When I’m planning more complex projects, I often find that pencil and paper has limitations for sketching out designs. I’ve tried to pick up SketchUp a few times over the last year or two, but I always got frustrated and gave up before I finished modeling my build.
This week I decided to sit down and get myself over that initial learning curve so that I can be productive in SketchUp. Thanks to a recommendation from a Facebook group, I found this incredibly helpful video from Steve Ramsey which introduces SketchUp specifically for woodworkers.
In all, it only took me a couple hours to get basic proficiency. I just followed the above video, pausing occasionally to play with new tools or figure out why my model wasn’t matching the video. The number of things you need to learn before you can do most basic modeling in Sketchup is actually relatively small. It’s just not very intuitive if you’re trying to figure it out yourself without any guide to help you figure out how to approach your model.
After finishing the video, I decided to spin up a new sketch and model the Pikler triangle that I built last month. I learned even more by modeling without step-by-step instructions. The main new things I learned were how to use the Protractor tool to measure angles and set angled guides, how to accurately draw circles and use them to round over pieces, and how to reorient the axes for a component. Here’s the model I ended up with. There’s still room for some small tweaks here and there, but overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
