Hey everyone!
I am excited to announce that I have developed a new SketchUp Extension called Composition Guides. This extension allows you to display various types of composition lines or grids in the 3D Viewport to help you compose your scene. The best part is that it’s completely FREE!
This is a great tool for architects, designers, and artists who want to create visually balanced and harmonious compositions.
You can find the extension on:
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Very cool addition for the “toolbox” 
It looks like there’s a pull down for aspect ratio as well. It works as a safe frame tool as well?
Yes. You can also change the camera Aspect Ratio between the following:
Do you think it is worth it to add the golden ratio as well : 1:1.618…
2:3 would be good as that’s what 35mm cameras (and some others) do.
I will add the golden ratio 1:1.618 for the next update.
I will also see if I can add an option for the user to add their own custom ratio.
Thank you @jean_lemire_1 for the suggestion.
The Extension Warehouse page has a download button, that downloads an empty text file.
The page also only says Windows compatibility. It seems to work on Mac. I see that in the Sketchucation version you already have a Golden Ratio button.
This is a problem. When my extension was approved I downloaded it successfully without a problem. But, now like you say it only downloads a .txt file. I wonder what happened.
I will try to contact the Extensibility team on Monday about this.
Thank you for reporting this since I was not aware of it.
In the mean time, people can use Gumroad or SketchUcation Plugin Store to download the .rbz file.
I personally don’t have a Mac to test my extensions so I have to wait until I get confirmation that they work on Mac.
Thanks to you, now I know they work so I will update the compatibility info to include Mac in the next update.
There is a Golden Ratio section for drawing a Grid overlay called Phi and two Triangle lines based on the Golden ratio.
However, what I will include next that is not yet present in the extension is a safe frame based on the Golden Aspect Ratio. This will be selected on the dropdown menu along with the other aspect ratio options.
These are the current options for version 0.0.6
I will add these for next update:
Great idea. It would be great to for the grids to remain active/visible when panning and orbiting to help with alignment/positioning. If possible that is.
That would make it 10x easier to get the camera into the desired position. I agree this would be an awesome feature for the extension to be more useful.
Something I noticed is that the download I can do from the EW review page shows an RBZ that has a different name to the one from SketchUcation. I doubt that is the reason for getting the blank .txt file, but it did seem odd.
You are correct about Extension Warehouse having a different .rbz file than the ones used for SketchUcation Plugin Store and my Gumroad Store.
The difference is that when I submit the .rbz file to the Extension Warehouse it is not Encrypted. That way the ‘Extensibility Team’ can make sure the code doesn’t break things. If they approve the code then it will be encrypted afterward.
For distributing my extension outside the Extension Warehouse I Encrypt and Sign the .rbz myself.
Just discovered that when I use the SpaceMouse from 3DCONNEXION the grids remain active/visible when moving the camera!
Available at:
If you already installed v0.0.6 then you can update to v0.0.7 from SketchUp:
You can follow the steps below regardless of where you downloaded the extension. However, the SketchUp Extension Warehouse and SketchUcation PluginStore have their own way to update the extension. I suggest updating the extension with the steps below if you downloaded the extension from my Gumroad store.
Scene Buttons now have tooltips
The Plus button now adds a new scene with a user-specified name.
More info: A user by the name @EstOuest wanted this feature and I even created a standalone plugin that can be downloaded for free HERE. The original forum post can be found HERE.
New Aspect Ratios Added:
New UI Design: Do you like the new UI design?
Below are some features that are not new but have never been explained before:Save UI position
Toggle All Composition Guides with a double click:
Toggle by Section with a double click:
If you find any bugs or have any suggestions & feedback then I would greatly appreciate it if you share them with me. 
Really nice Plugin @indie3d! i would suggest adding the Golden spiral as part of the golden ratio tabs.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into how I can achieve the golden spiral for a future update.
Great, please keep me posted!
