@unknownuser said:

Sketchup seems like a great program..... ? Again, I'm having difficulty adding diagrams for doors/stairs/etc. and snapping new rectangles (walls) to the current design. It also keeps assuming I'm trying to work in 3D and ends up skewing my diagram into 3 dimensions.

Thanks in advance for any tips/help

Tom,

Welcome to Sketchupping and to the forum.

Keep your first thought- Sketchup IS a great program, but does have a learning curve. Evidence of the greatness and simplicity are shown in that you have just downloaded and have made that much progress in so short a time. SU has it's own personality and has a different work style than other 3D and 2D programs and many of us wrongly carry some of those habits into SU. Gaieus gave you a great short tutorial that should help ease your startup frustrations. Use the forum and tutorials as a resource with issues as they come up.

A somewhat advanced feature of SU is the "plug-ins" These little programs add tremendously to the program function. I would, however, ease into them, a few at a time since there are so many they could overwhelm you. One starter I would recommend, since you seem interested in using SU in 2D together with 3D is a group of tools called "tools on surface" which are specifically for 2D drawing. See the thread in the plug-ins section. Tools On Surface - v1.6c - 15 May 10. Good luck and keep in touch, you will find many friendly users here that will be glad to help you.

@unknownuser said:

Stunning!

Thank you for sharing them

is there a PC version planned?

Vincent,

thank you (and Mike, earlier on) for bringing this to light. Quite incredible. Also incredible was my suprise when I pushed the purchase button. Sitting down i was waiting for the sticker shock but was shocked in a good way when it came up as $59 usd. Like rclub24, I hope the PC version is in the works.

@dermotcoll said:

Keep her lit Jim - get a few pints of Guinness into you today on your b'day and your leg will soon mend - or you wnt feel it!!
Happy Birthday!

Thanks for the advice Dermot, the best brew I could do was "Sam Adams" instead of Guinness, but it has done a fair job- (the pizza,as always,was great)

And thank you Solo and Majid

Thanks guys, made a soft landing Eric.
Today's birthday gifts include pizza from my favorite place and today I graduated from physical therapy for my broken leg, which has healed well. Still limping a bit but has no effect on my mouse hand at all.

Today's e-mails included a link to a napkin sketching contest from Architectural Record:

http://archrecord.construction.com/call4entries/pdf/10cocktailnapkin.pdf

I though mmmm... "how very sketchup is this" but they actually want an ink sketch on a real napkin!. The concept is to see if anyone can still remember how to draw

Being an old guy - only into CAD for the last 20+ years, I still can - and hope to see responses from all ages. GSU is incredible, but those real napkin sketches are still priceless.

Watching that film reminded me of a book I read a few years ago 2006- on the 100th annqaversary of the event. I had a completly different picture of the city, people and lifestyle. The people in the film, the nutty drivers and pedestrians are not too different today - just fewer horses and faster cars!In 1906 there was complete chaos. The only person who had some plan for disaster control was the fire chief and he was killed early on. There was a power struggle between the mayor the police and a nearby army base commander. The army commander sent crews around with dynamite blowing up buildings to make a fire break and shooting anybody that looked like a looter (or anyone that had grabbed something one of them wanted); nothing worked; water was out etc. I recommend picking up one of the many books about the event - a very interesting and scary read especially in light of recent world wide natural disaster.

The imageshack link won't open. Why not upload the .jpg's directly to the forum?

Tony, I don't think you are lost - just overwhelmed by trying to get your head around the program all at once. It is intuitive and simpler than others but has a bit of a learning curve and how you work with it I think depends on what you are doing with it - graphics, architecture, wood working etc. From what I have read over the years in the forum, there are significant differences. Plug ins are fairly advanced. I have seen many newbe discussions about starting out and most "advanced" people recommend to get the basics down first. Since you have been working at the program my suggestions are to:

If you haven't already done so, thinkout exactly how you use sketchup and pick out just those tools or techniques that are are essential and concentrate on getting them down cold. Don't worry about thew rest of them for now.

Delete the mass download of rubys. As Numbthumb mentioned, many of them need parts that may not be in the download and some of them interfer with one another. Also - not knowing when the mass download was compiled-many of them may be out of date. I recommend going to the ruby library depot - link below
http://rhin.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/RUBY_Library_Depot.htm
and pickout a few that you would find usefull. Insert them a few at a time and check for errors. Add more as you master them. Good luck-keep working at it!

I have noticed that feature - or bug in V.7, as well.
So far, I have just worked around it but I agree there should be a way to keep that face. I hope someone knows of a key to hold down or something like that, to keep the face as an option.

In general, the toolbars are a great way to use the plug-ins quickly. I have most of the tool bars listed in that site, downloaded from this forum. As I remember, the power bar was pulled because there are several plug-in authors to those tools and proper permission was not granted to assemble them. I downloaded it before it was pulled. I would check on that one tool bar to make sure it is okay to load now. Do a search for each toolbar in the plug-in forum. If you are really into the tools, look up the 2D tools, tools on surface, free scale, projections, house builder -- there are a lot of them and this forum is a great resource.

Those listed were no charge, there are some really good commercial tools and tool bars -checkout Smustard and also look at the 1001 bit tools- for a small fee.

I had been trying to find a 3D program for some time in the late 1990s'. I love to draw, but the time it takes just didn't fit with impatient clients. In 2002 at an AIA convention, I stumbled upon the SU booth and couldn't leave. My wife watched me for a while and said "your going to buy that aren't you". Got my 2.0 disk and started using it right away - at the convention. (The "SU people were great by the way.)

It has been a great help for my clients (and me) to quickly see many alternates and come on to a better solution - same story for everyone that uses the program.

I can't locate my very original drawings, but did find a small church from 2002. A small (50) congregation with shoestring budget wanted to add on to their existing building to grow their group. I have attached early studies and some photos of the actual building. Also have attached a few more recent projects. Some improvement over the years, but I feel sort of stuck at a mediocre level and hope to inch closer to our forum greats. Thanks for all your help over the last 8 years.

Really sharp model-render and great house design. Like other posts here - would like more information.

Nice job, especially for four hours.
Any "before" pics. for comparison with the makeover?

Masterfull work Roberto.

The images of the progress stages are very instructive.

I have a few questions:

I live in Indiana, about 90 miles from Elkhart. How did you come upon this fine building in the middle of Indiana? Was this a project you decided to do because you found and liked the buiilding or did someone from Elkhart or Indiana Historic Landmarks Foundation ask you to reconstruct it? By the way, I think it is a shame such a fine building was replaced by a parking lot, especially after being placed on the register of historic places. This sort of thing happens way too much.

How did you model the human figures the eagles and other complicated decorative features?

Thank you for sharing this great model and sharing your work process- very instructional and very inspirational.

Jesse may be a not-so-poetic relative of Durant Hapke??
I can't follow either of them but Hapke is intertaining and posts very interesting graphics.

Scott - Really nice design and render. I like the looks of Twilight.

Having just gotten out of the hospital (broken leg + surgery ) I must say that I might have stayed an extra day in a room like that. Any word on the quality of food served there?

Jim

I agree with earthmover and HvanEssen's feeling concerning that artical. Especially in sports, there is an American bias and arrogance in media. In my opinion, national coverage of golf matches is as interesting as watching paint dry. Tennis is right up there too. I am sure many people are on the edge of their seats with beer and chips loving every minute of these programs - that's their choice and I assume there are enough watching to justify broadcasting them. I would never think of mounting a protest against televising either sport, that is why god created the channel changer and off switch. In the USA football is a cult practice that i do enjoy- but the rest of the planet earth is following what we call Soccer and most of them could care less about the Saints big win last week. Some folks just got to stop and think that the world isn't all about "me" and what I like rules.

BTW, congratulations to the Dutch for their victory.

@unknownuser said:

Jim, wow that is unfortunate but I am glad you are on the mend and have a great attitude about it.

Thanks guys for the kind words.

Boo - my wife is and RN and won't let me whine so I keep looking on the "half full" side of things. Anyway, its gets better each day.

I teach part time at a local university and get the chance to play around with a lot of software. ArchiCad and Revit are fully integrated 2d-3d programs with a lot of horse power, large learning curve and are very costly. They give great results and provide a wealth of data but require a lot of input work. The company I work for has looked into Revit, but none of the engineering consultants we use are into it. The program makes more sense in a large company where all disciplines are on the program and makes more sence for larger projects. I think for a small start up firm it may work for you being a Revit specialist and hire out that way. If you will be doing smaller commercial/residential buildings,using Revit/ArchiCad will be killing ants with a hammer (IMHO)

I have been using sketchup and autocad together sucesfully, not really BIM but we do 3,000 to 10,000 sq. ft. buildings- mostly one or two stories. We use Autocad as do all of our consultants.

Autocad isn't cheap either. Some compatable alternates to Autocad have been mentioned here. If you have time try some 30 day trials. One that I have found may have great potential is Double Cad XT. They have a free version and the pro version is feature laden, very compatable with autocad and they company has tutorials on using sketchup with Double Cad. Really worth looking at.

Good luck in starting you new venture - it is an exciting time. Keep in touch about what you find!!!