Thinking of using the web ver to design my porch make over to a 3 season room. Is there a pkg (library) of basic Lumber / doors / windows to mock build a design. Does everyone have to start from scratch and build every type of lumber (2x4, 2x6, OSB sheets, etc…) I have actually made my plans using MS Excel, but when I want to try a simple change, I have to triple chk everything to see the impact on the whole. Is this not available with the web ver but is on the “pay for” options? Are their libraries you can purchase?
Can you upload a screen capture of your project, it would help in advising you (depending on project complexity).
There are collections of dimensional lumber components in the 3D Warehouse. You can have a look to see if there’s something that suits your needs. Dimensional lumber is trivial to model so personally I wouldn’t bother with components made by someone else. I would create my own components, copy them and make edits as needed within the model space. If you use components for the lumber and other parts in the model, changes can be very rapidly implemented if needed.
About 5 minutes work. It’s taking me longer to decipher your drawing than to model it in SketchUp with components I’ve created from scratch.
Show off…LOL !
So Yoda, the question still stands - for one (me) with no experience using SketchUp vs. you with 15 yrs, do I need to create every pc of board ie. create my own virtual lumber yard, in order to use?
My Excel dwg basically is to add up my dimensions and inventory needed, but it would be awesome to see a fully dimensional scaled model and be able to do what if changes easily on the fly…
- Your humbled student
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You really only need to create a 6x6 post component, a 2x6 component and a 2x4 component to get most of what you have in your drawing as a 3D model. You can make unique copies of components and use Push/Pull to adjust their length. All of the vertical 2x6s in my screen shot were made from the one next to the 6x6 corner post so I only drew that one to start with. You can see in this screen shot I’ve opened one of the vertical components for editing and selected all of the edges and faces inside it. The other instances of that component also show their geometry selected so you can see there are five pieces that are the same. In a cutlist (which could be created using a desktop version of SketchUp but not the web version) that 2x6 would be shown as a single line item with a quantity of 5.
This is all very fundamental stuff in SketchUp. No fancy tricks or advanced techniques. You could spend some time going through the SketchUp Fundamentals and learn the basics and be off and running with this.
Awesome… makes sense…
Would you think their be any advantage to buying the program vs using the web ver for my level of use…?
Well, the pro version would give you the ability to use extensions such as CutList to generate a list for figuring costs and such. You could create construction documents using LayOut if you need those for permits or to work from on site. If there are pieces that need full patterns for making templates, those are easily done with SketchUp and LayOut. You can export CAD files if you need to send those off to someone like a structural engineer.
The user interface is different between the desktop version and the web version and lthough it’s not impossible to make the switch later if you choose to, you might find it’s just easier to start with SketchUp Pro and learn that interface from the git go.
Thanks Dave!
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You would also have the ability to make your own dynamic components. So for what you are doing. You could make one component, and be able to easily change the height, width, etc. There is also a feature (besides cut lists) that would enable you to put a price to each component
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