Quench Thurston's Thirst for technical and design goodness.

Google Sketchup…now I can use it! (Sketchup 8.0 that is.)

Through the years I have downloaded Google Sketchup only to get frustrated with it and eventually uninstall it. Lately, I had been reading about wood working techniques to design furniture and found out that many craftsmen are using Sketchup. I decided to try the new version of Google Sketchup 8.0. Either I was not intuitive enough to use this software in the past or they have greatly tweaked it's usability (My geek pride says go with the later). Don't get me wrong, Sketchup is not for the neophyte, you should have some understanding of graphics programs like Photoshop and Fireworks along with some understanding of CAD and 3D before attempting detailed Sketchups.

The good thing is that the community for this product is strong and many plugins have been created and supported. I have found some great plugins which help creating Sketchup drawings. I have a list of the ones that I use at the end of this post. I have also contributed the checkerboard drawing to the Google 3d Warehouse.

Base drawing in Sketchup 8.0:

Above is a base drawing in that I created in Sketchup 8.0 in 10 minutes. The drawing is created with only 2 components,the checkerboard square and the checker itself. Since these are created as components, you only have to edit the component to change all of duplicates. Sketchup does allow application of materials to each duplicated component separately. Copying and pasting are done with using the array method so you can duplicate one component and then type 6x to create 6 more spaced the same amount as the first initial pasted component.

Sketchup also has styles which let you acheive some really awesome effects to your drawings.

There are also some plugins (free and paid for), that will render your Google Sketch.

Not bad for a open source product. Sketchup is going to allow me to create some 3d graphics that can be rendered or styled to whatever look that I want to achieve.

Links:
Google Sketchup
Indigo 3d Render for Sketchup
Lumberjocks Sketchup wood material library

Some other drawings I have been working with: