Alex' collection of SketchUp tutorials and news posts that talk about all SketchUp topics: modeling, rendering, scripting, extensions, fabrication, etc. The five most recent tutorials and news posts are listed below. You can find everything else in the topic category archives:
News Blog,
SketchUp Tutorials,
3D Modeling,
Extensions,
LayOut,
Making,
Rendering,
Scripting,
SketchUp Basics
The recently-released 3.3 version of my SketchUp AI Explorer (Experimental) extension now allows for an interesting and potentially (depending on your hardware) useful way to work with AI in SketchUp: You can now use local LLMs on your computer via a software like LM Studio as the AI provider for this extension.
This approach is 100% free and only depends on the hardware capabilities of your local computer. This means you don't have to pay for tokens and you can even choose among a fairly large number of AI LLM models (including GPT-OSS, QWEN, GEMMA, DEEPSEEK,…). And nobody will ever train their AI systems on your prompts. One word of caution, though: This is largely an experimental approach and its effectiveness is very much dependent on your hardware (especially your GPU). But if you tweak this setup to your liking, it may open up new avenues.
How Does This Work?
To be able to do this, you will need two things:
The Ai Explorer (Experimental) extension,...
With the release of SketchUp 2026.2, we are getting our hands on some new analysis tools that expand how we evaluate building models and streamline our project workflows. While the initial 2026 release focused heavily on live collaboration and harmonizing the user interface - and 2026.1 introduced SketchUp AI features - this mid-cycle update delivers several new features alongside highly requested efficiency tweaks (and bug fixes) for both SketchUp and LayOut.
For those of us in architectural design and education, these updates offer an excellent toolset to dive deeper into environmental design without ever leaving our familiar conceptual modeling space.
The new Analysis Hub and its initial set of tools
Introducing the Analysis Hub & Advanced Shadows
The headline feature of this release is the introduction of the Analysis Hub. With this toolset, Trimble is giving us a dedicated, central space to study building performance directly inside SketchUp.
The first official tool to be featured in this hub is Advanced Shadows. Instead of just toggling...
John W. Olver Design Building under construction (Photo: A. Schreyer)
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 in print or as e-books wherever books are sold.
I recently created the website buildingfundamentals.com as a place to post companion materials for those books but also blog about the wider construction industry - with a particular emphasis on wood buildings.
If you find those topics as interesting as I do and want to hear more about them, then you can now subscribe to my new site by email. That way, you receive a newsletter as soon as I post something. Follow this link to get started:
Subscribe to buildingfundamentals.com via email
Of course, you can also just visit...
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 chatbot that could show help topics, write Ruby code, and do various other things that are implemented within an extensible dialog.
As of the latest version, there is now a single toolbar button (yes, it's YAMDB = yet another magic dust button) that brings up the SketchUp AI interface, which now looks like this:
There are two tools listed in there: AI Assistant and AI Render (the new iteration of SketchUp Diffusion). In addition, they introduced a credit system for the various AI tools where users get some credits as part of their subscription plans, but can also buy additional ones, as needed. This floating toolbar now...
SketchUp's new collaboration features (Image source: Trimble)
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 the image above).
These collaboration features will be very useful for the sweet spot of architectural design where SketchUp shines: Conceptual modeling. With the new features, all members of a project can now engage in a live modeling exercise - complete with a shared visual experience and extensive commenting abilities. This should make it much easier to dial in the perfect design solution.
The other major feature - in my view - is a MUCH BETTER LayOut interface. Both SketchUp and Layout (at least on Windows) now have the same user interface with similar visual elements and functionality. That makes not...
