SketchUp 3D Modeling Software @Last Software 2019 10th Street Boulder, CO 80302 303.245.0086 http://www.sketch3d.com List Price: $495.00

SketchUp
By Tom Miller

The Test Drive
When high performance cars are reviewed, trials take place on a test track, while sedans and minivans are tested on conditions that reflect actual use. I modeled a house by Frances D.K. Ching (figure 6), the first house many architects learn to draw (this may show my age).

The house's simple geometry demonstrates some of SketchUp's features, as well as its ease of use. SketchUp encourages the user to model as simply as possible, the carrot being quicker turnaround time, the stick being the inadvertent collapsing or closure of the wrong solid.

Occasionally, some of SketchUp's features become double edged, unexpectedly cutting both ways. There are occasions when you do not intend to close a solid or occasions that the wrong solid is closed, and it may not become apparent until those layers are turned back on. These are bothersome, but probably just part of the natural learning curve.

Figure 6

It is best to think of modeling as only showing what is required to communicate intent. A Hollywood set, from the camera's angle, is a city street, but behind the scenes it's merely a prop façade. The building mass is modeled first, a cube essentially, then features are subtracted or added. Resist the urge to model walls and you'll be fine.

For the parapet, I offset another form and pushed it down 2'-0". This is a good example of adapting to a new paradigm: model what you see, not what you know, or any actual built reality. Windows and furniture are best assembled as a component (figure 7) with SketchUp's blocks or cells.

SketchUp comes with about 150 preassembled components. These are building components, and entourage items, very schematic in nature, as they should be. Components are easily created and modified, updating the other instances as well. SketchUp can specify the behavior of these elements so a window sticks to a wall and openings are cut in the plane where the object is inserted. The window will also move with the wall.

Figure 7

What's Fun About It?
The fun really begins with SketchUp's immediate design gratification. Rotating a model without a redraw is like holding the model in your hand. You can see in figure 8 what the Ching house would look like in brick (yuck!), or in figure 9even pink with Astroturf flooring (worse!).

SketchUp enables one to work in real-time rendered mode, with shade and shadow. This is one of its strengths, and is accomplished by manipulating your video card's acceleration features. The drawback is the model is not a volume but composed entirely of surfaces.

There are not any plans on introducing a solids modeling kernel, like Parasolidsor Acis, due to the increased processing power required as well as the Boolean tools that you would require to model these solids.

Figure 8

These features would bog down any hope of rotating the model with material definitions without redrawing as well as complicate the sublime simplicity of SketchUp. They would also act as a barrier and reduce the connection the designer would have with the model, and be less like SketchUp and more like one of the other CAD packages.

Different Yet the Same
SketchUp has many of the features you know and love like layers, ability to apply colors and materials to models, a "jitter lines" feature, ability to import and export DWG and DXF files and a small file size. Pan and rotate are effortless as is zoom, and all can be activated with a wheel mouse, reducing mouse clicks again. What's missing is an expanded print and image export feature.

Printing is pretty straightforward, but essentially limited to screen dumps. The lack of any text features increases the need for post-processing. The lack of any OLE integration makes your job harder.

Figure 9

According to a reliable source, @Last has OLE integration high on their list for release 2. The need for a VRML export feature would aid distribution to clients and consultants, which again my reliable source tells me is also high on the list for release 2. Release 2 doesn't have a date but is expected later this year.

Tech support is handled entirely via email with response time within the hour, and I found it both thorough and impressive. Additionally, I found the chap I dealt with interested in finding a solution to my problem as well as explaining it in terms that increased my understanding of the program.

Who Needs SketchUp?
Anyone who needs to communicate 3D information would do well with SketchUp. Large vertical organizations that intermediate the schematic design, design development, and construction documents phases of a construction project also could use SketchUp. The same for contractors, design build firms, planners, urban designers and interior designers.

Small organizations that want to migrate to 3D without abandoning their existing 2D CAD package as well as their legacy CAD library, and need interoperability with DWG or DXF files could benefit from SketchUp. Even with Corel Draw, Photoeditor and Photoshop I still use Microsoft Paint to assemble an image on the quick and dirty. SketchUp would fill the same role for me with 3D modeling.

So pretty much everyone who wants 3D quick and cheap could find a place in his or her workflow.