What are /r/Sketchup's favorite Products & Services?

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Sketchup 2015 was actually released on November 2014. And Trimble is aiming for a yearly release cycle so I believe Sketchup 2016 release date is just around the corner. *Edit:A word

Looks good, should have a go at rendering it, Twinmotion is free at the moment take it for a spin: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/twinmotion?utm_source=GoogleSearch&utm_medium=Performance&utm_campaign=an*Internal_pr*UnrealEngine_ct*Search_pl*Brand_co*Nordics_cr*broad&utm_id=1975417377&utm_content=&gclid=CjwKCAjwue3nBRACEiwAkpZhmftywg1sSKe-i9rjhZ8xN5QLDMTclIPP2rI8dr8hopOhZn_cNCL-6xoCSgcQAvD_BwE

Unreal Studio and Datasmith are your friend here, its as close as you can get to plug and play for VR in SketchUp. You can get up and running in Unreal in a day or two in order to give simple VR presentations.

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I cant share any examples I have done as its all confidential work but suffice to say I have been using this method for over one year now without issue.

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https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/studio

Yes, in fact they have a version tailored to Architecture and Automotive called Unreal Studio (I am automotive based) https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/studio

Really depends on your use case. Layout's real selling point is its native skp handling capabilities, and that's impossible to find anywhere else for obvious reasons. If what you're looking for is a vector-based presentation software without the CAD part, something like Inkscape would be more than fine, though it's been a while since I've used that so I don't know if it's outdated now.

I don't know if this helps or not. Since people have been recommending cleaning up drawings in autocad first maybe look at bricscad. It's kind of an autocad clone but with decent direct 3d modeling and the Shape product is free and tries to give it a more Sketchup like interface. Personally I think it's better than either autocad or sketchup.

It may give a more sketchup like interface to help clean up autocad drawings.

https://www.bricsys.com/en-us/bricscad-shape

Using the chris fulmer 'shape bender' tool on a starting straight thread geometry (triangular extrusion) on a spiral will generate the thread that you can add to or subtract from a source tube geometry.

You can make a spiral by following these instructions. https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Spring-in-SketchUp

Sketchup's definitely one of the easiest modelling program out there, I've used Autocad, Revit, Solidworks, 3DS Max and Maya and though all of those have specific situations where they are the perfect solution, nothing lets you bang out a model in an afternoon like Sketchup does. Its not perfect because it was never really developed to produce perfection. Its mostly used in the professional world for the first draft of designs and now also can be combined with plugins for 3d printing. I would stick with it, I'm not sure how you're learning it now, everyone learns in a different way so maybe run through a youtube tutorial from the basics to get a handle on it. I've heard from others that this guy's good for tutorials. It may also be worth your time to hire someone to come in and create floorpans for your house, real estate agents use them all the time, it usually only costs a few hundred and it would be good to have a basis to work from.

As for rendering, give Twinmotion a try, they use the Unreal engine and its free to use if you download it before September or October (can't remember which month). It will give you a good idea of how rendering software works with light placement and materials and there's a bunch of tutorials on Youtube that show you how to use it from scratch. You can also create VR renders with it.

IMHO, its absolutely not worth it.

dwg export/import is available on Sketchup 7 FREE

just download SU7 and the .dwg import plugin, import your .dwg, then open in Sketchup 2014 FREE. Or just keep using 7/8 because Trimble's version doesn't really bring anything new to the table, in fact I think they have degraded the quality of the program by needlessly changing features that had no business being changed.

"If it isn't broke, don't fix it," appears to be something Trimble hasn't heard.

• Sketchup 7.1 http://download.cnet.com/Google-SketchUp/3000-6677_4-11205711.html
• dwg import plugin: http://dl.trimble.com/sketchup/gsu7/AllowDWGImportInSketchUp7.msi

Hi, this is a great follow up.
I'll add that if you are stuck with only one monitor and are struggling between windows, you can download a very small script that will place the preview window always on top (I constantly ask myself why this is not a feature in the software).

You may download the script from here: https://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/keep-window-always-on-top/5213/

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Once you start it, you simply click on the preview window's title (it's important) and use the shortcut CTRL+SPACE BAR to place the window always on top ;)

5-8. Pretty sure those ran as free once the 8 hour trial expired.

http://www.oldversion.com/windows/google-sketchup/

With that said, 2015 should run on XP just fine, and I don't think you're going to get a performance boost with older versions.

I never thought it was slow, but I've never used any of the other renderers that are available for SketchUp. It's free, so you wont see me complaining.

I really didn't put much effort into these scenes, things can look a lot better with a little more effort: Examples. More examples.

Blender is free. There are several ways to get geometry into vanilla Blender from Sketchup including exporting a model as an STL or Collada.

As for animating, I suggest looking up a tutorial on keyframes.

All done.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/de0noo

Sorry I just read your reply like a minute ago. There were two incongruities which might have been tricky to isolate. I also cleaned up some stray geometry that was unnecessary. Good luck on your assignment.

You don't save it as a pdf, you print it as a pdf. Click print and look in the printer select drop down and there should be an option that says Adobe PDF. This will print your view but instead of actually printing it, it just produces a pdf. If you don't have a printer option like that you can download a print to pdf program here.

To print to scale look at the scale settings just in the print menu. It has two box, one that says Printout and one that says In Sketchup. You adjust these to get your scale. So for example to get a scale of 1:100, put 1 in the Printout box (in cm) and put 100 in the Sketchup box (also in cm). If you're working in feet and inches its just a matter of changing the units in those menus (e.g. 1/4 inch in printout to 1 foot in sketchup will give you 1/4"-1' scale).

Here are multiple iterations of the desk design.

Some of the layers are hidden. I keep changing my mind or focusing on working out the design.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n66rck3ial64phm/FQSkv8SiQZ

If you're going to do modeling and rendering, you will want a Windows laptop unless you buy an external GPU for the MacBook Pro. Tablets that flip into laptops can't be fitted for a GPU, and they're overrated anyway. I'd recommend you get a legit laptop.

I got a refurbished Dell XPS 15 (9650) from Back Market in excellent condition for US$580. Specs are roughly equivalent to this one on Amazon and it runs Sketchup great and does test renders in V-Ray in a reasonable amount of time.

Get an external mouse. Trying to use Sketchup on a trackpad is infuriating. Good luck!

Hey guys, you have helped me in the past. I am wanting to round the angles of this shape. The best idea I can come up with to do that (at this point) is to push, pull but i will have to make a surface that is perpendicular to the angle first. I was just curious if I am going about this correctly, or there is a better way.

Thanks!

BTW, here is what I am working on. I just keep fiddling with the design. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:730489

Our teacher told us to use the program. I really liked Sketchup but I really cant be hassled to fix the problem. Here and here are some gifs I made on the problem. I might give it a shot but I really dont know. Like I said I found nothing that could help on the internet.

Sorry, Blender 3D....https://www.blender.org/

It's one of the best 3D modeling tools out there and it's 100% free for ANY use! It's not as easy to learn as SU but it can do things SU can't.

Sorry I'm only seeing this now.

a) What slicing tool are you using?

b) Can I see a picture of your t-rex?

c) The t-rex stl I was working from was at: http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/FXT/OWKR/GXK9V0FK/FXTOWKRGXK9V0FK.stl

Seriously, I need a dinosaur, any sort of interesting dinosaur, sliced up, by Saturday for the SOAK Effigy design contest. I don't think anyone else has a plan, so if I could just get this part done, I could move on.

With a few days of training you should be able to do it no problem in Unreal Engine, this is free and the training you need is also free (the training section on the Unreal Engine Homepage). You will need to download the official exporter plugin here: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/datasmith

Twinmotion is free until Nov. 2019. Give this demo a watch. You'll see it's true power. Then go watch some tuts on YouTube.

Once you figure it out, you could also look at "twimmotion" - A high quality, expensive render package that is very flexible, renders on the fly, and adds real world animation to models as well as dynamic weather. At the moment, its available free until November but once you have it, you keep it for free and still receive the updates. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/twinmotion?utm_source=GoogleSearch&utm_medium=Performance&utm_campaign=an*Internal_pr*TwinMotion_ct*Search_pl*Brand_co*UK_cr*broad&utm_id=1975417650&utm_content=&utm_term=%2Btwinmotion&gcl...

what file type do you need? stl? Make can export .dae (collada) files, then you can just use an online converter.

Also, there are plugins for sketchup you can easily get to export STL files directly.

if its some other filetype, im sure there are equivalent methods.

I don't know for sure if this works or if it is legit, but litteraly googling for "SketchUp Make 2016 64 bit" gave me a lot of results, among which this one:

https://www.filehorse.com/download-sketchup-make-64/23351/

You should build a complex auto-turrent mount. I need one. Like this, but that attaches to this part.

Or, fuck it, just build that whole turret. There is already a 3d model of it lying around, but it would make a very good test of your abilities.

Hei, wait a minute! I didn't know that kirky also exists for Mac!! This one, in my opinion is even better. I never touched a Mac in my life but in the past I've achieved results almost good as vray with this one. http://www.kerkythea.net/cms/index.php/downloads/18

I use Kerkythea to get images with photo-realistic lighting. A model can be exported from Sketchup with the scene/camera, materials and global lighting all intact. Also artificial lights can be added by modelling them in Sketchup, then setting the 'light source material' to illuminate in Kerkythea.

It is free and fairly easy to get started, but it's also quite powerful when you dig a bit deeper. If your interested I could explain a bit more, but first check out the website: http://www.kerkythea.net/

The front end of your problem (getting the QR linework into sketchup) could be made easier with a program called InkScape - link

From there, using /u/QuintenVS suggestion of the Make Faces plugin would probably save a bunch of time.

Good Luck!

This was an event in Dubai, the artist was a fairly big DJ (Sven Vath).

The diamond projection screen elements were requested in the client brief. My wife made the screens using PVC plumbing tube and screen fabric. It came out pretty awesome.

Visuals were generated by a program called Resolume for those interested.

I also previously designed the stage, trussing, audio and lighting in sketchup, which is why I had the detailed model. We had to measure the entire site with a laser as there were no existing CAD files available prior. It was a bit tricky and time consuming, but once I had the model, it made doing event designs like this MUCH easier.

That's... somewhat true. An e-mail can be sent with any From address, just like a letter can be sent with any Return address.

However, mail clients can authenticate mail servers by means of DNS records called SPF records. Those DNS records tell a mail client "if you didn't get the letter from this list of mail servers, then it's not legit."

They do appear to have applied SPF records: https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=spf%3atrimble.com

Cool! I'm on my phone now but I'll check out the link when I'm back on my PC.
Yea I'm trying to make a "cybernetic" arm based on anatomy. I have a lot of 3d models I got off an anatomy website that I want to use as the skeleton. Im hopefully getting a 3d printer soon and plan on printing out the bone models and then casting them in aluminum. That's the easy part ironically. The hard part is adding things like working pivot joints at the knuckles in software before I print.
In the hand I want them spheres with flat sides facing the fingers next to them that interlock. If that makes sense. I found a guy online with some great models of an augmented char for a game. (Well technically "similar" because its copyrighted.). Im not sure how but I might use them for a printed skin orr something. He's been very helpful but I still need to learn the software so I can design and change as I go.

If you want to get an idea of what I'm up to my sky drive public folder is at https://onedrive.live.com/#cid=9D92721F7B8CEB41&id=9D92721F7B8CEB41%21132

Well anyway, my god if I could make things that intricate in sketch up I could prototype anything. Nice work! I'll be looking at that link shortly.

Nice, if your a reader I suggest a book for inspiring architects like yourself, The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0465050654/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_K78C4M0JF75QBT849KVC

If you screenshot the SketchUp viewport, you will get exactly the same pixels you see on the screen right when you take the screenshot. If you want more pixels, you can get a bigger/higher resolution screen and make the SketchUp modeling window bigger. I use a 5k ("retina") display from LG and can get something like 2550x1450 resolution. In my experience, that is sufficient to make tight linework that is print ready. I used this technique for most of the SU-generated artwork in my book.

You don't have to use screenshots, though. From the 'Export' menu (under the hamburger menu, top left corner of the UI) you can select 'Direct Download > PNG' to open the image export window. Type the pixel dimension you want into the relevant dimension on the image, and hit the 'Export as PNG' button on the bottom right of the screen. You can make very large images this way, If you make them too large, you will likely run out of memory and crash the browser tab, but YMMV. I was able to easily get images saved at up to 10k square. Big enough for every printing case I can think of.

If you are serious about it. Instead of a gaming keypad, go with a 13 button mouse. And program your most used shortcuts to the mouse.

13 button mouse.

I personally use Sketchup to design my own 3D models that I can 3D print. So far, it's going well. It's not difficult to use and then I use MakePrintable's sketchup Plugins to assure that my designs are printable as Borg-man said the model will probably not be watertight or it’ll have other errors so u need plugin to fix it automatically. https://makeprintable.com/

Monoprice printer is a really good option, Doesn't needs assembling and easy to set up, the bed relatively small, the quality is excellent compared to the price. https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-Select-Printer-Heated-Filament/dp/B01FL49VZE/ref=sr_1_3?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1488287932&sr=1-3&keywords=3d+printer

Did you buy a laptop yet?!

If you didn't BAM! This thing rocks for the price.

Even if you have, return the one you got, buy this. If its better than the one you got.