SketchUp for Design
Tutorials, News, Book Companion Materials
Tutorials and News
Latest Posts
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 […]
Want to Keep Some SketchUp Pre-2025 Materials Around?
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 […]
PBR Materials Cheat Sheet (for SketchUp 2025)
SketchUp 2025 introduced a new graphics system for materials: PBR (physically-based rendering) photoreal materials. As you can see in the image above, you can now have shiny, glossy, dimpled, and otherwise textured materials right in SketchUp’s model area. You can then use that new appearance while modeling or when you export images or animations. As […]
Random Tutorial Selection
Parametric Highrise Models with Trimble Creator
In this tutorial I create a parametric massing component (as a Live Component) completely from scratch in Trimble Creator. This allows me to cover geometry, parameters, Boolean operations and various user interface details and general processes.
Coding Your First SketchUp Extension
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.
PBR Materials Cheat Sheet (for SketchUp 2025)
SketchUp 2025 introduced a new graphics system for materials: PBR (physically-based rendering) photoreal materials. As you can see in the image above, you can now have shiny, glossy, dimpled, and otherwise textured materials right in SketchUp’s model area. You can then use that new appearance while modeling or when you export images or animations. As […]