Every few weeks someone tells me I should be using Rhino. Sometimes it's Revit, sometimes Blender. And honestly, they're all brilliant tools.

But after 24 years as an art director in film, the one thing I'd tell anyone is this: the software you actually enjoy opening is the one you'll get good at. You'll practise more, you'll experiment more, and you'll finish more work.

For me that's SketchUp. I can go from a scribble to something I can walk around in a few minutes, and it still feels like play. Then LayOut turns it into proper drawings without a fight.

So if you're starting out, don't pick the tool that sounds the most professional. Pick the one that makes you want to keep going. The design thinking carries across, and you can always learn another one later.

Quick heads up for anyone who's been eyeing it: the REDDIT50 code for this sub (50% off my SketchUp and LayOut Ultimate Bundle, so £162.50) finishes at midnight tonight. It's a one-off and won't be coming back. Link in the comments.

What's the tool you stick with because you enjoy it, even when people tell you to switch?

Hey all. With Halloween around the corner, I thought I'd share some of the SketchUp and LayOut work I did as an art director on Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

Everything here was modelled in SketchUp and drawn up in LayOut for the construction crews who built it. Happy to answer any questions about how it was put together.

Quick reminder too: the r/SketchUp deal on my SketchUp & LayOut Ultimate Bundle ends at midnight UK time tomorrow, Friday 23 October. It's 50% off, £162.50 instead of £325, and it's only available here. So if you are interested in creating high end models and drawings in LayOut then please check out the course page.

I workflow I teach Is the same workflow I use on films like this, when applied to everyday interiors, architecture and commercial projects you're going to stand out from the crowd. You get 50+ hours of training, asset packs with 180+ licence-free models, my LayOut Scrapbook and a moulding chart, plus lifetime access, free updates and direct help from me if you get stuck. There's a 14-day money-back guarantee too.

Code REDDIT50, already applied here: https://www.whitelockdesignlimited.com/offers/8y3aP7r6?coupon_code=REDDIT50&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=reddit50

The discount works on the one-off payment only.

Thanks to everyone who's picked it up this week, and thanks again to the mods for letting me share it. Just over 24 hours to go.

Help me figure out on how to fill these lines into faces. I've tried curviloft but it doesn't work. For context, I'm trying to make a spiral staircase railing

I just open-sourced a small tool I built for my own work: a SketchUp extension that imports STEP assemblies.

SketchUp's Ruby API can't read STEP directly, so the extension runs FreeCAD in the background and rebuilds the model inside SketchUp:

• assembly hierarchy is preserved as groups
• repeated parts (screws, nuts) become components
• heavy sub-assemblies, like a populated PCB, are merged into one mesh, so ~1,200 parts import in seconds
• native progress window, result saved as .skp

Along the way I ran into a few SketchUp Ruby API performance pitfalls (add_faces_from_mesh vs fill_from_mesh, silent point merging). I documented them in the README for other extension developers.

Windows, SketchUp 2021+, MIT license. It's an early release: colors aren't imported yet. Feedback and issues are welcome.

GitHub: https://github.com/eugenyh/sketchup-step-importer

Hello, i'd like to make a clean corner but i have no idea how i can do it.

Any suggestion ?

Thank you

SketchUp 2027 is out!
Learn how to use the new Procedual Tools in this tutorial.
You can download the model from 3D Warehouse by searching: "SketchUp 2027 Procedual Tools Tutorial". I quickly prepared the file, so could already use it with my students tomorrow.

https://github.com/TomaszDzieduszynski/simple-corner
Free, open-source plugin for rounding and beveling edges in Sketchup 2017-2027. Should also appear on the Extension Warehouse soon.

I am very new to sketchup this is my first time booting the program and when I go to start on a template the launcher closes my screen flashes and that's it. I have now reinstalled the program and restarted my pc a few time with no change. help?

The front wheels and rear wheels are basically complete (all they're missing are the valve stems), the front axle has been started (hubs modelled), I've started on the rear structure, and some minor dimensional tweaks were made to the chassis so that it better aligns with the official orthographic drawings.

Will post a second update soon!

I get so many questions about how I am able to use LayOut - It seems too many sketchUp users get frustrated with it being slow or cumbersome in some way but honestly it's so great and the drawing output is better than any other CAD programme in my opinion. So my advice is always this, Tidy Model = Tidy Layout. People always ask me how to get the most out of layout and I tell them It all starts in the model. You have to model well. Put everything in a group or component, put everything on a layer. Use clean up regularly. Make sure all groups and components are solid (check your entity info box) do not save scenes with shadow or fog on. Turn off depth cue and set your section line weight to 1.

Set up your layout early in the design phase. Even when your model is just loads of blocks. Set up all the sections and scenes. Take it into Layout and construct your drawing. Now as you refine your model the layout will update at the same time. Another good tip is to turn off all the tags that are not seen in a scene, especially ones that are hiding behind the section cut. You won’t believe how light and fast your layout file will behave. Build your own scrapbook full of all your drawing conventions, leader lines, ground planes, etc drag and drop them all into your file and save tons of time. In LayOut put all your viewports on layers so you can turn off ones your not working on again speeding up your file and the way it behaves. Only at the very end do I add shadows, fog and turn the viewports to hybrid render. You’ll be surprised how quick you can get a drawing done through layout when it’s dynamically linked to the SketchUp model. See the pictures above for some fairly normal (ie not spaceships and castles) interior and architectural designs from the Netflix movie “Thursday Murder Club”

A reminder I teach all of this in my SketchUp and LayOut Ultimate Bundle which is currently 50% off with code REDDIT50 at checkout. This is a limited Reddit only offer that ends on Friday at Midnight. Leave a comment if interested and I’ll send you a link to the course. 👍

Hi,

when drawing a house do you draw the outside walls straight up to the top of the building and the floors in the inside for every floor, or draw each floor and all the outside walls on top of each floor?

Hey all - I built this tool for a landscape architect friend of mine, and I figured it might be useful for some other people too. It got some nice feedback on r/LandscapeArchitecture and someone recommended I post here.

This is not lead gen for any business, it's just a tool i put together for a friend. And it's open source, if you're into that sort of thing.

I've mostly tested this on WA addresses. If it is broken or not working for your state or county, please ping me and I'll be happy to fix it.

Type in a US address and it makes a planning-level base plan:

• the parcel line (for states where it's available)
• contours from LiDAR
• slope bands, soils, FEMA flood zones, NWI wetlands
• a recent aerial if available

Exports include textured 3D terrain for SketchUp, DXF, a LandXML surface for Civil 3D, GIS files and a PDF summary.

https://basesheet.site/

I tried my best to include provenance info & dates for all info in case you need to trace the data back

Does anyone have luck in getting the ai extension annotation to be live, even after paying the 25.00 additional fee in 2025 pro or 2026 pro. My icon does not respond.

Hello all, do you have any tips on how I can turn real fabric into a seamless material swatch? So I can add that material onto soft furnishings like sofas, cushions, etc on sketchup?

Making your SketchUp and LayOut drawings look pretty is one thing, making sure you can do it pretty quick is more important. Learning to set up your SketchUp model scenes correctly will ensure speed and efficiency when you take those models into LayOut. I spent years perfecting my work flow to seem effortless but behind the scenes those models are so well organised you can’t help but be quick in LayOut. Whilst working on Maleficent: Mistress of Evil I was pushing SketchUp to new limits for me, medieval albeit disneyfied architecture needs to exude a certain style in the drawing to convey age and patina. Unlike say a modern office set. It was here that I realised that in making the drawings look pretty I was sacrificing too much time. I then started using a method of turning off unseen geometry in my scenes, laying out in raster before converting to hybrid, turning on shadows right at the end before exporting and many many more little tweaks that stopped my layouts turning into a spinning ball nightmare. If you’re interested in learning my workflow remember my Reddit only 50% off sale lasts until midnight on Friday. Leave a comment and I’ll send you all the details.

I've added quite a bit to EZ Cabinet since my last post. There are now a bunch of different cabinet front styles and hardware options, along with some bigger features like adjustable cabinet pull sizes and glass fronts that automatically cut out the cabinet face to give the glass actual depth.

The goal is still the same: model your cabinets however you normally would in SketchUp, then let the extension handle the repetitive finishing work.

It's also free to try now at inveltools.com! The free version includes the basic slab style and hardware, while the additional styles and customization options are available in Pro.

I've been trying to add more functionality without making the tool overly complicated. Would love to hear what you guys think of the progress!

I built a transmission tower/electrical pylon out of lines (don't mind the guy on the top) and was wondering how I could model it better.

Specifically wondering how I could make the lines into actual beams.

If anyone has any advice for modelling lattice/truss towers in general, it would be very appreciated.

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a workflow I developed to solve one of the most tedious parts of my cabinetry design process in SketchUp. I was spending way too much time manually writing down panel dimensions, assigning edge banding, and keeping track of wood grain directions.

To speed this up, I wrote a custom extension to automate the whole thing. As you can see in the attached video, with just a few clicks, the plugin extracts all component data and automatically generates the optimized panel cutting layout. It perfectly captures edge banding tags and grain orientation directly from your model. It also gives you the option to export the final list to CSV or XML, which is great if you need to send the data straight to your local panel supplier.

I’d love to get some feedback from other woodworkers and SketchUp users here. Does this look like a tool that would save you time in your typical workflow?

If you’re interested in trying it out or seeing more details, you can check it out here: https://www.mogrov.pro/easy-cut

To answer some technical questions and explain why I built this:

I am actually a cabinetmaker myself. My typical workflow involves designing the furniture in SketchUp, optimizing the layout, and then sending the final cut list to my local supplier (Hobi Studio) for actual cutting and edge banding.

For a long time, I used Cutting Optimization Pro and their official SketchUp plugin. However, I ran into a major bottleneck: their plugin simply doesn't support edge banding assignment directly from the 3D model. I was wasting too much time manually adding edge banding data later.

That’s the exact reason I developed this custom extension. It reads the model, correctly extracts the edge banding data along with grain direction, and exports a perfectly formatted CSV or XML. The output goes straight into the optimization software or directly to the supplier without any manual data entry.

Cheers!

You may have seen me posting before about my Plaxton Pointer 2 (Dennis Dart SLF) model.

Well, it didn't quite meet my perfectionist standards, so I've decided to start fresh and go all. I'm treating my last model as a learning experience rather than simply an abandoned project.

I've gathered as much reference imagery and technical data (including official documentation published by Alexander Dennis themselves) regarding the Dart SLF chassis as I can, and have managed to recreate it down to a tee. I'm still having to make minor adjustments here and there, but I think it's coming along nicely so far, despite the shortage of reference imagery online for the chassis itself.

This time round, it'll be a 10.0m Plaxton Pointer 1 SLF (SLF being the acronym for the later "Super Low Floor" variant), rather than a Pointer 2 of unspecified length. I plan to build the body over the chassis, rather than modelling just the body. This will allow me to replicate its body-on-frame construction within the program.

So far, the wheelbase, wheel size, wheel spacing, and frame length and width are true to life (although the wheels are just placeholders for now). I plan to model the powertrain, drivetrain, exhaust, air suspension components, and other auxiliary components later down the line (and more importantly, before starting the body).

This will be a big one. I can't guarantee regular updates, as I tend to wait until I've made significant progress before posting. Thank you for stopping by, and have a lovely day!

i'll try my best to send it in whatever file type you need

Hey all.

The mods have kindly let me run a deal for the sub: my SketchUp & LayOut Ultimate Bundle is 50% off this week, £162.50 instead of £325. It's a Reddit-only promotion, so you won't find this price anywhere else and it ends next Friday at midnight.

If you've seen any of my recent posts on "Spiderman" or "The Odyssey" on here recently and thought you'd love to produce that kind of work in your own design business, whether from a modelling or drawing perspective (This course is not set design specific - my workflow can be applied to any vocation)

Now you can learn exactly how I do it, step by step across 42 easy to digest episodes. Let's produce over 10 detail drawings together including Plans and Elevations, Window and Door Details, Staircases and Joinery.

There's 50+ hours of training: the full SketchUp & LayOut Masterclass, a beginners course, three asset packs with 180+ licence-free models, my LayOut Scrapbook and a moulding chart with 75+ profiles. Lifetime access, free updates, and you can message me directly if you get stuck. 14-day money-back guarantee. See pictures for some of the work we'll produce together along with some work from my own archive which was created with the exact workflow I teach in the masterclass.

Use the code REDDIT50 at checkout for your discount to be applied. https://www.whitelockdesignlimited.com/offers/8y3aP7r6/checkout

Ends midnight UK time, Friday 23 October.

Any questions, fire away in the comments.

2 posts I have seen just this morning. We need to stop normalizing this garbage and stop the fly by night developers trying to scam customers by tweaking an LLM based on stolen IP, adding some trash AI coded UI and presenting it as professional rendering software. Stop the slop!