Modeling Methods

Collection of modeling approaches and tools to create specific objects...

Dynamic Components

"Drafting"

General Tips

  • More on the Sage...

Plugins

    • Axo + Iso View TIG - Plugin to change current view to the axo/iso format desired and model-extents are zoomed.

    • CADup TIG - Makes 2D line drawing of all standard views of Groups and Components.

  • Eneroth Axonometric Projection Eneroth3 - Distorts a group or component to resemble an axonometric projection when viewed from above.

  • Flatten to Plane TIG - (requires workplane.rb plugin)

    • Skema Survey Skema 4 SketchUp - Make trilateration for a correct plan reconstruction starting from survey measurements.

Face Me Components

2.5D trees

Shadow Studies

Determine building height from Google Earth satellite images

    • Highness of Buildings Determine building height from images.

    • The energy analysis plugin OpenStudio has a tool to help calculate the effect of shadows from surrounding buildings.

Depicting Shadows

  • Exporting shadows without lines

    • Another method is to paint the model with a completely transparent material. Make a model with default colors. Paint only the faces you want to see, like the building footprint, a color. Make the model a group. Paint the group with the completely transparent material. To turn off edges: toggle off Display edges and Profiles in the Styles palette, Window (SketchUp in Mac) > Styles > Edit > Edges.

    • The World Clock A good internet site for finding time zones.

Dynamic Components (DC)

    • SunTracker Requires the plugin scenes.rb to see the component change orientation during an animation with scene changes. (Open a plain text file, on Windows use a text editor like Notepad, and paste in the text. Name the plugin scenes.rb and install in SketchUp's Plugins directory.)

      • TIP: The code snippet for scene.rb needs to be added and saved in a plain text editor (like Notepad, Notepad++ [Windows]). Add the file to SketchUp's Plugin directory. Reload the program if SketchUp was already running. This plugin runs in the background, it will not be listed in any menu. The main value of this plugin is if a scene animation video was created with SketchUp.

      • TIP: A DC needs to be added to SketchUp without losing its outer component wrapper. Try downloading the DC to the desktop then importing it into an active SketchUp workspace if there are any problems with the DC working as expected.

      • To make this DC react to time/date changes, use the DC Interact tool,. First make sure the DC extension is active. Go to Window > Preferences > Extensions and enable Dynamic Components. Select the DC in the workspace. Switch to the Interact tool through the DC toolbar (View > Toolbars > Dynamic Components or Tools > Interact. Change the time/date through the Shadow Settings window or toolbar, then click on the DC with the Interact tool to update the component's position.

    • True dynamic sun tracker Also requires the plugin scenes.rb to react to scene changes.

Plugins

Note: To download plugins from SketchUcation, join the forum (free) and logon.

  • SHADING Tools Plugin Abraham Yezioro and Tali Gutman - Calculates the (Geometrical) Shading Coefficient of any selected surface.

    • Shadow Analysis Tomasz Janiak - Simple tool for analyzing daylight conditions. Demo, Fee - Windows, Mac

    • ShadowProjector TIG - Shows shadows cast on selected faces by objects and other shadow display options.

    • Shadowtex Renderiza - Paints or textures all faces that are in shadows automatically.

    • Simple Solar Study dfwlarch - Calculates amount of sunlight falling on faces.

    • Skelion Insert solar panels on roofs quickly and find out tilt and azimuth. Windows

    • sunposition Gabriel - A plugin that draws the sun path over the course of one day.

  • Sun Tool Preview Jim Foltz - Beta sun studies tool.

  • Trnsys3D TransSolar - Open/save Trnsys3d file to work with TRNSYS 17 simulations.

  • Architectural plugins More relevant links on the SketchUp Sage's Resources page xx

Sun path - Geo explains how to set the correct sun path in his SketchUp Sage Article.

    • Pro 7 Sun Orientation Original Group thread

    • North Question Redux Original Group thread

    • Shadow and Nightfall Original Group thread

    • Set North in SketchUp Free/Make Didier Bur - Set the North angle without having model Geo-location - compatible with ALL version of SketchUp [for Free/Make users].

    • Scene North Angle Tool Aerlius - It appears SketchUp does not render the north angle that is set per scene. | This tool allows you to set the north angle per scene. In SketchUp Pro it uses SketchUp's fancy graphical North Tool to set the angle.

    • Solar North SketchUp Team - Provides tools for you to set and display the solar north angle. SketchUp Pro required


The Shadow knows...

There's actually a 0% opacity, transparent PNG above. Right-click on the image to save it you your hard drive or use the drag and drop method to drag the image into an open SketchUp session.

Some uses for this include architectural shadow studies and special shadow faces for low-poly 2.5D landscape components.

TIP: Image-misers can re-save the image down to 1 pixel.

Creating Terrain

Add Location

There was a change to the Google Map API that does not play nice with SketchUp's ability to find locations with decimal degree coordinates. If this is an issue, use an online DMS calculator to convert to degrees, minutes, seconds.


fun facts

Control Points and Datum Shifts

Plugins

Note: To download plugins from SketchUcation, join the forum (free) and logon.

    • 2DXY SiteSurvey tools Barry Milliken - Tools for drawing Site Surveys in SketchUp. Fee

    • Architect Tools ThomThom - Suite of tools for working with imported map data to generate buildings and stepped terrains.

    • BezierSpline Fredo6 - After segmented lines have been welded into polylines (with Weld, Recurve, etc), this plugin will add curve control nodes.

    • CLF Color by Slope Chris Fullmer - Colors faces based on its slope.

    • CLF Color by Z Chris Fullmer - Colors faces based on the face Z location (height).

    • Cloud v8 - Didier Bur - Imports and exports points cloud.

    • Coords Text Tag from Datum TIG - Import a CSV coordinates file with option to mark the locations with a guide point and text tag.

    • Edge Tools² thomthom - Suite of edge tools to help fix line work from imported CAD files.

    • Eneroth Fractal Terrain Eroder Eneroth3

    • Eneroth Upright Extruder Eneroth3 - A Follow Me tool that will not twist on a 3D path with additional constrain options.

    • FollowMe and Keep wikii - A Follow Me tool that will not twist on a 3D path, good for making curbs on 3D terrain - among other nice things.

    • Guides

    • KML LineString Importer Aerilius - Track path with GPS > Convert to KML in Google Earth > Import KML path into SketchUp.

    • KML Tools Aerilius - Imports and Exports KML files into SketchUp - bring almost any feature from Google Earth to SketchUp and back.

    • Make Fur tak2hata - Add grass/fur/hair/filaments to surfaces.

    • Point-Cab Laserscanning plugin from Laserscanning Europe.

    • pointools Work with large point cloud models. Bentley discontinued SketchUp plugin in January 31, 2013, yet announced new alliance with Trimble.

    • Points cloud triangulation - Didier Bur, C. Fale - Creates triangles starting from a construction points selection. Use after importing points from Cloud_v80bxx.rb.

    • Sam D Mitch

    • Simplify Contours SketchUp - Makes topo lines, contour lines, less complex to be easier to use in SketchUp

    • Stick groups to mesh kirill2008 - deforms groups to sculpted, mesh surface.

    • Sun Tool Preview Jim Foltz - Beta sun studies tool.

    • Survey Tool Didier Bur - It uses bearing and distance data to draw property boundaries.

    • Terrain Reshaper Didier Bur - Tool to quickly rebuild a TRN (triangular regular network) based on a TIN (triangular irregular network)

    • TopoShaper Fredo6 - Creates terrains from iso-contours.

    • Trimble Field Points for SketchUp Trimble Field Solutions - Create Points and send them to Trimble Field Link.

      • Weld Smustard - Welds connected edges into a polyline.

      • Recurve Diggory Blake - Welds connected edges into a polyline.

SketchUp Sage Cotty's tutorial

Recommended companion plugins

      • PointTool Matt666 - Draws cpoints

      • Raytracer ThomThom - Collection of tools based on raytracing - drop, rayspray, grow component to construction points.

Landscaping

Plugins

    • 3D Tree Maker Poublan P. - Makes 3D tree, plant and grass components.

    • Canvas renderiza - Paint group and components in spray type manner.

    • CLF Repeat Copy Chris Fullmer - Quickly populate a model with components. Fee

    • CLF Scale and Rotate Multiple Chris Fullmer - Scales and rotates components and groups.

    • ComponentSpray Didier Bur - Spray out components for landscaping.

    • LandF/X LandF/X - A landscape architectural add-on to create planting and site plans from AutoCAD plans. Free

    • Make Fur tak2hata - Generates grass, crowds, fur, etc...

    • Raytracer ThomThom - Collections of tools based on raytracing - drop, rayspray, grow component to construction points.

    • RpTreeMaker Render Plus - Tree generator plugin which will creates 3D vegetation and proxies for rendering. Free - Windows

    • Skatter jimimy-billy-bob - Scattering extension to render hundreds of thousands of objects.

SketchUp Ivy Pierreden - Ivy generator.

Vegetation Models

Helical forms - spirals, screw threads and more

Hand-stitched methods

Mix of Hand-stitched and plugin-aided helical modeling

Plugin-aided helical modeling | Plugin Help

  • Twisty Things Constructing cylindrical and tapered helical models with script generated helices - a Scale about Center and Move tool exercise found on the Tweaking Tool Tips. Scale page - catamountain

  • helix + follow me tool Scripted-based method for a spiraled, square handrail- catamountain

Helix plugins

  • 3d printing screw threads jimhami42 - Create high-poly threads suitable for printing with the plugin Spirix.

  • BezierSpline Fredo6 - One of the bezier curves is the Courbette spiral.

  • Bolt Maker Sam D Mitch - Add nut and bolt details.

  • Draw Metal Terry - Plugins for spirals, helices, curved and tapered shapes as seen in ornamental ironwork.

  • Draw Helix Jim Foltz - Draws a cylindical helix or taper helix.

  • Draw Whorl Rick - Draws spiral threads with tapered section (if needed) for making screw and bolt threads.

  • Eneroth Cylindrical Coordinates Eneroth3 - Move all vertices inside selected group/component by letting the old X represent a radius and old Y an angle. Useful for creating spiral shapes.

  • EP Fasteners & Threaded Holes Jay Watson - Produces Printable Nuts, Bolts, Screws and Tapped or threaded Holes for 3D parts.

  • Follow Me Helix sdmitch - Create a helix around a path.

  • FredoScale Fredo6 - The Box Twisting tool will create helices. Free

  • FredoTools Fredo6 - A suite of tools. One of the tools, CurviShear, will produce helices. Free

  • Helix along curve 3dalbertsoft - Plugin.

    • Helix on Surface sdmitch - Draws a helix around a surface.

    • Helix12 Rick Wilson - Draws a helix around any selected face.

    • Loxodrome regularpolygon - spherical helix plugin.

    • MagicBox ShapeWizards - Parametric shapes. Free version on Extension Warehouse.

    • screw TDB - Screw a set of edges around the z-axis.

    • Spherical Spiral regularpolygon - Archimedean spherical spiral.

    • Spirix Jim Hamilton - Revolve or extrude any 3D sequence of edges along the z-axis.

    • SU Draw Parametric Shapes John McClenahan - Drawing shapes based on circles, polygons, or helix.

Skinning/lofting and extruding along helical path(s)

Rope tutorials

'twisted sphere'

Gearheads

Companion engineering plugin resources on the SketchUp Sage.

    • Bevel Gear Pair Online SLT gear generator by 3DDoctors.net. Free and donationware

  • Clocks

      • gary's clocks Gary Mahony - Engineering wooden clock gears - DWG patterns - AND great practical advice on engineering gears in general.

    • Lujdvik Cejp Artsy 'clock' pieces with lots of gears to admire and inspire. From both an artistic and engineering perspective, this fella's work is fantastic! Many of the pieces have a mouse-over button or video to show the animation. German | English

    • Woodline Wooden clock router accessories. (Woodline sells router bits cheaper than most retail outlets.)

    • Dimensioning wooden gears Article on dimensioning parts for wooden peg gears.

    • Drawing gears in SketchUp Capolight Electronics Project - Guide for designing gears for 3D printing.

    • DXF import plugins SketchUp Pro can import DXF files that many of the linked sites in this section offer, but the free-crowd would need an import plugin.

    • GearDXF Spur gear generator. Free

    • Gearotic Motion DXF, CNC output. Wide variety of gears. Fee

    • Gearsphere TaffGoch - 3D Warehouse model for inspiration.

    • Gear Template Generator Free online gear generator creates several different types of gears, animates two gears and exports a vector PDF (several conversion steps for SketchUp to import. Inkscape can convert a vector PDF to DXF. The DXF file can then be imported). Program exports SKP, Fee

    • 3D Printing and CNC Resources for using SketchUp with 3D printers and CNCs. Check out the new STL exporter from the SketchUp developers to help streamline the 3D printing process.

    • Me-Bac Online, involute spur gear calculator. Exports DXF files. Free

More on the gear train animation by Jim Hamilton...

gear_animation.skp

gear_train_2.skp

Video of the gear train being assembled. While a little blurry, nonetheless you can almost hear the 3D printed pieces being snapped together in this silent video.

Plugins

    • ANSI Sprocket Sam D Mitch - Create standard ANSI sprocket as used on bicycles and motorcycles.

    • DHgear4 Doug Herrrmann and Jim Hamilton - Involute gear generator, with and without a key slot. Jim's video of his 3D printed gear train using an early version of this plugin. Free

    • HypocyloidCam Dan Rathbun - Plugin to make hypocycloid cams for cycloid reduction drives. Free

    • Involute Gears Cadalog - First SketchUp gear plugin. Idea: Use the resulting gears as a template for other gear shapes. Free

  • jimhami42_rack_and_pinion Jim Hamilton - Plugin for rack and pinion. Free

    • SimFonIA Animation, numerical simulation plugin for virtual prototyping gear function, etc., includes transformation processor, keyframe editor, exportation options, and bullet (physics engine.) Windows - Fee

    • SPGears jgrundman - SketchUp plugin to create spur, helical, bevel, and beveled helical gears with involute tooth profiles. Free

Grid Nuts

While LayOut, a companion 2D document program with SketchUp Pro, can have a grid background, there is no native grid in SketchUp. That feature can be added through plugins.

    • Grid Tool SketchUp team - One of the first sample plugins created for SketchUp, dating back to version 4. And it's still one of the best, basic grid plugin because it is maintained and parametric. Meaning after you make a grid, r-click on the grid group and select Edit SketchUp::Samples::Grid::Grid from the context menu to change grid-size at will.

    • Combine Editor Wikii - Move, Scale and Rotate using an onscreen manipulator that displays rulers and protractors.

Tips...

If you love grids in your model space, then consider adding one to a Template.

Avoid inadvertently moving the grid by locking it in place by r-clicking on the grid > Lock.

Buildings

Plugins

Note: To download plugins from SketchUcation, join the forum (free) and logon.

  • Doors and Windows

      • 3DRubyWindow RubySoft - Tool for drawing frames, window and door components. Fee

      • Didier Bur - Cut through double-sided walls - Cutting Windows (Windows) Cutting Windows (Mac)

      • DoorMaker Paul Russam

      • DoorsSK Сергей Đš. - Create and manipulate doors opening and closing.

      • GKWare Door Maker Gary K - Style and rail cabinet door plugin. Free, Fee

      • Windowizer3 Windowizer4 Smustard - Automates window-making - Free and Fee

      • Window Studio Andersen Windows - Generates detailed SketchUp components of Andersen Windows & doors plus other CAD support. Scroll down a bit for this downloadable design tool.

    • SUperPlan Automated construction schedule simulation and sequence validation tool. Works with Microsoft Project.

    • Timber Frame Design daiku - Timber framing plugins

    • Tomot Windowtools, doortools, bookshelf and bifold door plugins - Free and Fee

    • TubeAlongPath TIG - Extrudes tubes and cylinders along selected path.

    • Wikihouse Open source construction set - print your own house (link may not work in IE8.)

Google Earth

    • Fudging below terrain modeling matthiasbasler

    • display issue: burning through olaf troubleshoots overlapping transparent PNGs burn-through.

    • Faux 3D window Show building interior with an image

    • Tip: To bring the highest resolution image from Google Earth, go to Window > Preferences > OpenGL and check Use maximum texture size. This will bloat the file and quite probably/possibly slow down the modeling process, so use judicially.

Plugins

Note: To download plugins from SketchUcation, join the forum and logon.

    • KML LineString Importer Aerilius - Track path with GPS > Convert to KML in Google Earth > Import KML path into SketchUp.

    • KML Tools Aerilius - Imports and Exports KML files into SketchUp - bring almost any feature from Google Earth to SketchUp and back.

    • Ocean Modeling SketchUp Team - Allows you to model on the ocean surface, ocean bottom, or somewhere in between.

Organic - Sculpture

To read some specific tips on how to tweak/sculpt models with the native SketchUp tools, review the information on the Tweaking Tool Tips pages.

  • Tufted Cushions

    • bar stool Egg-shaped seat back.

    • Organic Modelling A SketchUcation sub-forum.

    • rockwork Extruding a rocky face with Push/Pull and a few other SketchUp friends.

    • ruins Making architectural structures look craggy, rocky and aged. Look for the tutorial in the thread.

    • twe posing Takuji Hagihara - two human posing rigs. Search, Search 2 the Pro group for her beautiful human models. xxx [dead link]

    • SketchUp Character Building monsterz3rO blog with some figurative SketchUp work. | YouTube tutorials.

    • sketchup-skel mattscar - This module makes it possible to create and animate bones (essentially components) within a skeletal hierarchy. (Quite dated. It needs an update to run in the latest version of SketchUp.)

Cars - and other fast stuff

Tips

    • With so many body style options only limited by the imagination, take advantage of making custom, component libraries. For example, with a car, model a body half to a good stopping point. Make it a component and drag that component into a custom library. That way, when you want to make a new - but similar - car body style, bring in that original component body and rework it. It saves a lot of time by eliminating the initial modeling set-up steps.

    • To rework the same component in the same file, right-click the component and select Make Unique.

    • Scroll down a bit for a list of useful plugins.

Plugins

Note: To download plugins from SketchUcation, join the forum (free) and logon.

Note: Direct links to old plugins stored at the Ruby Library Depot haven't worked for a while. Enter the dead links on the wayback machine to download.

    • AutoSmooth thomthom - Automatically softens and smooths auto folded edges created by the native tools.

    • BezierSpline Fredo6 - Bezier curve plug-in on steriods.

    • Bezier Surface thomthom - WIP

    • Bitmap to Mesh thomthom - Generates a mesh from a given BMP image. - Free

    • Blend kirill2008 - A lofting tool.

  • Boolean tools

      • BoolTools Whaat - Boolean tools for the free crowd and pre-SketchUp 7 Pro. Fee

      • OSCoolean oscarlok - Boolean tools for the free crowd.

      • Solids Trim and Keep (Pro) Jim Foltz - Trim a Component and have all instances update as well. SketchUp Pro-only plugin.

  • Graduated, organic shaping / Tensile Structure / Bezier Surface / Quad Subdivision

      • Artisan Dale Martens - Subdivision modeling with additional sculpting and soft transformation tools. Fee

      • Bezier Surface ThomThom - Create bezier surface with bezier patches. beta

      • Eneroth Fractal Terrain Eroder Enerroth3 - Nice way to break up surface into a more organic form. Free

      • FerrariSketch Serge Ferrari Architecture - Tensile structure forming - more options than Soap, Skin & Bubble. Ferrari Sketch at the Ruby Library Depot

      • MeshMaker Sam D Mitch - Creates a regular triangulated network on a selected face.

      • Jacob Samuel has several bezier surface manipulation extensions on the Extension Warehouse. Fee

      • Sketchy FreeForm and Deformation - Chris Philips, (TIG updated) - Deforms a model. A version by gbabcock.

      • Smoove tool from the Sandbox tools extension that comes with SketchUp.

      • Soap, Skin & Bubble Josef Leibinger - Tensile Structure. Donationware - to keep the plugin around, donate. Pro Group thread with lots of tutorials. xxx [dead link]

      • SUbD ThomThom - Subdividing model mesh with the ability to weight an edge for controlled creasing. tutorial Fee - Windows, Mac

      • Subdivide Smustard - Apply a Catmull-Clark subdivision to selected surfaces. Free

      • SubdivideAndSmooth Dale Martens - Organic modeling toolset with a Push/Pull-like workflow. Precursor to Artisan. Fee - Windows, Mac

      • Teapot thomthom - It makes parametric teapots. But more seriously, the plugin is an investigation of bezier meshes.

      • triangulateFaces TIG - Newer version of Triangulate Quad Faces.

      • Vertex Tools ThomThom - Selection tools for organic modeling. - Fee

    • Tools On Surface Fredo6 - Toolset to draw shapes on proxy models to help influence how Artisan will subdivide.

    • Tgi3D Free-form 3D modeling softwares - Fee - Windows

    • Tools on Surface Fredo6 - Support drawing shapes/offsets on top of 3D mesh surfaces.

    • triangulateFaces TIG - Newer version of Triangulate Quad Faces.

    • Vertex Tools ThomThom - Selection tools for organic modeling. - Fee

Odds and Ends

Bending stuff - along a 2D path

  • Tutorial

      • Curving a Componant For the tutorial, see Jean Lemire posted file on "manually" bending a detailed, dimensional component.

        • From suggestion in Jean's bending tutorial above, position intersecting planes by making a Linear Array with the Move tool | video

      • Plugins

          • Zorro2 Whaat - Slices a model - replaces the need to setup intersecting planes in Jean's tutorial model.

          • Tools on Surface - Fredo - Draws profiles on a curved surface.

  • Extensions and plugins that now bend existing models

      • Shape Bender Chris Fullmer - Bends models to a curved path (doesn't like wrapping cylinders though.)

      • FredoScale Fredo - Some bending operations

Bending stuff - 3D


Woodsy Stuff

    • Crown & Rake Molding Study Tutorial on the changing crown proportional when it goes up a raked eave. Also useful for some classical cabinetmakers.

    • compound curve Tutorials on modeling a compound curve in a manner similar to how compound curves can be fabricated in wood. xxxx [dead link]

    • Tricky problem~ Desk with tapered, rope legs xxx [dead link]

    • desk leg question Several methods to make a cabriole leg. There are a few more cabriole threads if you search the Pro group.

    • Molding Profiles SketchUcation thread with many classic moulding profiles for a component collection. Join forum and logon to download.

    • Dynamic Door Eric Schimelpfenig - Video of a snazzy way to control cabinet door style, size and placement - model

Woodsy SketchUp Sites

Plugins

Note: To download plugins from SketchUcation, join the forum (free)and logon.

    • CabinetSense Paul Verhelst - Readies cabinet models for production and processing with CNC, CutList Plus and SimLab. Fee

Cutlists

    • Builder-Free Jack S. - Nesting, graphical cutlists and material cost estimating. Pro version too.

    • Cabinet Vision Version 5 began importing SKP files. Fee - Windows

    • CutList CaptPanic, Vendmr - The original version of CutList as it first appeared. New updates by Steve Racz.

    • CutList Steve Racz - The latest incarnation of this popular woodworker's tool. Wiki page has tutorial links.

    • CutList Bridge 4 Joe Zeh - Plugin to export SketchUp data to the program CutList Plus fx and shreadsheets.

    • Cutlister ishboo - Original code based on CutList, currently developed by Steve Racz, but with different features.

    • CutMap Graphical cutlisting.

    • Mozaik Software Cabinetry design, material list, cutlist and CNC applications and sends rendering data to SketchUp. Fee