SketchList 3D Design Program

I saw that too, and had a very similar reaction.

-- Matt

I think the cutlist feature would be nice, but other than that …

-- http://www.peteroxley.com -- http://north40studios.etsy.com --

Never heard before but, in my humble opinion, these are clearly fake “reviews”. Nobody writes like that, exposing the points so clearly and well structured and not overlapping with the other reviewers… nobody but a professional copywriter, that is. Oops, that sounded sarcastic, didn’t it?

I don’t judge the software, as I said at the beginning, I haven’t tried it but what I say is: If ain’t broken…

On the other hand I agree that SU, as any other 3D software, regardless what they say, has a definite learning curve. It also has plenty of tutorials incorporated within and the biggest amount of free resources, plugins, fora and databases on the internet. I don’t think any other CAD or similar software can match that nowadays.

OK, I went to the program’s website and watched half a dozen videos or so. It seems the guy spends 95% of the time in tables and spreadsheets instead of dragging and pulling things around in a 3D environment. I guess it must work for some people but I’m more intuitive and prefer to “draw” instead of “define” the boards.

Also, I haven’t seen any mention about other platforms but windows but I really didn’t look that thoroughly so don’t take my word for it.

Peter, a fellow LJ makes a great Cutlist plugin for free to improve SU.

And yeah, you can call me and SU apologist now, feel free to do it as I am a convinced partisan of the program.

I think they are trying to cash in by creating confusion around the similarity in names between their $200 SketchList and the FREE Sketchup.

I had a quick look at one of the videos and this looks like either a clone of CutListPlus ( a commercial program which first appeared about 10 years ago) or this is a repackaged, re-marketed CutListPlus. I think probably the former since websites for both exist and contact addresses are in completely different locations.

Btw, yes there is already the ability to do cutlist and layout in sketchup for woodworkers ( and it’s free as well). I am the author of that plugin ( I’m Steve, not Peter btw!)

You can read about and download the plugin from this Lumberjock blog

..and if you want to design kitchen cupboards easily with SU, you can also check out more free plugins from tomatoes ( though the plugin is in German)

-- If you can't joint it, bead it!

...for $200 it best read my mind and do the drawing automaticly from there!

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

Steve, I know who you are (but not where do you live) ;o) but I was refering to Peter O, the poster who asked for that functionality. I usually start references to discrete posters by their name… as I did above with you. It’s a way of calling their attention. By the way, I have your plugin installed on my SU and I’d like to thank you for the job you do.

I agree with you both that the name seems to ask for trouble creating confusion and that it doesn’t really make it easy to draw curves and complex forms. Hey Dave, do you imagine drawing the leg we’ve been discussing off-list with this app? I’d rather not.

Jojo – Hi, it’s Peter. I had seen Steve’s cutlist plugin, but haven’t had time to try it out. I knew it was available for SketchUp, but it is a nice feature to have built-in to SketchList, as plug-ins and add-ons and up-grades can be confusing for some.

Kindlingmaker – I’m guessing you haven’t priced AutoCAD recently!

-- http://www.peteroxley.com -- http://north40studios.etsy.com --

same here… I found it almost ridiculous that someone published a $200 software to compete with the free sketchup – and used a similar name.

(sure sketchup pro is a retail version – but that is aimed at contractors/architects/designers and not at woodworkers)

-- ㊍ When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

I downloaded the 30 day trial version and it insists I add my key code and then leads me to their webpage where I can enter my credit card info. I’ll stick with SU.

DaveR – yes , you shouldn’t be using SU Pro… uninstall it immediately and install the free version!

“aimed at” doesn’t mean “shouldn’t for everyone else” , that was to merely note that the paid version is aimed at certain individuals/groups, but is not a necessity to woodworkers… nothing personal to you… or anyone else that is not a contractor/architect/designer that might be using the pro version and got offended by this… lol

-- ㊍ When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

I have installed/uninstalled SU about a half a dozen times. I get so frustrated trying to use it!

-- Chip -----------http://www.penmanchip.com-----------------Micah 6:8

When it comes to sketchup it has a a little bit of a learning curve… although, not as steep as programs like autocad or many of the 3D programs like Maya.

Once you spend a few hours making random objects etc. Sketchup gets easy… but i didn’t know about the cutlist plugin… im going to have a try at that. I was using the Cutlist Pro free trial.

-- San Diego, CA

Dave,
Absolutely! I’ve been reading some of your blogs, but I’m lost, lost, lost!

-- Chip -----------http://www.penmanchip.com-----------------Micah 6:8

Hi Jojo.
I wasn’t aware that Peter O had requested this for sketchup. This plugin had actually been available for some time( predates even Lumberjocks!). I added the layout part and fixed a lot of bugs in the earlier version and have effectively taken over from the previous owner. Btw, I currently live in New Zealand.

Peter O, I understand your request to have this functionality ‘built in’ and it might be easier if it was, but then Google would have to try to maintain it and you couldn’t just come to me to have new features added or bugs fixed. Not only that but Sketchup would begin to run ( and act) like M$ products. We don’t need that.

The availability of a free version of Sketchup and the multitude of free plugins available for it, in my opinion, is a benefit to us all. I’m happy to continue to develop Cutlist to compete with any commercial program. Why? Mainly because of things like Sketchlist, which irks me because it is overpriced software which is hardly rocket science. Good desktop software should cost no more than a good book, in my opinion. As an author, you may write a bestseller or not, but the book still usually costs the same as other books.

My interest is to make woodworking accessible to everyone, not to get rich selling you software you might buy, get frustrated with and shelve and then ignore other software that shows up afterwards because you’ve been ripped off once. Even a bad woodworking tool can probably be used as a hammer but not so with software. I’ve been in the software industry for 30 years and I know how much markup there is for software and know how difficult it is to write some software but still, I come back to my analogy about writing books. There, I’ve said my piece about commercial woodworking software!

-- If you can't joint it, bead it!

I wholeheartedly agree with you Steve. I’d rather keep SU’s structure as it is. I think it adds creativity and enhances the user experience.

By the way, If you want your plugin translated I could do it to a couple or three languages on the Mac version (sorry I would’t touch a M$ equipped machine with a 10 ft pole, 24 years suffering them were enough for me).

I’ve seen you are in NZ, we are almost neighbors! (well, sort of, all is relative)