Want to Keep Some SketchUp Pre-2025 Materials Around?

Want to Keep Some SketchUp Pre-2025 Materials Around?

by Alex SchreyerNo Comments
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 some other artifacts. The new materials are in many cases of render-quality while still being quite efficient. As a result of this change, the size of the entirety of all shipped materials went from 8.9 MB (SketchUp 2024) to 248 MB (SketchUp 2025). How About SketchUp's Old Materials? So, what do you do if - for consistency reasons or any other - you want to keep some of the old pre-2025 materials around (in addition to the new ones)? It is actually easy to do that. As long as you haven't uninstalled SketchUp 2024, they are all still on your hard-drive! Here are the steps: Step 1: Find...
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PBR Materials Cheat Sheet (for SketchUp 2025)

PBR Materials Cheat Sheet (for SketchUp 2025)

by Alex SchreyerNo Comments
This image of a wood-veneer tray with a decorative brushed metal ball was exported right from SketchUp - no rendering software needed 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 I discussed in my review of SketchUp 2025, the PBR materials look best when you enable one of the new environments (you can see one in the images below (in the reflection). In addition, you may need to make sure that the "Photoreal Materials" are also enabled for SketchUp's modeling area. You can do that on the Styles toolbar or in the View > Face Style menu. In this post I will give you a visual overview of the new PBR material parameters. So that the...
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Using Infrared Thermography Images with SketchUp Models

Using Infrared Thermography Images with SketchUp Models

by Alex SchreyerNo Comments
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...
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