SketchUp is Awesome!

[Jason Hanko]

So I Downloaded Sketchup yesterday, and this thing is so cool!
I was messing around with it and decided to learn how to use the program by modeling out my next project: an awesome looking planer stand for my new DW735 planer! I still need to add the drawers and casters. :D

The actual concept/design is from Jeff Bratt. Pictures of the real thing are here on Jeff's site: http://home.san.rr.com/jeffnann/WoodWorking/Shop/Shop.html#Planer_Stand

Now I just need to find time to build it in real life... :D

[Jim Becker]

You seem to be grasping SketchUp! quickly, Jason. Nice work!

[Jim Fox]

I love sketchup too, easy to fix my mistakes and I don't waste good wood. But looking at the first line in your signature.............I HATE YOUR ATHELETES TOO! :p:p:p

GO BLUE!

[Chris Schumann]

Proud to Hate Michigan Athletics Since 1981
I'm a badger too, Jason, but 1981? Time to let go. As a crayon poster said in a gradeschool a few years ago: Don't be haten.

[Jason Hanko]

Well thats as far back as I can go...unless you can count prenatal hatin' too.... ;)

[John Schreiber]

SketchUp is awesome indeed and you are going great guns at it. Keep on going and don't be afraid to ask questions here.

[Jason Hanko]

One Question:
Once you've exploded something, is there any easy way to "un-explode" things once again?
For example - youve a got a table made up of legs (each as a componant) and a top as a separate component. Sometimes I group the whole assembly together, and then a little bit later end up exploding the thing again.
Then if I want to go back and select just one leg for example, I can only seem to re-select either one face of the leg, or the ENTIRE table... hope that makes sense?

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

Hi Jason, Looks like you're off to a great start! Gary Katz (http://www.garymkatz.com/charts_drawings.html) has some awesome tutorials on his website. I found them a big help. Cheers!!

[Steven DeMars]

I currently run AutoCAD as an Instrumentation/Controls Designer. But that does not require 3D, so I have never learned 3D in AutoCAD.

Just curious, hat is the output of sketchup . . . ?

Everything I see seems to be rendered conceptual type drawings . . .

Is it capable of generating detailed accurate drawings with dimensions that can be used in CUTLIST?

When you draw in AutoCAD, you draw in real world dimensions. Just like if you were drawing on a huge sheet of paper. I can click any like in AutoCAD and it will tell me precisely the length of that line. You can work out problems . . . .

The drawings I have seen are impressive, but I don't want to suffer the learning curve for something that will not yield drawings like AutoCAD . . .

Attached is drawing I did for a JET Jointer/Planer Mobile Stand. Would Sketchup do something like this.

Thanks, look forward to comments . .
Steve

[tim rowledge]

Yes, SU does things with precise dimensions. Set a line to 6" and it is 6". You can roughly sketch out objects and then nudge and modify them to exact sizes - our you can sketch to get an idea and then quickly re-build with exact dimensions. Which to do depends on your taste and work style

You can developed multiple views (SU calls them 'scenes) where difference parts are emphasized. You can show dimensions in only certain scenes if you want. To prepare production drawings you use Layout (which comes with the pro version) to build a booklet of drawings suitable for slideshows and printing. I've put a simple sample at http://www.rowledge.org/tim/woodwork/OfficeBookcase.pdf to illustrate the possibilities.

[John Schreiber]

One Question:
Once you've exploded something, is there any easy way to "un-explode" things once again?
For example - youve a got a table made up of legs (each as a componant) and a top as a separate component. Sometimes I group the whole assembly together, and then a little bit later end up exploding the thing again.
Then if I want to go back and select just one leg for example, I can only seem to re-select either one face of the leg, or the ENTIRE table... hope that makes sense?
After you have exploded something, you can't go back to where you were. There are a couple of good ways to get the same functionality though.

First, when I was first learning SU, I was disappointed to find that Explode did not create an exploded drawing or anything like that. Explode means to undo the making of a component or a group. That's still very useful.

To do what you want above, you might benefit from putting components inside of other components. For instance for a workbench, there might be four individual legs, each a component and the legs together might be a component called "leg assy".

Another trick which does what you describe more directly is to open up the components list. Under Windows/Components, you can see every thing which you have made as a component in the past. I'm not sure how that works with groups, because I have always found that components are more powerful and don't have any downside in comparison with groups. When you can see the components list, you can separately pull out anything which you have made into a component in the past, even if you have exploded it in place.

Those are ways to work around components, but generally, after I have made a component I don't explode it again. I just edit in place.

Hope that helps. If not, keep asking.

[John Schreiber]

. . . The drawings I have seen are impressive, but I don't want to suffer the learning curve for something that will not yield drawings like AutoCAD . . .
. . .
Steve, I haven't played with AutoCAD except for a little bit years ago, so I can't really compare. If you already have SU installed, try downloading this file (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=18809736617cbe7e4326824bb7387d70)from the 3D Warehouse and looking at the individual scenes. I think they show how you can use SU to meet your needs as well as more "sketchy" idea development.

[John Schreiber]

. . . Is it capable of generating detailed accurate drawings with dimensions that can be used in CUTLIST?
There's Ruby plugin which does a lot by itself and can save a file which CUTLIST will read. The most recent version seems to be 4.0. Here's a link. (http://steveracz.com/joomla/content/view/45/1/)

[Jason Hanko]

There's Ruby plugin which does a lot by itself and can save a file which CUTLIST will read. The most recent version seems to be 4.0. Here's a link. (http://steveracz.com/joomla/content/view/45/1/)

Wow, what a great plugin! Thanks!!!!

[Bob Lang]

You can't "unexplode", but you can edit groups and components. Select and then right click and pick "edit group" or "edit component" from the drop down menu. If you edit a component, it will also change all the instances of that component in your model. If your legs are all the same component, editing one will change them all which is good in some cases and bad in others.

Here are a couple of things I do-make a copy of the entire model and move it over to some empty space. Now you have two versions and if you don't like the changes you can keep the original. If you like the changes delete the original. I also will pull a component into the model from the components list. A good example is a table leg-I can add mortises by editing the loose component and have them appear in all four legs instantly.

hope this helps,

Bob Lang

[Scott Schwake]

I currently run AutoCAD as an Instrumentation/Controls Designer. But that does not require 3D, so I have never learned 3D in AutoCAD.

Just curious, hat is the output of sketchup . . . ?

Everything I see seems to be rendered conceptual type drawings . . .

Is it capable of generating detailed accurate drawings with dimensions that can be used in CUTLIST?

When you draw in AutoCAD, you draw in real world dimensions. Just like if you were drawing on a huge sheet of paper. I can click any like in AutoCAD and it will tell me precisely the length of that line. You can work out problems . . . .

The drawings I have seen are impressive, but I don't want to suffer the learning curve for something that will not yield drawings like AutoCAD . . .

Attached is drawing I did for a JET Jointer/Planer Mobile Stand. Would Sketchup do something like this.

Thanks, look forward to comments . .
Steve

Steve,

I too use AutoCad (and Microstation) for my day job, but have recently discovered SU. I doubt your learning curve would be that steep being familiar with a cad-type environment. You can draw things in real world dimensions and measure distances just as in Autocad. It is obviously not as powerful as a full-blown cad package, but I'm finding it easier to use to create a rendered-type drawing, relatively quickly, and it is fun IMHO. Not sure about the output capabilities you asked about, appears it has many by reading posts here though. Here's a work/outfeed table I'm building, I spent the better part of a couple evenings drawing it while I was learning, I'm sure I could do it much quicker now. BTW, I couldn't find your attachment.

Have fun!

[Galen Tieszen]

I'd also suggest that you hit Youtube and do a search on "Sketchup" or "Sketchup tutorial" and you'll have a wealth of material to choose from. You could also search on "Aidan Chopra". He is the author of the Sketchup for Dummies book, and has video tutorials for each chapter of the book on Youtube. His tutorials are usually very well done and aimed at the complete noobie. If you take the time to go over the SU website tutorials, and hit Youtube, you will be doing constructive work within HOURS. Then as time goes on, you can get up to speed on things like materials, and draping photos over your models to bring them to life, or placeing the model in GoogleEarth.

And as for Autocad to Sketchup -- I tried learning Turbocad over several years (self taught) and was just beginning to figure out some things when I discovered SU. I was drawing kitchen cabinet plans in SU within 48hrs! It's that intuitive!! Virtually no learning curve. Best part -- IT'S FREE!!!

[Thomas Bank]

New to the forum, but I've been using SketchUp for about eight years so it is something that I can speak to.



New SketchUp users often seem to think the "explode" command automatically makes an exploded drawing. The first time I heard this question I was a little incredulous, but "explode" dates way back in AutoCAD as the term for converting a block (like a SketchUp group or component) to its sundry parts and I began to see how people without that CAD program could be confused. You cannot "un-explode" something to reassemble it, but you can select all of the parts and make them a group or component once again. If you attempt to name the component the same name as before, it will tell you that a component with that name already exists and ask if you want to replace the current component with the new component you are creating.
Expanding upon that last sentence a bit, I find some confusion about when to use groups vs components. They are very similar, but the main difference is that copies of a group are each unique while all copies of a component are all identical. Editting one copy of a component will change all copies of that component as well. Editting one copy of a grouped element will only change that one group.
Also remember that groups and components are only saved with the particular drawing file you are working on. If you want to use something in other drawings, it must be a component. Right click on it and select "save as" and then you can save it out of that drawing. A saved component is really no different from any other drawing file - you can then open it up and work on just that component. But you can also import it into any other drawing you are working on and use it there as well. If you update that saved component, you can save it out to a file again. Then, any drawing that you have used it in you can right click on the component in the drawing and select "reload" to bring in the new saved version.
To address the question of precision, as a registered architect I've used AutoCAD, MicroStation, and a number of other CAD programs through the years. The company that I am with now uses both SketchUp and AutoCAD in the process from design to construction. Preliminary design, schematic design, and a certain amount of the design development process are done in SketchUp. The combination of 3D, ease of use, and animation make it much more easy to work with our clients and resolve potential issues in SketchUp at these stages. Clients react very well to seeing things in 3D and even in our professional coordination being able to see how things fit together in 3D and look at things from different angles helps to avert issues later on in the construction process. From SketchUp, we export information into AutoCAD and do the construction documents from there. Two qualifications that I will make on precision, though. First is curved elements. SketchUp uses arcs and circles of segmented straight lines. You can set how many segments to divide a curve into, but increasing the number of segments can exponentially increase the number of faces in elements and slow things down substantially. Second is the free version vs. the pro version. The free version can only output at screen resolution. If you want to be able to print to a large format printer you should really consider the pro version. Layout was introduced in the pro version of SketchUp6 as a beta, but is now "final" in SketchUp7.
Definitely take advantage of the video training. YouTube videos were mentioned, but at http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html you can find all the videos from the SketchUp team themselves. The "new to SketchUp" section has short videos for pretty much every single command so that you can gain insight for something specific that you are having trouble with.


Possibly more information here than people may have wanted, but I've always been excited to be able to make use of some of my professional use to the betterment of my hobbies! :)

[Neal Clayton]

another thing you can do, for people who want a "quick and dirty" drawing...

while drawing things like tenons and mortises and other such length/width/thickness variations might be the proper way, you can alternatively simply lay measurements out and then edit the numbers.

for simple structures like tables, doors, etc. this is easier imo than trying to draw everything to perfection and then generate a cutlist.

make a bunch of square surfaces, put them together, apply measurements, and edit the measurements, you're done in 20 minutes.