Sketch-Up....

[Israel]

Hello,
Wondering if members have opinions on the easiest way to learn this program...  I've seen several on-line tutorial type approaches, but would love to hear from others which, if any, they prefer as a way of getting started.  
Thanks!

[cams2705]

Hello,
Wondering if members have opinions on the easiest way to learn this program...  I've seen several on-line tutorial type approaches, but would love to hear from others which, if any, they prefer as a way of getting started.  
Thanks!

If you go way back through the blog listed below.  This is where I learned how to use it.  I think there were a few little projects where he stepped you through openining it for the first time and setting it up.  I believe it was a shaker side table project.  But there is a wealth of knowlede on the site.

http://www.srww.com/blog/

[DaveR1]

Hello,
Wondering if members have opinions on the easiest way to learn this program...  I've seen several on-line tutorial type approaches, but would love to hear from others which, if any, they prefer as a way of getting started.  
Thanks!

How do you prefer to learn? Do you like to watch and learn from videos? Do you want some personalized one-on-one training? Do you like to go at it and ask for assistance when you get stuck?

If you like videos, there are many on You Tube. There are some good ones but there are also some that teach poor methods. As a beginner, discerning the good from the bad can be difficult.  If you want personalized training, there are people out there that can do that. Some will have a curriculum and have you go through all the steps. Some, like me, use a targeted approach to teach you what you want to learn. There are others here who use SketchUp so you could just ask questions if you want and see what you get from other members.

Lots of options.

If you want some help getting going, drop me a PM and I'll be happy to help. Some folks don't get off on the right foot and find it much more difficult than it really is. It's too bad, really because there are a lot of advantages.

Here are a few examples of furniture and other models I've done. Anyone can do this sort of stuff if they want.

[Admiral]

Hello,
Wondering if members have opinions on the easiest way to learn this program...  I've seen several on-line tutorial type approaches, but would love to hear from others which, if any, they prefer as a way of getting started.  
Thanks!

I tried, and frankly, unless you are committed to CAD, which this is, it takes a long time to master the program. For me, it's easier to buy some graph paper, a scale, and draw out what I'm making. Others may differ.

[Danny in Houston]

How do you prefer to learn? Do you like to watch and learn from videos? Do you want some personalized one-on-one training? Do you like to go at it and ask for assistance when you get stuck?

If you like videos, there are many on You Tube. There are some good ones but there are also some that teach poor methods. As a beginner, discerning the good from the bad can be difficult.  If you want personalized training, there are people out there that can do that. Some will have a curriculum and have you go through all the steps. Some, like me, use a targeted approach to teach you what you want to learn. There are others here who use SketchUp so you could just ask questions if you want and see what you get from other members.

Lots of options.

If you want some help getting going, drop me a PM and I'll be happy to help. Some folks don't get off on the right foot and find it much more difficult than it really is. It's  too bad, really because there are a lot of advantages.

Here are a few examples of furniture and other models I've done. Anyone can do this sort of stuff if they want.

I tried, and frankly, unless you are committed to CAD, which this is, it takes a long time to master the program. For me, it's easier to buy some graph paper, a scale, and draw out what I'm making. Others may differ.

What he said.

[Wild Turkey]

The more I learn to "think like the machine" the easier it gets.  

Don't try to make it do things the way you would with a T-square, think about the way the program wants to do things.

sample: I tried to draw a square by drawing four connecting lines.  Kept having at one corner; tried using the "draw square" tool and only had to click on two corners, problem corner was automatically found.

I like to read "tips" and "how to tricks" that just give you the steps and don't try to explain all the details.

Just wish someone would come up with a nice list of "how to do this" steps.



My biggest problem is getting frustrated when the program seems to decide what it wants to do despite you telling it to do something else.  I sometimes have to back up and start over and never have a good idea of what went wrong.

But my success rate is getting much better

[jteneyck]

Hello,
Wondering if members have opinions on the easiest way to learn this program...  I've seen several on-line tutorial type approaches, but would love to hear from others which, if any, they prefer as a way of getting started.  
Thanks!

I tried the online tutorials; didn't work for me.  Then I tried Killen's book and in about 6 hours I could make a basic model.  I had a background in 2D CAD but, frankly, not much of that translated to SketchUp.   Anyway, as Dave said, what will work best for you depends upon how you like to learn. 

I would never want to go back to 2D CAD or paper and pencil.  The beauty of SketchUp is not just that you can create 3D models, but that you can easily modify it, a little or a lot, w/o a lot of pain.  If you now draw with paper and pencil you know what a pain it is to make changes.  And after you've created a model, you can use CutList to print out a parts list as well as lay out all the components on your stock or sheet goods.  And you can download components from the 3D Warehouse directly into your model, even complete models.  Want to see how a 46" TV will look on the media center you are designing?  Download it and set it in/on your model.  Very powerful. 

John

[Bob Lang]

I taught myself how to use SketchUp, but it was a time-consuming struggle. My background was in the cabinet industry and building furniture reproductions, preparing shop drawings for high-end work with both paper drawings and in AutoCAD. At the time there weren't online videos and the only book was "SketchUp for Dummies". I figured it couldn't be that hard, given what I already knew. I was incredibly mistaken with that assumption.

SketchUp isn't like any other computer program for design/drafting/engineering/presentation work. When you know how to use it, it is an amazing tool; far more efficient and versatile than any other I have used. Most of my struggle was assuming it worked like drawing or AutoCAD. After I got pretty good at it,  I taught my coworkers at PopWood how to use it, and began teaching SketchUp classes. In the course of my teaching experience I realized that almost everyone has trouble with a few basic things. Once you get a handle on those things, you can do anything you want to.

In 2010, I wrote and published a digital book called "Woodworker's Guide to SketchUp" in pdf format with embedded videos. In 2015 I released a revised version, the "New Woodworkers Guide to SketchUp". My goal was to directly address and quickly resolve the things I and the people I taught had issues with. It teaches you the specific things you need for cabinets and furniture. It isn't free, or cheap, but it will get you where you want to be in the least amount of time. Because this is self-published, you can only get it from my website or from Amazon. I won't turn this into any more of a self-serving sales pitch, or a rant about how may others have released books and videos with similar titles. I'll just say that thousands of woodworkers have used it to learn 3D modeling in a relatively short period of time.

[Danny in Houston]

I taught myself how to use SketchUp, but it was a time-consuming struggle. My background was in the cabinet industry and building furniture reproductions, preparing shop drawings for high-end work with both paper drawings and in AutoCAD. At the time there weren't online videos and the only book was "SketchUp for Dummies". I figured it couldn't be that hard, given what I already knew. I was incredibly mistaken with that assumption.

SketchUp isn't like any other computer program for design/drafting/engineering/presentation work. When you know how to use it, it is an amazing tool; far more efficient and versatile than any other I have used. Most of my struggle was assuming it worked like drawing or AutoCAD. After I got pretty good at it,  I taught my coworkers at PopWood how to use it, and began teaching SketchUp classes. In the course of my teaching experience I realized that almost everyone has trouble with a few basic things. Once you get a handle on those things, you can do anything you want to.

In 2010, I wrote and published a digital book called "Woodworker's Guide to SketchUp" in pdf format with embedded videos. In 2015 I released a revised version, the "New Woodworkers Guide to SketchUp". My goal was to directly address and quickly resolve the things I and the people I taught had issues with. It teaches you the specific things you need for cabinets and furniture. It isn't free, or cheap, but it will get you where you want to be in the least amount of time. Because this is self-published, you can only get it from my website or from Amazon. I won't turn this into any more of a self-serving sales pitch, or a rant about how may others have released books and videos with similar titles. I'll just say that thousands of woodworkers have used it to learn 3D modeling in a relatively short period of time.

I was hoping to click the underlined book titles and be taken to a link where I could buy an electronic copy of the book, but the underlined book titles in your post were not hyperlinks.  So I searched and found the books on Amazon, only available on DVD format for $39.95.  So I just passed.

Just wanted to provide some marketing feedback.  You had me, but it became too much trouble.

So back to paper and pencil, maybe one day I'll put forth the effort.

[®smpr_fi_mac®]

Dave helped me learn Sketchup. I had a fair grasp of it, but he pushed me over the edge in being comfortable with it. I love it.

Once you learn it, keep in mind that there are LOTS of videos on YouTube explaining different things to do with it. Example: A week ago I couldn't figure out how to draw an ogee curve with the program. YouTube to the rescue!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azGhCMmYbl0