General SketchUp Info

Flashback: the Scale Tool - a Simple Snap of the Pin

I ran this post a few months ago, when the blog was just getting started and our readership was still starting to grow. The post got a lot of views and feedback, so I thought I’d run it again for anyone who didn’t already see it. Enjoy!     The very useful Scale tool in […]

Modeling A Sail Canopy

In the first two parts of this series, I showed how to create a simple sail canopy. In Part 1 I modeled the surface of the canopy, and in Part 2 I modeled the tower supports. In this post, I’ll show how to make another popular landscape architecture model in SketchUp: a fluid sail canopy. There […]

Modern Canopies in SketchUp: Part 2- Sail Canopy Support

In Part 1 of this series, I demonstrated how to model the surface of a sail canopy in SketchUp. In this post, I’ll model the sail canopy supports – the three tall, tapered truss structures in the three corners of the sail:   Extensions You’ll Need From the Extension Warehouse, you’ll need these three: Profile […]

Modern Canopies in SketchUp: Part 1- Sail Canopy Surface

As a landscape architect, I work and design in the urban environment, focusing on the 3 P’s: Parks, Plazas, Pedestrians. My goal is to provide ergonomic and aesthetic design elements, encouraging the use of open spaces. Shaded gathering areas are growing quite popular, and tensile structures such as sail canopies are a beautiful way to […]

life begins after coffee 3d model

In Part 1 of this series, I showed how to set up the elements needed to bend 3D text to fit along a curve. Here’s where I left off – I have: The curved face where the bent text will be moved back to The text itself, which will be bent The straight reference line, […]

Wrapping Text with Shape Bender: Part 1 - Preparing the Parts

I love, love, love the CLF Shape Bender extension (by Chris Fullmer, available in the Extension Warehouse). It does lots of things, but one of my favorite things to do with it is to bend 3D text along a curve. (If you need to learn how to find and install an extension from the Extension Warehouse, […]

Scaling Objects SketchUp

In Part 1 of this series, I showed how to use the Tape Measure tool within groups or components, to resize only specific objects and not the entire model. This post also discusses using Tape Measure with groups and components. But the focus here is internal vs. imported (external) components. Read on to see what the difference is. Internal Components, […]

Scaling Objects Sketchup Tape Measure Components14

SketchUp’s Tape Measure tool is a handy little thing. It can be used for measuring, creating guide lines, and resizing objects. And when it comes to resizing, you can either resize everything in your model at once, or you can separate out objects you want to resize individually. This is great if you want to size one object […]

SketchUp Paste In Place 4

I was recently doing a small SketchUp consulting project for a friend who’s a landscape architect. She wanted my help with generating topographical surfaces, while she was going to concentrate on finding the right vegetation components. Because we weren’t working with any kind of fancy file-checkout system, we agreed that we’d work on the same model […]