It also has nice tools for working with solid objects that are otherwise only included in Google SketchUp Pro. (a) One tool from CADspan and works well as long as you create a free account with their company that is needed each time you use the tool. Separately, if you want to use designs from Thingiverse where everyone shares the STL files but only some share there CAD files, I use a STL importer plugin for SketchUp as well (see c below). Also, I use SketchUp Pro so I will use the solid tools a lot along with the Solid Inspector plugin ( ) and Fix Solid plugin ( ). Additionally, I don’t have to print out too many experimental jobs because I use Pleasant3D CAD to visualize the “gcode” code that would be sent to the printer to do a quick reality check on how well something will print. There is nothing in the ReplicatorG software for the Makerbot that ensures a design will print well so I have some rules-of-the-thumb and do some iterations back and forth between SketchUp and ReplicatorG. The Makerbot uses STL files so if I want to export from SketchUp, I need to use an STL export plugin (see a and b below). That is very timely as we will be making some posts about how we do things based on our learning. The plug-ins that are installed and are recommended for greatly increasing the utility of SketchUp include: The University of Richmond subscribes to Atomic Learning tutorials for its community however, those tutorials are only up to SketchUp version 7 (visit ). They are available through the 3D Warehouse (visit ). Also, there are tutorial files that can be opened in SketchUp and walk you through learning various skills.

The best video tutorials are the official ones originally from Google and now maintained by Trimble (visit h ttp://).

There are many sources for tutorials for using SketchUp. SketchUp is available for download from their site, but it is also available on the computers in the Technology Learning Center located on the 3rd floor of Boatwright Library. Moreover, there are many plug-ins for use with the app to increase functionality and interoperability.

It has a very low learning curve and can be used to create accurate designs.

SketchUp is a great tool for doing 3D design.

Sketchup 2d tools