Making construction documents with SketchUp | Skalp for SketchUp: Getting Started

SketchUp is much more then an easy to use 3D modeling application for quick sketches or to create 3D models for rendering. You can use SketchUp to create construction documents from your 3D models. The Skalp for SketchUp plugin helps you to do this in an easy way…

You can test this yourself! Watch the getting started Video Tutorial, download the plugin and our tutorial model!

Download 14-day free trial version

or

Buy Skalp for SketchUp with a our special ‘SketchUp Forum’ discount *

Download tutorial model:

*until June 30, 2015

@Guy I was wondering if you have a recommendation for a book or set of tutorials for using Skalp as a part of an overall workflow? I know that the getting started guide and the youtube videos are primarily for version 1, are they still the best way to get started?

If you have a LayOut workflow in place already then the Skalp plugin will just aid you in making stuff so much better. Is there something specific you want to know?

Nothing specific. I know how to use it for my needs and I love it.

I have been teaching my sons (13 y/o) to use SketchUp and there have been good books and tutorials that I’ve had them follow. I’m about to have them model a house and take it through to construction documents, so I was looking for some similarly comprehensive information, and I was hoping someone had written a book on LayOut that utilized Skalp.

I thought this would be the place to ask because it was the top result when searching “Skalp construction documents tutorial” :grinning:

Sounds like I need to get YouTubeing!

@TommyK has done some presentations on the subject, but I think we should get together and do some tutorials.

1 Like

I ordered Nick Sonder’s book last night, and his videos are good. What I find, and this may be heading into new thread territory, is that there are getting started with SU and LO books and tutorials, and converting your existing Architectural skills to SU and LO. There are no starting-from-scratch-as-a-new-architecture-student-and-learning-everything-within-the-SU-and-LO-ecosystem books (is there a badge for excessive hyphenation?). I think that would be an asset to the community.

I think @Sonder 's book would be a great start. What I’m unsure about, having not read it but met him in Boulder, is the difference between Skalp’s handling of sections and how Nick does it.

@Sonder method was to make a viewport of the grouped section lines and place them over the raster viewport. This actually makes dimensioning easier than any other method because you lock the raster viewport and only dimension to the minimal linework of the grouped section lines.

The advantage with Skalp is you get instant section views without any kind of post processing, which also has the advantage of being very fluid to change.

I’d be happy to chat to you about it!

2 Likes

yes at this moment this is still the best there is :frowning: I’m sorry

We are busy updating the manual, creating a new website, getting Skalp translated, new video tutorials, support, bug fixes, new features,… but our day is only 24 hours and only 7 days a week :frowning:

1 Like

@Guy, I assure you, we’re all more than thankful that Skalp is available and works! Also, I have to say, every time I’ve found a bug, you’ve taken care of it with an amazingly fast turnaround.

1 Like

You make my day :slight_smile:

@Guy I’m still up for doing some videos if you want an English accent!

2 Likes

I was just wondering if there is a better system for producing hatch patterns on elevations in layout rather than going through and drawing boxes around everything. I like to show elevations in black and white, but when you do that, it is hard to read things apart with out proper hatches. Skalp would work, but I am not cutting through the building in elevation. I was wondering if there is any sort of “Hatch fill” plugin that someone has developed for layout similar to autoCAD. If so that would be a game changer.

I use seal- for mine, it’s fantastic, I also use a suite of tools called condoc tools, it’s a methodology for su architecture organisation as well as plugins which has got my model org down.
It has corresponding scrapbooks for layout and automatically produces standard architectural hatch patterns depending on your model organisation. It’s a learning curve but the methodology is logical and becomes second nature, I find it generally good practice and I use the organisation methodology regardless of whether I am producing construction documents with skalp or condoc tools;

Cheers
Rob

O no way. I just bought the CONDOC tools. I am impressed by the scrapbooks and title blocks and the workflow. Do you happen to work in architecture or similar industries? I am in the states and have a huge fascination with finding more firms that implement SketchUp for full construction documentations. Could you tell me more about seal for SketchUp?

Sorry I meant Skalp- that was autocorrect.
Yes I do residential architectural design in th Uk.
Condoc tools are very good but as anything it has pros and cons.
So I use skalp where I want fine control over how a drawing looks and is presented, so for details and things like that. Con doc tools can price drawings quickly but need a bit of ‘debugging’ I.e. Amending the model organisation so things are showing correctly in layout

1 Like

Cool stuff. I find that only in Europe do firms embrace a non-Autodesk solution for drafting and design. The US largely still sees SketchUp as a child toy. This makes collaboration in architecture a bit difficult in the states. Hopefully this will change with time and once people realize they are spending way too much time in dialog boxes.