For me, Everything from a picture frame to a coffee table to built ins are drawn in sketch-up.

[Eric DeSilva]

I'm with Phil too--SU is great for looking at proportions. I also find it is useful sometimes to avoid thinking. Sounds odd, but I'm sure with a pencil and paper I can plot out and figure out odd spacing spacing issues. But sometimes it just seems easier to model it in SU and then adjust things to create the spacing you want. Said another way, if I'm building a small cabinet and trying to figure out the size drawers I want as a functional and aesthetic matter, sometimes its easiest to just do it in SU. I can shrink/expand drawers and just measure and move things to readjust spacing between and the like.

[Peter Quinn]

Different people work differently, but at this point I couldn't work without it. I print scenes and full sized drawings all the time, my mac lets me export PDF versions from the free version that I can have printed on ANSI d paper for large prints, you can even pull off scaled versions and tile small prints to make a larger drawing. Yes, they give you an awesome program for free and place some restrictions on the free version, much of that can be worked around for the hobbiest. Don't give up on it yet, read Dave's book and blog, I think you may in fact have missed something.

[Mark Bolton]

+1 to what Phil said.

For me, Everything from a picture frame to a coffee table to built ins are drawn in sketch-up.

I thought about including this in my other post but didnt. Reading this though I just have to say that "to me at least" there is still a lot that has to be worked out and tweaked in the shop on "certain work". I do notice a lot with work (my own and by others) that is extensively modeled in software, that it can feel I guess, cold, clinical, sharp, tentative, what ever adjective you wish for the kind of cold harsh environment of a computer. Even the most flowing/organic renders in SU or Solidworks are cold compared to someones real-life interpretation.

I know its a philosophical thing and that likely most everyone adjusts/tweaks as they learn to design on the computer. And of course again, I suppose it depends a lot on the type of work you do.

There is some work I do that just cant realistically be rendered in the software unless I absolutely had to. Some that relates directly to the space it is in which cant really be represented in the narrow FOV of SU or any other software.

To me its a balance and the broken record of the type of work you do.

I cant for the life of me rationalize modeling a picture frame in SU. Its a pretty regular occasion that people bring something to the shop to be framed and they want something unique or something I feel is complimentary to the piece being framed. Its one of those times where I head to the chalk board in the shop, then to the rack, then to the shaper, and so on.

[Marty Tippin]

I'm not necessarily discounting the idea of Sketchup, just not finding that it meets my particular needs "out of the box"...

Is there a blog post or (preferably) tutorial online somewhere that goes through the steps of producing something that resembles a real, printed plan?

[Dave Richards]

I did that in a DVD/digital download I made for Fine Woodworking. It shows how to go from a basic concept to a detailed model and then on to a plan.

[Marty Tippin]

I did that in a DVD/digital download I made for Fine Woodworking. It shows how to go from a basic concept to a detailed model and then on to a plan.

Is that "Fine Woodworking’s Google SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers - The Basics"?

Looks like the download is on sale at a good discount right now - I'll grab a copy and give it a whirl...

[Dave Richards]

That's it.

[Matt Day]

I cant for the life of me rationalize modeling a picture frame in SU.

Mark,

The biggest reason for me to model a picture frame in SU is for design. I can get a feel for the frame proportions (thickness & width of frame, mat size & color, etc) and general wood color/species. I import the picture, or a picture of the artwork, then stretch it to size in SU. All of this gets me an accurate depiction of what the picture or artwork will look like so I can get approval from the client (my wife). And when for instance I just dropped $100 on Wenge for a rather large frame, I don't want to screw up a dimension in the shop because I didn't take the time to design it correctly.

For me, it's organic to go from the computer, to working drawings, to the shop. It's also pretty quick since I think I'm rather proficient at SU. If you can't rationalize it, to each his own.

[Dave Richards]

I would agree with Matt. Sometimes even for simple projects, an accurate drawing is nice to have. Even for something like a frame (https://flic.kr/p/oGgZZr) or a little fold up table (https://flic.kr/p/o2XY86) for my sailboat. Especially if I need to show it to someone else.

[Keith Weber]

Personally, life around the shop is so much easier with Sketchup than it was before. I design furniture with it so that I can look at it in 3D to make sure that the proportions are pleasing. No more mockups or do-overs because I didn't like the looks of something after it was built.

I designed my entire shop on Sketchup when I was kicking around hotels on layovers and had time to kill. Then, when I was back building the shop, I was able to just start cutting pieces to length and figuring everything out when my time was more valuable. It also allowed me to discover and fix mistakes in advance that I probably would have missed had I not had the ability to see everything in 3D. Like the truss that I would have hit my head on climbing the stairs to the loft, or the toilet drain that was going to fall right on a floor joist. It saved me a lot of future headaches.

It also allows me to see if the tools I want to buy will actually fit in my shop. Space is tight in my narrow shop, and everything is planned down to a fraction of an inch in some areas. My slider carriage and crosscut fence clears my jointer by 1/4" laterally, and and 3/4" vertically. I needed to be able to work that out with great certainty before I spent my money on the slider.

The tape measure tool has allowed me to figure out diagonal dimensions needed to determine if I could get something out of the basement (when my shop was there), or if I had to assemble it upstairs.

It is a very powerful program. It just takes time to get good at it, like everything else. But, it's a lot easier to learn than a lot of the professional CAD software, and best of all... it's free. For what I use it for, I never found a need to buy the pro version. I've shown a lot of people the program on my laptop, and what I can do with it. Every single person that I've showed it to, has been blown away with its capabilities, and has written down the name of it to download it when they get home. I suspect most of them probably went home, downloaded it, and then found out that they can't immediately do what I did so quickly and easily, right away, and then gave up, but if you stick at it, you'll find it a very capable and helpful tool for the workshop.

I never print anything out because I use a laptop, and just bring it to the shop with me, so I can't comment on that aspect of it.

Keith

[Chris Padilla]

I like being able to take real-world pictures of a wood species/fancy grain, and paste onto a cabinet face to see how it would look. Messing with colors is a bonus, too. Getting proportions right is a key item as well. Just recently I designed a new vanity, side cabinet, and overhead cabinet for our new master bathroom remodel. Dimensions were adjusted as we went along to get everything how we liked.

One thing about these cabinets I designed was I could highlight where exposed edges of plywood might be and either redesign how my box went together or planned for some edge-banding. Cool stuff. Sketch-Up is as valuable tool as my table saw.

[Steve Baumgartner]

I agree with everything positive said so far. I find that I get a much better feel for the proportions and shape of a tentative design by spinning it around and zooming in and out than I could ever get with pencil and paper. I can easily stretch or shrink things and put them back if I don't like the result. I can move elements such as knobs to decide on a good placement. And on and on... This makes it much easier discussing alternatives with a client, or even just for making up my own mind.

I did some cabriole legs once and thought I had drawn a wonderful profile. Then I viewed them from lots of directions and found that the profile curve gave me a very misleading impression of the final shape (which was awful!). Glad I didn't learn that after carving out a bunch of $ worth of cherry or mahogany!

I do shop plans using multiple views, one or two isometric-like perspectives and one in each of the traditional orthogonal orientations, plus detail blowups and exploded versions where an assembly is complicated. I know that Dave likes using Layout, which comes with the Pro version, but I never bothered to learn it because I my plans are for my personal use and the simple views are good enough for that.

You can do everything you need using the built-in tools in the free version of SketchUp, though there are numerous woodworking-oriented plugins that greatly simplify or speed up common tasks.

[Mark Bolton]

For me, it's organic to go from the computer, to working drawings, to the shop. It's also pretty quick since I think I'm rather proficient at SU. If you can't rationalize it, to each his own.

Couldnt agree more Matt. I print full drawings and cutlists from sketchup daily. Moving from a drawing to the shop is absolutely flawless. Most every job I take out to the shop printed in tabloid with full scale sections and details. Its a great asset. That said, when a project is very organic there is simply no way to, in a reasonable amount of time, render it out. It would be like a comparison between hand carving a detail and milling it on a CNC. The CNC will never capture the concept regardless of how much work goes into the programming.

As you say, to each his own. Some tend to be more productive "in the work" while others arent able. The OP may well be someone like Sam Maloof who would likely find he SU method of design clinical and cold. I choose to bounce back and forth.

[Bradley Gray]

This is all good information. I'm still stuck in the last century with my renderings. I use a drawing/ light table t-square and triangles to draw 3 views then turn on the lights and trace an ink copy. This gets scanned into photoshop to scale and clean up and email to the client. If I need 3D renderings I either use the perspective filter or make a quick band sawn model to photograph. The original drawing gets marked up with the inevitable changes and rules the build.

[Grant Wilkinson]

Marty: You will learn a lot from Dave's DVD/videos!

[Mike Ontko]

I'm still in the early learning stages with SketchUp, but like others have mentioned I find it to be helpful in working through some of the basic proportions and construction details once I've finalized my napkin doodles. One thing that I've thought would be nice for gauging proportions would be the ability to import a scaled photographic image or even a line drawing of a person, to use for visual comparison. Is this even possible in the free version of SU?

Also, a +1 for Dave Richards, "The Basics" DVD.

[Dave Richards]

Thank you Grant and Mike.

Mike, you can indeed import a human figure to give your model scale. Go to the Components window in SketchUp and type something like 'man standing' in the search line. There's hundreds of people and other figures you can download and insert into your models. Here's an example (https://flic.kr/p/9H4Pyc) and another example (https://flic.kr/p/coTDDY).

[mreza Salav]

I'm a computer guy and live with them, yet I find these drawing softwares waste of time for *almost* all things I do. I find it a LOT faster to calculate things on my own (btw I rarely use calculators either) and do some rough drawings on paper. There is only one time that I used a full sketch-up of the project and that was for the cabinets I'm making for the house I'm doing and it's a very large project with many hundreds (perhaps thousands) of pieces. It took me hours (mostly evenings after dinner) to draw things and do measurements. The shear number of items of different sizes was way too much to keep track of without a good spread sheet. For the rest of my projects I have a (paper) notebook that I draw things (roughly) and do my calculations and off I go.

[Larry Edgerton]

This is all good information. I'm still stuck in the last century with my renderings. I use a drawing/ light table t-square and triangles to draw 3 views then turn on the lights and trace an ink copy. This gets scanned into photoshop to scale and clean up and email to the client. If I need 3D renderings I either use the perspective filter or make a quick band sawn model to photograph. The original drawing gets marked up with the inevitable changes and rules the build.

I'm more in this camp. I would like to be able to play with designs on the screen just for changes. I bought a cad program years ago recommended by a genius machinist find of mine and found it made me forget my original plan just because I was using so much of my limited mental energy trying to make the program work. I went back to paper as it is second nature to me.

That being said, I think I will order Dave's CD as sketch-up sounds a lot simpler that what I tried 15 years ago.

Larry

[Erik Christensen]

I find it invaluable for cabinet case construction. In a run of 20' of base cabinets when management says "I want this bank of drawers X inches bigger/smaller" it takes a few seconds to move a case wall and all the other dimensions automatically adjust. There is no way I could have done the kitchen without it. I am now in the process of doing the master closet - get the cases defined in sketchup, copy parts dimensions to custlist+ and head to the shop to break down the sheet goods.

I got a spacemouse a few weeks ago and it has made a huge difference in my productivity in using sketchup

[Mark Bolton]

I'm a computer guy and live with them, yet I find these drawing softwares waste of time for *almost* all things I do. I find it a LOT faster to calculate things on my own (btw I rarely use calculators either) and do some rough drawings on paper. There is only one time that I used a full sketch-up of the project and that was for the cabinets I'm making for the house I'm doing and it's a very large project with many hundreds (perhaps thousands) of pieces. It took me hours (mostly evenings after dinner) to draw things and do measurements. The shear number of items of different sizes was way too much to keep track of without a good spread sheet. For the rest of my projects I have a (paper) notebook that I draw things (roughly) and do my calculations and off I go.

That's where a 29 dollar a month plug in is smart. All drag and drop dynamic components. Lays out all dados, rabbets, joinery. Automatically redraws on scaling, adjust a single change across a range of cabinets. Etc.

Your time is very valuable.

[glenn bradley]

I think I will order Dave's CD as sketch-up sounds a lot simpler that what I tried 15 years ago.

A comment on Dave's Disc; I found following the course, as is, very beneficial. What I found as a 'hidden' benefit was watching the lessons again and again and observing how Dave did things just as much as what he was doing. This really streamlined my approach to drawings.

[Marty Tippin]

That's where a 29 dollar a month plug in is smart. All drag and drop dynamic components. Lays out all dados, rabbets, joinery. Automatically redraws on scaling, adjust a single change across a range of cabinets. Etc.

Your time is very valuable.

What plugin are you referring to?

[Mark Bolton]

CabinetSense its pretty impressive for much much more than just kitchen cabs. You can push it into nearly anything you'd like. Tables, coffee tables, built ins, and so on.

Its no different than anything in that you need to populate a bit of a library with the conatruction details you use in your work but after that its very repeatable.

P.S. I believe you can enable/disable your subscription also which allows you to opt out for a period if your not using it.

[mreza Salav]

I've seen Cabinetsense and indeed it has lots of features. If the project is complicated with lots of components it is faster to use these softwares but for smaller projects I rather pen and paper. Even for my entry door unit that I built I had a one page piece of paper with dimensions and so on (many of them were calculated as I went).

[Mark Bolton]

I've seen Cabinetsense and indeed it has lots of features. If the project is complicated with lots of components it is faster to use these softwares but for smaller projects I rather pen and paper. Even for my entry door unit that I built I had a one page piece of paper with dimensions and so on (many of them were calculated as I went).

For sure. Not debating you at all because people work however they choose. I would have put your entry door in CS, included all my profile and machining depths, and output a couple views, a dead accurate cutlist of all parts, and been out to the shop with no calculating on the fly.

Its the reason why commercial shops output work this way. Its just faster, more consistent, and less mistakes. But I definitely understand the enjoyment of getting in the shop and working though a project "in the work". Having to account for overhead and profitability I dont often get to do that much any more (and do miss it). I do have to say I dont miss the mistakes and the recovery from a flub that was a fairly common occurrence working things out in the build.