So you can watch a video and see SketchUp in action, then read about the process in detail. The combination of video and text makes it suited to all types of learning styles, whether you prefer to read it or watch it. Both books include information on creating a set of shop drawings and templates.Īn interesting feature, taking advantage of the electronic format, is that the second book has several videos embedded in the PDF. Like the first, it's packed with diagrams. He also uses several other projects as examples. One of them shows how to work from scanned images. It includes some review of basic usage, then covers three cabinet projects in different traditional styles down to the last detail.

His second book, 197 pages, consists of 7 chapters focusing on using SketchUp for cabinetmaking.

It's copiously illustrated with step-by-step diagrams and is a fabulous example of written instruction. He uses a variety of different furniture projects for examples, including simple cabinets and tables and a Windsor chair.

The more complex a model becomes, the more SketchUp gets in my way it’s kind of the opposite for Fusion 360 for me.Killen's first book, 145 pages, consists of 16 chapters covering SketchUp tools and techniques, from basic navigation to creating original drawings to making drawings from imported photos. I’ll still pull out SketchUp occasionally if I need to do a quick-and-dirty room layout or something where I’m not creating a complete plan, but I found it endlessly frustrating to be building a large, complex set of components and have things go all funky because I forgot to group a mesh before adding a perpendicular unit or something. I’ve noticed that the effort involved is steep at the beginning, but more than pays for itself with more complex projects. I just picked this up to try out on the tablet, and if it works out I might switch from Fusion to SolidWorks.įusion 360 is good, but it can be complex to learn I’m building a solid model, and I having to think about direction of normals gets in the way with the way my brain works. What specifically about SketchUp didn’t you like?įor me, it was the mesh modeling.

Sketchup free woodworking