In Part 1 of this series, I discussed the optimal hardware for SketchUp performance, and in Part 2 I discussed some user interface options you can set to speed things up. In this post, I’ll discuss the modeling process that will allow you to keep performance at its peak, for any size model. Specifically: Using components and […]
Part 1 of this three-part series focused on the hardware you need to maximize SketchUp performance. In this part, I’ll discuss how to adjust SketchUp settings for the most efficient performance. Here’s what I’ll cover: Edge Styles Shadows OpenGL Outliner Edge Styles These are the easiest setting to change, and can have a significant impact on performance. […]
This is the first in a three-part series, based on my 12 years of using SketchUp. It’s my answer to the one question I constantly see online and hear in classes: HOW DO I MAKE SKETCHUP RUN FASTER? In this part (as you might have guessed from the post title), I discuss the best hardware for running […]
If you have or use a 3D printer, you know that STL is the format read by nearly all commercial and personal 3D printers these days. In this previous post, I wrote about the SketchUp STL extension, which you can use to generate an STL file from your SketchUp model. This post shows another way to […]
SketchUp is a great tool for creating 3D printed models. (And I happen to have a book on that very subject!) But you can’t feed a SketchUp model directly to a 3D printer; a model must be converted to the STL format. At least as of now, SketchUp doesn’t have a direct export to STL […]
In the previous post I reviewed SketchUp‘s Model Info window, highlighting some of the options it provides to make your SketchUp modeling life easier. People often associate Model Info with the Preferences window. The difference is that Model Info affects just the model you’re working on, whereas Preferences affects how SketchUp runs for ALL models. Also called System Preferences, you can […]
There are several menus and windows in SketchUp that are easily overlooked, even by experienced users. The Model Info (menu: Window / Model Info) window is one of these. All of the pages of the Model Info window are useful. But the three pages I’ll discuss here, which are relevant to model performance, are: Statistics Components Units […]
Some of you may remember an awesome SketchUp plugin called Sketchy Physics. You could use it to assign physical properties to SketchUp objects and let those objects interact with one another. And you could add hinges, pistons, sliders – it was incredibly fun and somewhat addictive. Teachers loved it. But Sketchy Physics wasn’t compatible with SketchUp […]
In Part 1 of this series, Bonnie discussed best practices of layer placement, and in Part 2 I showed some large-model case studies of layer organization. In this last post of this series, I’ll demonstrate the power of combining SketchUp layers with scenes to make model presentation simple and efficient. This complicated-looking project is a prime candidate for simplification using scenes […]
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