Has anyone experimented with Sketchup? It's a free 3d modeling tool
from google. I've been using it to refine designs before I try to
build them. The only bad things I can say about it are that it's hard
to scale your design correctly and it can be hard to figure out how to
accomplish a task. Otherwise it seems like a great tool for
visualizing a project. I could probably do better if I took the time
to read some tutorials. This is a design for my router table fence.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...1c4d5e86834984

wrote:
Has anyone experimented with Sketchup? It's a free 3d modeling tool
from google. I've been using it to refine designs before I try to
build them. The only bad things I can say about it are that it's hard
to scale your design correctly and it can be hard to figure out how to
accomplish a task. Otherwise it seems like a great tool for
visualizing a project. I could probably do better if I took the time
to read some tutorials. This is a design for my router table fence.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...1c4d5e86834984

Looks good. In regards to scaling I think the most important thing I've
learned to use are construction lines. They allow you to lay out lines
exactly where you want them.

" wrote:

Has anyone experimented with Sketchup? It's a free 3d modeling tool
from google. I've been using it to refine designs before I try to
build them. The only bad things I can say about it are that it's hard
to scale your design correctly and it can be hard to figure out how to
accomplish a task. Otherwise it seems like a great tool for
visualizing a project. I could probably do better if I took the time
to read some tutorials. This is a design for my router table fence.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...1c4d5e86834984

Nice drawing. You will find sketchup much more helpful when you get
familiar with using components. I'm building my first project right
now that was designed from the ground up in sketchup. Started with
block diagrams for rough size in room, and progressed to appearance
items (number of doors, shelving units, arched versus straight top,
etc.) and then on to construction details from which I got all my
measurements. Found myself making some of my "stupid mistakes" in
sketchup rather than in wood (Although that didn't sop my from cutting
my stile stock to length, with one end stile and two middle stiles :-(
)


The Sketchup tutorials are very much worth following. However, they
tend to be oriented toward architecture. Dave Richards has written
tutorials that are woodworking-related. I found VERY helpful his
dovetail tutorial at http://webpages.charter.net/drkr/Index.html
It's worth taking the time to step through the tutorial--for me the
"learn by doing" experience solidified many of the things I had read
or viewed in tutorials or demos.

He also has a more advanced tutorial at
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...tchup+tutorial,
but I suspect it might be a little overwhelming for me at my
level--might try it some night soon, though.
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.

alexy wrote:

He also has a more advanced tutorial at
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...tchup+tutorial,
but I suspect it might be a little overwhelming for me at my
level--might try it some night soon, though.

Thanks for those tutorial links - I kind of put down Sketchup because I
couldn't find anything like that. I'll give it another shot now.

Thanks a lot for the links. I haven't tried drawing the joints because
I didn't know how. Maybe now I can do some of that. It's just good to
see that other woodworkers are using sketchup. Hopefully we'll see a
lot more projects show up in the 3d warehouse. For now I'll just keep
drawing mine and putting them up there.

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 06:42:58 -0700, "todd1814 wrote:

Has anyone experimented with Sketchup?
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...1c4d5e86834984

I just downloaded Sketchup (Free) ... the pay version is nearly $500 and
well beyond my humble needs.

In the same sort of vein, some may wish to consider Alibre ... also a
freebie / pay product.
http://www.alibre.com/promos/online/...FQeqHgodrTziGg

Sketchup may be better suited for my purposes but, for those who have
greater needs / aspirations, Alibre appears to be the fuller-featured of
the two.

I would be happy to just make a sketch that I could pass along in an email
to my son, the CAD expert, for prettyfying. :-)))

Bill