With the recent introduction of SketchUp 2024 came one change in functionality that has the community talking here and here. In 2023, when you went to the File > Save As... dialog, you had all of the SketchUp versions available all the way back to version 3 (Why not version 2? That's when I got into SketchUp!) as a file format option (see image below). With 2024, this has now gone away and files can "only" be saved in the version-less SketchUp file format that was introduced with SketchUp 2022.
SketchUp Desktop 2023
SketchUp Desktop 2024
In principle, the version-less format (which, by the way, has with the 2024 version also been introduced for LayOut) is a very convenient thing: You can open a newer file in an older version (albeit with a warning that some functionality may be lost). That makes working in computer labs (which are notoriously slow to update) and other environments much easier. It is also VERY MUCH better...
Infrared thermal imaging (thermography) when combined with SketchUp's 3D models has great potential to interactively visualize complex building science issues like heat loss, insulation, moisture leaks, and more. Being able to view 3D models instead of just 2D images makes it possible to see effects on a building's scale. All you need (beyond your SketchUp modeling abilities) is a thermal imaging camera (e.g. the FLIR ONE which is not too expensive). In this video I show you how you can take appropriate thermography images and then apply those to your model.
I actually wrote about this technique a while ago in a blog post and a conference paper. Follow the link at the bottom of this post to learn more about the technique and to see more models. There are even some sample images for download in case you want to try this yourself.
My finished thermography model of the John W. Olver Design Building at UMass Amherst is available on the...
When you need to create complex geometry in SketchUp, it is often better to break an item into positive (solid) parts and negative (void) parts that you can then subtract from each other with SketchUp's Pro's Solid Tools. In this example, I am showing this process for a cast steel structural connector, but the principle applies to many other shapes as well.
Because this process uses solid geometry from beginning to end, the result is also a solid and therefore easily 3D printable.
Side view
My model doesn't replicate the geometry of this piece exactly, but this is an example of such geometry
Tutorial Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrhfJjT8YBQ
Links
Some of the tools I used here are:
SketchUp's built-in tools:
Solid Tools (specifically the Subtract tool)
Parallel-projection camera view
Hide / show
FredoCorner Extension - One of Fredo6's excellent extensions that allows you to round corners
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In this video I am having a bit of fun with the new SketchUp Diffusion tool…
Give this a try: Add only a single cube to your modeling space and then try to create an interesting visualization from that using only the prompts and the styles in SketchUp Diffusion. This is actually a great way to explore prompt engineering. It is interesting how the AI is able to capture the general orientation of the scene from just the cube and the horizon line behind it.
You can find my original forum post about this on the SketchUp forums here. And admittedly I based this on a competition that the Blender community has been doing for a while. Check those out, too.
For more on what you can do with SketchUp and Diffusion, take a look at my initial post about this topic.
Video
https://youtu.be/dQmV58Jlq4c
Examples
Here are some of my own examples:
Prompt: "A treasure in a luxurious space."
Prompt: “A floating, death star spacecraft over a...
In this video tutorial I illustrate a useful technique for cases where you need to combine several texture images into one material in SketchUp. 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).
Sidebar: What is a CLT? It is a large 8-foot wide structural wooden plate that can span in buildings approximately 25 feet. It is made from lumber strips that are glued in parallel layers, which alternate directions by 90 degrees. Several buildings have been constructed with these, including our Olver Design Building at UMass Amherst.
How can you use this technique? Give rendering in SketchUp a try. I cover it in Chapter 5 of my book.
Tutorial Video
https://youtu.be/CEQU5DhdpZ4
Tutorial Steps
This list shows the key steps for this technique. Watch the video for further...
