On Mon, 25 May 2009 10:25:15 -0500, Jack Stein
wrote:

Prof Wonmug wrote:
On Sun, 24 May 2009 15:01:51 -0500, Swingman wrote:

Typcially it takes about three tries with SU to get into doing
woodworking. Some patience is required, but much less than with most CAD
programs, so don't give up.

Well, I'm probably halfway between try #1 & #2. It's not any harder
than Visio and a lot more powerful for what I am trying to do.

I think you are still on try #1. After you play with it for a week,
quit for a month or year, and re-start... then you will be on try #2.
It took me 4 tries, not 3 but I think you skipped try #1, which is
normally to install it, and see what you can do with out RTFM.

You may be right -- either that or I am on 1.5, but it will take me 5
tries. ;-)

Regardless of number of tries, Sketchup is almost perfect for the
hobbyist wood worker. You can quickly draw up cabinets, shelves, work
benches, chairs, tables, pencil holders and golf net frames to scale and
with 3D graphics, color the designs with wood types or paint so you can
get a nice look at what your project will look like before you build it.

I haven't even started looking at colors and textures, but I did watch
an amazing video showing how to model a structure from a photo:

http://www.aidanchopra.com/tableofco...photo-matching

BTW: This site, which is a companion to the book, has a ton of
excellent videos:

http://www.aidanchopra.com/Home

You can print out the design with dimensioned drawings to make
building it a snap. This is all FREE, so it's impossible to beat the
price. The pro version is like $500 and has about no features the free
version doesn't have. The few things the pro version does would not be
of much value to the average home hobbyist woodworker, or even a small
shop professional. You probably can design, draw and build (and pay for)
an entire kitchen for your loved one with the free version faster than
you can learn to use (and pay for) Autocad.

If you are designing a launch pad for NASA, or hooking your drawing up
to a $500,000 CNC water jet/laser cutter, you probably want to look into
going to school for a few years and getting familiar with AutoCad types
of programs that cost as much as most wood shops.

That's for sure. A full-scale CAD program was never an option. ;-) If
something like SketchUp was not available, it would be pencil and
paper.

Otherwise, let us know how many tries it takes you to figure out how
good free can get.

I think I've figured that out already.