Never miss SketchUp News, Videos, and Articles with this Extension and (New!) Web App

Never miss SketchUp News, Videos, and Articles with this Extension and (New!) Web App

I recently refreshed my SketchUp News extension. You can now stay on top of SketchUp News (from blogs, videos, forum discussions, and social media) in three ways: As before, with the SketchUp extension (download from the Extension Warehouse or here). On this website on the SketchUp News Viewer page. As an installed (Progressive) Web App. You can install it on your computer or phone/tablet with the instructions on the bottom of the SketchUp News Viewer page. This news dashboard updates every hour and features many of the sources that you are all following already - albeit in a convenient format and in a single place. Video https://youtu.be/Lwri-QGoRMw...
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Printing To-Scale in SketchUp (My 2024 Update)

Printing To-Scale in SketchUp (My 2024 Update)

In this tutorial video I describe various ways how you can print scaled, parallel-projection views from SketchUp for Web as well as SketchUp Pro/Desktop (where I will be using the LayOut software). I cover all the relevant aspects and then show how you can use the PDF file format as an intermediate print file format. This video is an update to my older one on this topic. Since that video was posted, SketchUp for Web has been introduced and printing in SketchUp Pro/Desktop has changed. Hence the need for an update. As I describe in Chapter 6 of my book, printing to scale is very useful for a variety of fabrication tasks, including paper-folding or sheet metal fabrication. You can even combine this very well with my Unwrap and Flatten Faces extension. Tutorial Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPzmSw_tlg...
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Save a SketchUp File as an Older Version (Ruby Snippet)

Save a SketchUp File as an Older Version (Ruby Snippet)

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...
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SketchUp 2024 is Out!

SketchUp 2024 is Out!

A New Graphics Engine, Ambient Occlusion, Improved Trimble Connect Integration, Modeling and File Format Improvements, and Better Error Handling What's New in SketchUp? Introducing a cleaner UI, and Teddy! As of yesterday, the latest version of SketchUp (2024) is available. And as it turns out, this one has several nice & visible new features and others that are more "under the hood". On the first impression side (see image above) there is a cleaner UI: Look at the panels in the default tray and their headings and you can see how the flat graphics now look much cleaner and modern (and more consistent with the web and iPad versions). Now if we could only also have dark mode... There is also a new scale figure, Teddy! Hi There! New Graphics Engine & Ambient Occlusion SketchUp's new graphics engine The new graphics engine is one of these features that - I am guessing - takes a lot of work to implement and then when everything goes right, things...
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AI Rendering with SketchUp Diffusion – First Impressions

AI Rendering with SketchUp Diffusion – First Impressions

In this video tutorial I give a first glance overview of the new SketchUp Diffusion tool. Throughout, I am combining a basic how-to tutorial for SketchUp Diffusion with my various thoughts on the tool (given several different use case scenarios) and the general usability of AI for visualization and ideation. While it is indeed still early days for this technology, it is already quite impressive what it can do. Good looking first renderings can be done quickly, even from minimal geometry. However, there are some caveats and I am very curious how the next iterations of this and similar tools will impact the AEC industry. Tutorial Video https://youtu.be/CIzSw98WBaw Examples You can see some of my example images below. Original model views (as submitted) are on the left and the SketchUp Diffusion AI results are on the right. The respective prompt is in the image caption. Prompt: "A rendering of campus buildings at sunset" Prompt: "An exterior entrance to a campus dining hall" Prompt: "A bench sculpture in a...
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