SketchUp for Design

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 […]

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 […]

Now that SketchUp 2025 has been released, SketchUp’s materials have experienced a significant upgrade. All materials that ship with SketchUp are now PBR (physically-based rendering) materials that look much better than the older materials, which at the time were designed with efficiency in mind. However, that efficiency often came with graininess, unpleasant repeating patterns, and […]

In this tutorial I show how you can use my Scale By Tools SketchUp extension to create various designs for patterned panels. We start with sine and power equations and then use images to form intricate screen designs.

In this (beginner!) tutorial I give a very basic overview for creating a SketchUp extension from scratch and then distributing it as an RBZ file. Admittedly, this isn’t completely from scratch since I am staring with a template file that you can download from this site, but the result is a very simple yet fully-functional SketchUp extension.

I am exploring SketchUp Diffusion’s potential through prompt engineering in this post where I use a single cube to create varied scenes.