SketchUp for Design
Tutorials, News, Book Companion Materials
Tutorials and News
Latest Posts
Interested in Mass Timber Buildings, Construction, and Related Topics?
As you may know, in addition to my SketchUp book, I am the lead author on the book “Fundamentals of Residential Construction” (now in its fifth edition) as well as the co-author of the recently published book “Mass Timber: Materials, Design, and Construction“. Both books are published by John Wiley & Sons and are available […]
AI Rendering with SketchUp’s Built-In (v. 2026.1) AI Render Tool
Now that version 2026.1 of SketchUp is rolling out, we are getting a clearer picture of where SketchUp’s AI implementation is heading. As you likely know, the SketchUp folks had previously released SketchUp Diffusion, a rendering and visualization solution. At the last Basecamp, they then also teased their AI Assistant, which was implemented as a […]
SketchUp 2026 Has Been Released!
With the 2026 release of SketchUp we are now getting hands-on ability to use more of the features that were teased at the 2024 SketchUp Basecamp Keynotes. While the 2025 version of SketchUp introduced PBR materials, the 2026 version now implements all of the cool collaboration features – like live viewing and commenting (illustrated in […]
Random Tutorial Selection
Getting the Calculations Correct for a Perfectly-Balanced Mobile
As I discuss in Chapter 6, you can create a mobile in SketchUp and design it in the software so that – when 3D printed or otherwise fabricated – this mobile hangs perfectly in the balance. This process works for all planar designs, independent of how many levels such a mobile may have. In this post, I’ll show you how to run the calculations for the mobile so that its equilibrium is assured.
Creating a Combined Texture in SketchUp (e.g. for a Cross-Laminated Timber)
In this tutorial I illustrate a useful technique for cases where you need to combine several texture images into one material. I am using the example of a cross-laminated timber (CLT) here but you can employ this for many other applications. The beauty of using SketchUp for this (instead of Photoshop) is that you can apply textures to correctly-scaled objects (which you first create using SketchUp’s modeling tools).
Yes, You Can Use OpenAI’s GPT AI to Create Geometry in SketchUp (With Ruby Snippet)
Just like everyone else these days I have been trying out OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing (which now also uses the same AI – artificial intelligence – engine). One of my lines of exploration (beyond “what does this thing know about me?”) was the question whether it can auto-generate SketchUp Ruby code with AI. And […]