SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers: Advanced Techniques

lockha

Forgot to put the second / in- now all is good.

Khai

heads up for you, the book is not available in the UK or Europe... went to have a look at the price and got :

"Unfortunately we are unable to fulfill your request at this time. Due to GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requirements we are unable to support our European Union market through our online store. We apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause and we would be happy to assist you with your print subscription or product purchases as needed. Please contact Customer Service at 515-247-2990. Thank you."

Dave R

Thanks for that. It looks like GDPR affects all of their digital offerings. Unfortunately it's not something I have any control over.

zaz1

Dave,
I had purchased the DVD and didn't realize the ebook had so much more content. Good thing I found this thread with the pdf of the table of contents. Based on viewing it, I purchased the ebook. Looks great and covers a wide variety of furniture. Even a section on using Layout, although that could be the subject of another book. Thanks again Dave for helping me use SketchUp to help with woodworking.

deklund

Hi Dave,

I purchased both the basic and advanced DVD's and appreciate all the useful tips and techniques. That said, I bought these because I have been using Sketchup intermittently for years to support my woodworking projects and I may have developed some bad habits. For example I have been drawing on different active layers which could be for room 1, room 2, dims etc. I'm annoyed when elements behave strangely when another layer is made visible or not and I read in another post that best practice is to draw EVERYTHING on layer 0 and then assign to layers after the fact. Can you kindly direct me to any posts you have authored that talk about general best practices for trouble free drawing. Even better would be some explanation of the weird behaviors that happen. I use Make 2017 because, again, I am an intermittent user and I hate subscription based software.

Thanks for your contributions to the woodworking community and for any advice on this topic.

Don

Dave R

Welcome to Sketchucation, Don.

@deklund said:

Hi Dave,

I purchased both the basic and advanced DVD's and appreciate all the useful tips and techniques.

Thank you. I'm happy to hear you've found them helpful.

@deklund said:

For example I have been drawing on different active layers which could be for room 1, room 2, dims etc. I'm annoyed when elements behave strangely when another layer is made visible or not and I read in another post that best practice is to draw EVERYTHING on layer 0 and then assign to layers after the fact.

Yes. Making layers active is a bad habit and it sounds like you are finding the trouble is has caused. Best practice is to keep Layer 0 active and only give other layers to groups and components (objects). ALL edges and faces keep Layer 0 assigned to them. Only the object containers are given other layers. This means you aren't chasing the active layer and you will avoid the annoyance you describe. The workflow is easier and you won't create problems.

FWIW, you don't really put things "on" layers in SketchUp. You give layers to objects. In later versions of SketchUp they stopped using "layers" and replaced them with "tags" which I think is a more appropriate description considering how they are supposed to be used.

@deklund said:

Can you kindly direct me to any posts you have authored that talk about general best practices for trouble free drawing. Even better would be some explanation of the weird behaviors that happen.

I can't think of specific posts that I've authored for general best practices although I've covered what I find to be best practices for me. The layers/tags thing as above, for example, only components in my models, no groups (That makes some people come unhinged but it's part of my workflow. It's worked for me for more than 15 years of using SketchUp but you can decide for yourself.) Leverage the power of components. Length Snapping off in Model Info>Units and highest precision available for the chosen units. Model in place so you don't need to do so much data entry. As I showed in the Basics video, after setting out a few parts to establish the outer bounds of the model, the rest of the parts are modeled to fit. don't get too excited about adding materials to your model. Make sure the geometry is correct first. Materials can mask problem geometry and you don't need things getting in the way.

@deklund said:

I use Make 2017 because, again, I am an intermittent user and I hate subscription based software.

I expect you should find SU Make more than adequate for your hobbyist use. It's very powerful and if you are making your models correctly, by the time you get to the shop it'll be like you're building the project for the second time. No surprises.

@deklund said:

Thanks for your contributions to the woodworking community and for any advice on this topic.

Don

Thank you! Feel free to start new threads when you have questions. Happy to help.