show cut pieces with sketchup woodworking

#Show cut pieces with sketchup woodworking professional

All twelve of these views are scaled drawings. From any of those twelve views the designer can add dimensions, notes or labels.View a model from top, bottom, right side, left side, front, back or the isometric variant of any of those six views.This is easily accomplished by rendering the model in isometric view (aka parallel projection view) with just the click of a menu command. When a 3-D model is completed in perspective view, that same model is used to create scaled shop drawings with dimensions. Shop Drawings and Cut Lists – Sketchup for Woodworkers Use that very same 3-D model to document the design once it is completed and accepted.Add joinery and be 100% confident the chosen joinery is going to work because the 3-D model is now the prototype.

#Show cut pieces with sketchup woodworking professional

Professional and hobbyist woodworkers alike can present several versions of a design to a client/friend/family member in photorealistic views or in hand-drawn sketch-like views, thus projecting a desire for that person to participate fully in the design.She/he can even mix woods in the same design. Apply and change wood grains to see how various woods suit the design.Easily modify the design without wasting a single scrap of wood.

Observe the perspective view at any angle, giving the designer an opportunity to judge the design from any orientation.Use digital pictures of antiques to create scaled 3-D reproduction models.Sketch an idea in perspective view without concern for joinery until after the final sketch is accepted.Along came 3-D modeling and specifically SketchUp. Even then, another woodworker viewing the 2-D plans had difficulty visualizing the intended joinery.

For complex furniture pieces many woodworkers found they had to build mockups or prototypes to get their shop drawings right. Woodworking plans used the top, front, and side dimensioned views for shop drawings. Traditionally home architects, builders, woodworkers or furniture designers sketched out their ideas on paper in either perspective view or in the usual 2-D plan and elevation views. Let’s look at 3-D modeling first, shop drawings and cut lists second. SketchUp is ideally suited for woodworkers because the 3-D model produces the documentation set we know as shop drawings and cut lists. But SketchUp could not be better suited for woodworking if it had been the only target on their list and the developers were all woodworkers. Interestingly, the original developers of SketchUp likely did not have woodworking on their target market list.

Lastly, while this topic has been discussed numerous times, I hope to do a better job explaining it in woodworker terms.įor those who have never heard of SketchUp, it is a 3-dimensional modeling and documentation tool used widely in the architectural engineering, construction, product design and marketing industries.

Woodworkers have short memories when it comes to tools that don’t reside in a cabinet on the shop wall.

There are still too many woodworkers out there who have never heard of SketchUp and we need to get the word out.

So why list the benefits of SketchUp for woodworkers again? Here’s why: This topic has appeared once or twice on woodworking blogs.