SketchUp for Design

Create geometry, work with components, use SketchUp's many extensions, or script your design with Ruby.
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SketchUp for Rendering

Create polished renders in SketchUp with the rendering software of your choice. Combine materials and beautiful lighting in efficient setups.
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SketchUp for Making

Go from digital to physical with SketchUp. Use 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC, and learn to prepare your models for fabrication.
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Tutorials and News

Alex' collection of SketchUp tutorials and news posts that talk about all SketchUp topics: modeling, rendering, scripting, extensions, fabrication, etc.

A companion to the book “Architectural Design with SketchUp”. These pages provide updated links, free resources, downloadable SketchUp files, videos, corrections, and more. Browse this section by chapter while you are working with the book.

SketchUp News

Discover SketchUp news and tutorial blog posts from all over the web in one place and keep up with forum discussions and tweets.

Tutorial Selection

Making a 3D-Printable Patterned Panel (with Scale By Tools)

This tutorial revisits a parametric 3D printable panel that I created a while ago using plain Ruby code. You can explore the original 3D model with the viewer below. Just click the image to start it.

Creating Shells Using Extensions (Video)

In this video I cover how to create shells in SketchUp using different methods. Lofting can create very elaborate shapes and fortunate for us there are several extensions available to do the task easily. Curviloft, the extension presented in this video, may be the best example (and the easiest one to use). This is a […]

Floor Flatness Check in SketchUp with Point Clouds

As I covered in last week’s post, Trimble recently released a new point cloud extension for SketchUp, Trimble Scan Essentials For SketchUp. In today’s post and video, I am using this tool to perform some analysis with the same 3D point cloud data that I introduced earlier (a scan of our classroom). I am basically […]

Designing 3D-Printable Pendants with SketchUp

In this tutorial I cover several approaches and techniques for creating 3D-printable pendants from SketchUp. This includes designs that need to be hanging in the balance (for pendants, earrings, mobile elements, etc.) as well as those with multiple support points (e.g. for name necklaces). The extensions and websites that I mention in the video are: […]