There is a misconception among some people that SketchUp isn’t “accurate enough” for their needs. That is a completely inaccurate statement, and it drives me crazy. In this article, I’m going to debunk this myth, by showing you many ways to draw with precision and accuracy in SketchUp. Ok, I can understand why people think SketchUp can’t be accurate. In …

If you ever present your SketchUp models live, in front of your client, one thing you can do to reinforce your brand is to place your logo over the workspace as a watermark. This is also great if you send your SketchUp models to other subcontractors, it’s a quick way for them to see who created the model. This tutorial will show you how.

One of my readers, Chris Graham from Staircraft, recently sent me a SketchUp model and I noticed he had his logo watermarked over the SketchUp workspace. It was a simple, but impressive way to brand his models. I liked it so much, I wanted to share how to do it with you. Adding a watermark to your SketchUp models is easy using the watermark setting in the Styles window in SketchUp. It’s great for adding a logo or contact info.

Prepping your logo

Before you begin, you should have a PNG image of your logo, that has a transparent background. You can use something like Photoshop, Gimp, Inkscape, or even LayOut to create this image.

SketchUp will allow you to position the logo in any corner of the screen, but make sure there is some whitespace around the image in order to pad it away from the edges of the workspace. Otherwise, the image will be shoved into the corner.

As far as image size, you’ll be able to scale the image when you set up the watermark, but you don’t get precise control over the scale of the image in terms of pixels. So just export your logo in the size you want it to appear as when you bring it into SketchUp.

Have you ever inserted a bunch of section cuts in your model and saved scenes for an aligned view of each section cut? Do the section cuts seem to change after you’ve saved a scene? Do the section plane objects appear over your model even though you’ve turned them off? This article will show you how to properly save section cuts in scenes for SketchUp so you can assign those scenes to viewports in LayOut, (Or simply view the scenes in SketchUp.) Section cuts allow you to “slice” through your model in order to hide parts of your model, or to create a cross section view. To insert a section cut, you use the Section tool. Holding SHIFT will lock orientation as you place your section plane. Once it’s placed, you can use the Move tool to change its position.

How can you become faster at modeling? In this article, I highlight the keyboard shortcuts I use most often, and demonstrate how helpful they are in saving time while modeling. You can also download my custom keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of this article, and import them into your SketchUp.

I have always been a strong advocate for using keyboard shortcuts. They are a tremendous time saver, enabling you to get your ideas modeled more quickly. They reduce the friction between the design and the software. Modeling becomes more fluid and natural.

Many people are intimidated with the idea of having to remember a ton of keyboard shortcuts, but I assure you, the majority of them are obvious and easy to remember. Start out with a few simple ones, like Spacebar, P, and R. Then build on from there.

Default Keyboard Shortcuts

SketchUp has a number of keyboard shortcuts configured by default. You can also add your own, custom keyboard shortcuts by going to Window -> Preferences -> Shortcuts. Below are some of my most frequently used keyboard shortcuts. By tapping the designated key, you’ll activate that tool without having to select it from a menu or toolbar.

SketchUp Styles are what affect the visual appearance and representation of your models. In this article, I’ll address some of the most common misconceptions with how styles work.

In SketchUp, you can make your model look hand drawn, painted, light or bold, and anywhere in between. Styles are what transform your model into something more than a bunch of edges and faces. SketchUp wouldn’t be SketchUp without them.

But have you ever had the refresh symbol appear over the thumbnail in the Styles window? Or, have you ever gone to save a scene, and had a pop up appear asking if you want to save changes to your style? You probably got sick of it and checked off the “Do not show me this again” checkbox.

Until you understand some fundamental characteristics of how styles work, you’ll swear that they change settings randomly, don’t save changes after you’ve updated them, and don’t stick to your scenes when you save them. I want to clear up some of the confusion around how styles work.

Styles are copied to the current SketchUp model file.

When you browse through the Style window, you are looking at a list of styles that are saved on your computer, whether they are the default SketchUp styles, or ones you’ve customized or downloaded.

Any time there is a new major release of SketchUp, a rush of fear and panic overcomes you at the thought of having to reinstall plugins, reconfigure settings, and just get everything up to speed on the new version without missing a beat. In this article, I’ll show you how to to make upgrading painless.

One important thing to note about upgrading to a new version of SketchUp, is that you can install it along side of any existing installations of SketchUp you may have. This allows you to test drive the new version, and get all your settings configured at your leisure, but still go back to your previous version to continue working if you’ve got projects that you’re currently working on.

SketchUp 2014 and SketchUp 2015 can be installed at the same time on your computer.

When you install SketchUp 2015, there are actually many settings that will be migrated over from 2014 automatically. Things like keyboard shortcuts, folder preferences, and system preferences will transfer over to 2015.

Migrating to a new version

This is a long article, so I’ve broken it down into sections. For most people, you’ll want to know how to migrate your plugins. If you haven’t done any customizing of materials, components, styles, templates, or scrapbooks, that’s all you need to do. The installation will take care of installing the default libraries, and you’ll be good to go.

But, if you have custom files you need to migrate over, you’ll want to check out the other sections as well.

Materials are what allow you to apply an image to the surfaces in your model. Here are some tricks for working with materials in SketchUp. SketchUp Materials & Textures If you’ve ever used the Paint Bucket tool (B) in SketchUp, you know that it can change the look of your model by applying a color or texture image to faces in your …