A couple of Sketchup questions.

To put your pictures up on LJ, open your model and arrange it the way you want it to look (rotate zoom etc) then choose file > export > 2D Graphic. You can choose the type of file you want to export, I usually choose JPG. Now upoad the file to your picture host and link the fle in your post.

I am afraid I don’t understand your second question. Can you elaborate?

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

I don’t like useing sketchup that much because it has a “mind of it’s own” It likes to complete things and then its really hard to get things right were you want them as well. It is great for something simple but anything more than that I have trouble with, and I am a very Techy kind of person. AKA Loser lol. :)

-- Tyler, Illinois

Practice, practice, practice…..it’s much cheaper to make your mistakes in sketchup than with wood. Easier to fix too. I understand the problems both you and woodshopfreak are having. The “stickiness” feature of sketchup can be frustrating at 1st and it can be very easy to end up with unintended geometry. The best advice I can give, and I’ve given it time after time, is to watch the tutorials available on the sketchup website. I know you want to jump right in and just start drawing but you WILL save yourself time and frustration by doing so. I’ve been designing with Autocad and many, many other CAD, graphics, and 3D software packages for longer than you guys have been alive (20 years) and I STILL watched the video tutorials when I 1st started using it.

Once you understand how sketchup works it provides absolute accuracy and you can draw anything…and I do mean anything….you can think of but there are no shortcuts for practice.

A few examples:

Future paddleboard

Expansion of a chocollate factory

This ones a movie….a helicopter approach to a private island.

Last springs challenge table

And the matching chair (which was actually built)

A concept for renovations to an existing water treatment plant

All of these are drawn exactly to scale. Sketchup allows complete accuracy once you get the hang of it.

So….my challenge to you my young friends is to watch the videos and practice.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

Bob,

Thanks for the pep talk… at 42 I’m not that young but Sketchup still frustrates me too.

-- Chris

thanks bob. when i get home from school thats the first thing i’ll do

I get frustrated, & envious, when I look at the terrific drawings Bob does.

-- Dick Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

Well said Bob….lots of practice, and watch and read as many tutorials as you can. If you do a serch on Youtube there are a lot of really good tutorials.

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

yah, Bob’s work always inspires me to give it one more try and then 10 min into trying I’m so frustrated I quit again… until the next time Bob posts something and then I try again..

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I’m quite the techie guy myself and I even had problems getting started with Sketchup. I finally broke down and bought Google SketchUp For Dummies by Aidan Chopra. It gave me what I needed to get going. Aidan has posted quite a few videos out on youtube.com that go with his book. You can learn a lot from just watching his videos, but the book has a lot of good information too.

Also over at finewoodworking.com there is a blog on using Sketchup.

-- Mike - "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." (Scott Adams)

I’ll take a stab at what I think you mean:

The best way (for me anyway) is to actually make each part as you would with real wood. That being said, here is a simple way if you just want to get an idea of how it will look. The basic idea is “make a donut, remove the hole and pull up the donut :) The key is to make sure you are working on the “face” of the rectangle, not a group containing the rectangle, otherwise the inner rectangle won’t cut a hole, it will just sit on the surface. So just keep double clicking to get “down” to the face if needed.

Here is the actual sketchup file with some comments: If this isn’t what you meant, just let me (or us) know.

-- Tom, Central New York

I’m with Kayak… Sketchup is an excellent tool, but you need to want to invest the time before it will be useful for you. There are videos in YouTube.com that are very good. The program itself has videos that I consult when there is something I know Sketchup does or should do. When I’m bored, I will sometimes go into YouTube and view all the cool things that people do with the program. By viewing the videos, you will gain a mental database of techniques, and before you know it, you’ll be as good as Kayak.

If you don’t want to spend the time, then don’t bother… don’t complain, neither.

It is one of the things about Sketchup that when you connect three or more lines which lie in the same plane, you will create a solid surface. You can select the surface and delete it if it annoys you.

-- There are three kinds of people... those who can count, and those who can't

Lots of LJ’s have posted here about how easy it is to use. SketchUp is so easy a child could do it. I must be an idiot if I can’t just pick it up and use it. After lots of frustration, I bought the Google SketchUp for Dummies book. It provided all the basics I needed to get me started. In two days, I went from not being able to put two boards together to creating my entry for the bookcase contest. I think that after you discover a few basics, it gets much easier.

The following are some of my frustrations and the solutions I’ve discovered.

#1 When you first get SketchUp it is set for archtecture and all the examples are about drawing buildings. The default dimensions are feet. Not very useful for woodworking. I have since found some tutorials that are better suited to woodworking. BEFORE you start drawing, you need to go Window/Peferences/Template and set the Drawing Template to Inches (Woodworking) – 3D.

#2 Creating things the exact size.

• When you create things, the size shows up in the box in the lower right (VCB). It seemed obvious that you could click in the box and change the value. NOT POSSIBLE. Start using a tool to create or move the thing, move the mouse in the direction you intend to go then just start typing dimensions. They will magically show up in the VBC. If you haven’t clicked to complete the create or move, you can backspace and correct errors. Hit Enter when you are done and the object will be the exact size you specified.
• If you don’t know the name of the little box in the lower right (VCB) you will never find it in the help.
• Tape Measure only measures things.
• Dimensions only labels things with dimensions.
• Scale only changes the size as a percentage. This is still annoying. If I have something 12” long and I want it 12.5” long, I have to calculate 12.5/12 = 1.0416 and use that as a scale factor. I’d really like a resize tool.

#3 Placing things where you want them.

• You can pick up things by clicking on them anywhere and you can move them but you CAN’T place them precisely. In order to place them precisely, you must click on one of the hilighted dots ( later learned these are called inferences ) then move that dot to another dot on another object.

#4 Messing up things I’ve alredy drawn.

• Keeping a group of objects together is very difficult when you try to select and move them. The answer is components. When you make something a component it becomes one thing which is much easier to manipulate. Components can contain components so make and use lots of components.

#5 Moving things the direction YOU want to go.

• Apparently SKETCHUP decides which of three axis’ to use when you move the mouse. Many times it won’t let you move the way you want to go. I discovered that if you change your viewing position, SketchUp will change what it allows you to do.
• Sometimes things “stick” to a surface and you can slide around but can’t move toward or away from the surface. If you slide it completely off the surface, you can then try again.

#6 Can’t get the configuration I want.

• I found it much easier if I don’t expand my objects to 3d ( using push/pull ) until I’ve got the cross section laid out in 2d.
• Sometimes I have lines left over from joining pieces together. If you delete them, your object falls apart. You can use “Hide” from the edit menu to hide them.

Thanks to those of you that tried to help me learn. Your tips got me started. I hope that this post will help others.

-- Leon -- Houston, TX - " I create all my own designs and it looks like it "

Dennis, I was having absolute fits trying to learn SketchUp.Bob was kind enough to take the time to write a very clear explanation of what was boinking me, which allowed me to get past it. I am no pro, but I have been able to design a couple of projects I intend to build. My thanks to Bob and others who have been so helpful.

-- Maplewood, MN

Good post Leon….those are all some of the early hurdles. Even experienced users get frustrated with some of those. It’s a question of figuring out how to work around the limitations or features of sketchup sometimes. Some of the ways that sketchup controls the creation of geometry, like inference and stickiness, can cause a lot of confusion at 1st but they are great tools that allow for quick drawing once you understand them.

Thanks for the kind words Rikkor.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

For those that are still struggling, I think that the items I listed earlier are the keys.

If you can …

• get the environment setup for woodworking
• create things the size you want
• and precisely place them

you are well on you way.

Everything becomes easier after that point. You don’t get so frustrated that you quit so you keep learning.

If you still have problems, just post (or message someone) what you are having problems with and I’m sure you will get lots of help.

I’ve had as hard a time as anyone learning to use SketchUp. Don’t know how many times I’ve given up. BUT it feels great now that I have some capability (still lots to learn and some frustration yet) . I’m excited about getting all the ideas out of my head and into an actual design.

I think it is really worth the effort to learn and I know that there are lots of people here that will help.

-- Leon -- Houston, TX - " I create all my own designs and it looks like it "

Thanks for the great info. It’s always been a frustrating experience. Someday I’ll spend more time with SketchUP.

In order to get projects done, I’ve used pencil and paper. Sometimes computers get in the way.

-- Rich, Seattle, WA

I’m well into the SketchUp learning curve too. I’m getting the hang of it, but I’m certainly no expert. Here’s the SketchUp of a my current project – a 16” x 24” medicine cabinet.

SketchUp really helped me confirm that the pieces would all fit together, as planned.

Leonmcd is right too. Components are your friend. They’re not ‘carved in stone’ either. If you need to change a component, just explode it, make your change, and recreate.

The more I use SketchUp, the more I like it…

-- There is nothing in the world more dangerous, than a woodworker who knows how to read a micrometer...

I built this bookshelf in about 4 hours without a plan.

Now I’ve been trying to draw this on SketchUp for the past week.

I’m learning a lot, but I need to learn some more.

I’m a teenager six times over, but I’ll keep at it until I get it’s right.

It’ll eventually come to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bookcase using old stair balusters.

-- Dick Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

Nice cabinet troutguy. One correction on components and one of their most powerful features. You can always edit a component without exploding it. Just double click on it. You will open the component for context editing (you will only be able to select and edit the geometry in the component). Component editing is powerful for a number of reasons. The most important is the ability to edit multiple copies of the same component at the same time. Let’s say you created a component of a table leg and then copied it and rotated it 4 times. Later you decided the table was too high. All you need to do is edit one leg and the other 3 will reflect the same changes. Makes changing things a lot easier.

Dick..you’re picture has been moved but i only hope I still have the same attitude to learn new things when I’m a teenager 6 times over. You know if you have any questions or things you get stuck on all you need to do is drop a line.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org