[diarmaid]

Hey all.

Just wondering if anyone has used Google Sketchup. I just downloaded the free version and its great, really easy to use....but dont forget to save your work as the .skp aswell as just .jpg or you can't open it again. (chair)

Im wondering if anyone has the professional version with the extra features and if its any good? Thanks.

[Rekd]

I downloaded it but haven't tried it yet. I've been stuck on Blender3d. Let us see some stuff you do with it.

I'll start another thread to show some of my stuff in blender.

[diarmaid]

Will do, but it might take a few days, as I mentioned I lost what I did today and I won't get back to it now until the weekend.

But seriously, its really easy to use, and I haven't used a CAD program in years. Might be a bit short on the features, but the full version would fix that I suppose. Hopefully someone will let us know.

Watch the included tutorials. Takes about 25min. Then your away!

L8rs.

[diarmaid]

Heres a few pics of a gate I did in sketchup today. Keep in mind that it was only the 2nd time I used it. This took about 40min taking my time and experimenting as I went. I think its excellent for quickly doing a 3D representation but I'd say it lacks some of the more powerful features and little fine detail editors of other programs, but I haven't delved deep into it yet. I have seen some free add-ons for advanced rendering and what not that might be useful. This was with the free version.

The nuts and bolts on the gate I made as a component in about 10min and then just clicked in the components window and dragged them in wherever I needed them. I just dragged two into a new model and rotated one so you could see them front and back (Pic below). I specified the sizes of everything in about 2 seconds while drawing so everythings to scale. The washers are 1/16 inch. The bolts are M8's and I just dragged the length to suit myself. I didnt need to do threads, I'll let you know about thread drawing when I try it. The wood is 7x1 & 6ft lengths on the gate face. The struts are 2x4.

[diarmaid]

Ok, here's another drawing I did with sketchup. This one took about 2&1/2 hours but thats mainly because I had to rotate and position every single nail into it. I should have slaved the nail component to the axis to avoid this. The pole in the background is there just to illustrate the transparency in the glass. The engravings in the glass took about 10 to 15min to draw with the two line tools. Note the detail in the shadow at the rear showing the engraving lines on the glass.

[diarmaid]

If anyone has sketchup pics to add to this thread please feel free.

[ServoGuy]

Here are a couple of parts I was able to create by pulling in some DWG files, getting rid of everything but the top view, and then using the 'Create Face' command in the Utilities section of the Tools menu on each segment. Then all I had to do is use the 'Push Pull' tool to extrude the part...

Jay

[diarmaid]

Very nice. Did they take long to do, I imagine not using the extrude?

[rhino]

can anyone tell me how to draw to a specific size? i have just downloaded it recently my self, done the tutorials, but it does not tell me how to pull/push to a required size. also can you use construction lines? ive been using normal lines then deleting them after.

[ServoGuy]

Very nice. Did they take long to do, I imagine not using the extrude?

Thanks!!!
The one on the right took about an hour because I did not know what I was doing...
The one on the left took less than 5 minutes because I kinda know what to do now...

I really like this feature as a lot of enclosures and extrusions have DXF and DWG drawings, making it easy to import them into Google Sketchup .

I want to try this with a ballscrew DXF and twist the extrusion to get, I hope, a real looking part...

Jay

[ger21]

can anyone tell me how to draw to a specific size? i have just downloaded it recently my self, done the tutorials, but it does not tell me how to pull/push to a required size.

The video tells you how. After you pull the object (extrude) to any given length, just type the length you want. It should enter into the box in the bottom right corner automatically, and the part will change to the size you want.

You did watch the videos, right?

[rhino]

The video tells you how. After you pull the object (extrude) to any given length, just type the length you want. It should enter into the box in the bottom right corner automatically, and the part will change to the size you want.

You did watch the videos, right?

no. i didn't but i will now!

[ger21]

Here are a couple of parts I was able to create by pulling in some DWG files, getting rid of everything but the top view, and then using the 'Create Face' command in the Utilities section of the Tools menu on each segment.

Took me quite a while to figure this out. THe utilities menu is not there by default. You have to go to Window>Preferences, and choose Extensions and check the Utilities box to get the utilities menu. Thanks for the tip, btw.

[andy_ck87028]

Just save me the effort guys.

Can the output of this be loaded into CAM software and hence into G code?

Andy

[ger21]

Sure can. There is a link to a Ruby script that exports an .stl file from SketchUp here. http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showpo...&postcount=124

Be sure to rename the file to su2stl.rb, and put it in the Plugins directory where Sketchup is installed. When you run Sketchup, it will create a "Plugin" menu which will contain the .stl export.

Here's a shot in Sketchup, and the .stl loaded into MeshCAM.

[ger21]

If you plan on using Sketchup to create parts for CNC, you'll probably want to increase the arc resolution. When you pick the Arc tool, it defaults to 12 segments. Just tyoe in a higher number for smoother curves. You can see the 12 segments in the curve on the model I posted in the previous post.

[Verboten]

If someone hasn't found them yet, there are much more advanced video tutorials at sketchup.com that I didn't see at the google site.

Here is a link that starts the videos. There are over thirty that you can view in order or skip through - may take a while to download.
http://download.sketchup.com/downloa...Tutorials.html

I think that they are from a different version of the program, but they were helpful for me.
-Jason

[Burn]

So, in short, you could do Sketchup > Export to STL, to MeshCAM?

I was thinking that you could go eMachineshop (Good CAD design, better than Sketchup) without any z-depths, export to DXF. Go to Sketchup, set z-depths, then Export to STL and into MeshCAM or whatever your popular CAM program is...Would that work?

[ger21]

So, in short, you could do Sketchup > Export to STL, to MeshCAM?

That's what I did in the pics above.

[ger21]

Be sure to learn how to use the "Follow Me" tool. It's not in the default toolbar, but I discovered it in the tutorial video's listed above.