@phmeier said:

yeah ,, i am trying to design the plan floor at sketchup and export it to cad only to add somethings that i cant with su, or i think i cant. I really enjoy using sketchup. and id like to do everything in it. But i miss some especific technical instruments .. like those cad things.. not the drawing but the technic part!!!

We deliver a short inexpensive training program that shows you how to completely substitute SketchUp Pro for CAD. We have successfully carried out several architectural projects up to $1m construction cost this way:

Hello, Sorry I didn't check out this conversation earlier.

I am a SketchUp fanatic, architect and registered Google SketchUp Trainer.

I don't use CAD, but I use SketchUp to do all of my construction drawings. So far, I have carried out a commercial project worth roughly $1m, and a complicated house construction cost €0.5m without using CAD or any other type of software.

Please check out this link to a video showing some of the work I have done http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jw-q409XZc

Here is a link to some further images showing my working drawings along with random photos of the built projects: http://picasaweb.google.com/sketchupireland/ViewsionAspireArchitecturePortfolioDrawings02?feat=directlink

We have a Google SketchUp ATC company called viewsion: http://www.viewsion.ie, and we have the world's first advanced training program for SketchUp users that shows how to create the type of drawings illustrated above. (I hope you don't mind the plug. It's the only one I'll submit here.)

Please let us know what you think. We would love to get to the bottom of this debate about SketchUp because we think it is the ultimate future for this amazing software.

@rabbit said:

Those are very nice drawings for sure, with clear notation, but you must admit dimensioning is not much in evidence. For example, and it may be because you have compressed the file, the red dimensions on the plan drawing on page 1 are very blurry, whereas the other text is not. - in fact, that whole image (presumably from a section of the sketchup model) is comparatively low resolution

Hi Rabbit, thanks for your response.

Your points about low resolution is correct. All that vital info is very blurry. However, all that information is crystal clear on the original file (which is 10+ MB) For some reason the attached file makes it look that the dimensions do not display as clearly as the rest of the info. This is not the case in the original file.

I was blown away by how well pdfs print from Layout when an engineer printed off an A3 drawing I had emailed to him (He printed it in colour at A1 size and the resolution didn't diminish one bit). I later bought an A1 printer and regularly print off A1 size drawings- the resolution is outstanding and the dimensions work perfectly well. I really don't know where the A3 limit comes from. Is it because I am using a mac that I can get better results?

I don't want to recommend a process that doesn't work for many other people so I very much welcome feedback. I will be publishing a thread later today showing how I produce my drawings with SU and Layout.

reloaded the file. see later post.replaced file

Hi Rabbit,

I hope this point I am making isn't too off topic for you, so please forgive me if so-
I don't know why but I seem to be the only person who uses SU to do construction drawings!. In my view the whole point of using CAD to do 2d drawings is to:

a. differentiate using proper lineweights,
b. scale a drawing appropriately,
c. produce clear notation.

The only thing SU doesn't do (supposedly) is allow you to do is differentiate with lineweights. This is not quite the case. I can use SU to produce 3 types of line:

1. Heavy Black (Using 2d grouped elements)
2. Light Black (Non-grouped 2d elements)
3. Coloured (light colour 3d model edges for background elevations)

The means by which I do this might bore you to death but I would be happy to explain- only if you're interested. The only shortcomings I can see with using SU for construction drawings instead of CAD are:

1. The lines arent quite as sharp, but they are sharp enough to do the job (forgivable in my view)
2. Hatching is not as suitable for b/w printing (but this could easily be solved with the creation of appropriate materials to be applied to the 2d object faces.)

Please have a look at the attached drawing sample, and give me your honest comments on it.