SketchTakeoff – material takeoff and cut lists directly from SketchUp
Hi everyone,
I’ve been developing a small SketchUp extension called SketchTakeoff.
The idea is to keep material takeoff as simple as possible: model your parts, assign material tags using chosen suffixes, and let the extension calculate quantities directly from the geometry.
At the moment SketchTakeoff can:
- calculate linear metres, pieces, m² and m³
- create both a compact summary and a detailed report
- generate cut lists for timber
- detect square cuts, mitre angles and compound bevel cuts
- highlight matching parts directly in the SketchUp model
- isolate one representative part for inspection and measurement
- print/save the report as PDF
- export the takeoff and cut data to CSV for Excel
The suffixes are configurable on first start, so users can choose their own naming system instead of being locked to mine.
I’ve deliberately tried to keep the interface simple. I’m a carpenter by background and use SketchUp for real building projects, so this has been developed and tested on actual models rather than as a theoretical estimating system.
It is now at 0.9.1 Beta, and I’m looking for a few people who would like to test it on their own models — especially Windows users.
I’m particularly interested in feedback on:
- whether the tag workflow feels intuitive
- whether the reported quantities are correct
- whether the cut instructions make sense to someone seeing the model for the first time
- Mac/Windows compatibility
- anything that feels unnecessarily complicated
The long-term goal is to make this available through the SketchUp Extension Warehouse.
I’ll add a few screenshots below showing the summary report, detailed cut list and model highlighting.
Any feedback is very welcome.
