With a longstanding dedication to empowering designers and beautifully bringing their ideas to life, SketchUp software offers an intuitive, comprehensive 3D modeling toolset straight out of the box. Still, users can supercharge its capabilities with a range of powerful extensions.
SketchUp's Extension Warehouse features hundreds of plugins for everything from animation and urban planning to interior design and architecture. These tools eliminate repetitive tasks, improve accuracy, and streamline workflows, allowing designers to customize and enhance their SketchUp experience. But with so many extensions to choose from, diving in can feel daunting. Get started with this list of the top 11 SketchUp extensions to extend and customize your workflows.
Whether you're an architect or interior designer, having the right tools can make all the difference in streamlining your workflow. SketchUp has powerful tools that help millions of professionals speed up their project development. Here are seven ways the 3D modeling and design software can help you achieve your goals.
More realistic visuals and expedited as-built modeling workflows (directly on iPad with Scan-to-Design [Labs]) are part of the latest release of SketchUp architectural design software. The 2024 version includes performance upgrades to boost productivity, ranging from a new graphics engine to easier ways to share ideas with stakeholders.
The architecture and construction industry has undergone a transformation with the integration of various digital tools, now indispensable to the design process. The welcoming of technologies has effectively streamlined operations, enhanced efficiency, and elevated design quality. This digital shift, however, has resulted in a digital divide that goes beyond accessibility to tools and software. It also encompasses the crucial aspect of integrating traditional and indigenous communities into the urban development landscape. Can advancing technology support the growth of vernacular architecture? Can indigenous building practices find a place in the vision for a digitalized future?
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The interior designers for the Chengdu Hotel leveraged a true life-cycle BIM workflow across design teams and contractors to reduce construction time by 50%. Image Courtesy of SketchUp
Most architects are looking to win more work; not just higher-paying projects but those that allow them to unleash their creativity and passion. These opportunities can be won or lost on a professional's ability to communicate their design vision — so the proposal has to be on point. These tips from leaders in the design field can help architects win bids and create their dream projects.
Site analysis is a crucial first step in creating a viable building design. Considering site location, topography, zoning regulations, traffic conditions, and climate allows a designer to maximize opportunities and anticipate potential issues. The following four factors are crucial in getting the most value out of site analysis.
D5 Render SketchUp Extension | Elmtec SketchUp, a real-time renderer for digital designers, brings a whole new layer to the industry thanks to cutting-edge technologies, making it easier to render ultra-realistic images with real-time raytracing, creating a transformational movement within the design industry. From 28th September 2021, Elmtec is the official distributor for D5 Render in the UK and Ireland.
Award-winning imagery from ASAI. Project: Tyndall Air Force Base. Date: 2020. Image Courtesy of SketchUp
Creating a compelling visualization that communicates your design intent and gets stakeholders on board is no easy feat. While designers have plenty of visualization tools to deploy— from powerful rendering engines to the simplicity of pen and paper — there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to visualization. As your design evolves, you may need multiple renderings at various levels of detail.
According to Jim Kessler, Director of the Visual Media Group at Jacobs, "When a design is in flux and conversations with the clients are taking place, a photorealistic rendering signals completion of the project and that design changes are no longer possible. Whereas, a non-photorealistic rendering visual suggests a sense of flux and has a huge artistic element to it, which architects gravitate towards."
V-Ray is an incredibly powerful renderer — but it’s also remarkably easy to use. The number-one* 3D renderer used in architectural visualization is battle-tested and industry-proven, used daily to realize world-class products, buildings and much more. And if you like to spend the majority of your time being creative but still crave the highest quality images possible, V-Ray can help you easily and speedily render everything from your quickest concepts to your largest and most detailed 3D models.
What’s more, it works seamlessly with SketchUp’s versatile 3D modeling tools while also being built with a full set of creative tools for lights and materials. The best part, perhaps, is that you don’t need to be a rendering expert to get great results with V-Ray. This collection of six, simple, quick-start tutorials will help you learn how to use V-Ray Next for SketchUp — and give your renders a boost in no time at all.
With the popularization of virtual reality and augmented reality, new ways of exploring architectural representations have become available to professionals and students. Immersion in three-dimensional digital models is increasingly common, whether through a computer screen, smartphone or VR headsets. In light of this reality, which seemed overly futuristic up until a few years ago, the online platform Tour Fácil has launched a free plugin that can view exported 360-degree images from SketchUp in virtual or augmented reality.
Presenting designs to third parties can be a challenging task. Architects may find it difficult to describe spaces to their clients, therefore more firms are incorporating virtual reality into their workflows and project presentations.
Below are 5 architecture offices using SentioVR to present their designs. To see the content in 360º, click on the image and move the mouse.
When you think of the age of hand drafted architecture drawings, what images come to mind? Is it the iconic plans of the Palladian Villas? Fast forward to present day, where architecture software is favored over hand drawings due to its efficiency and ability to create increasingly innovative structures. With all of the software available to architects, have you ever wondered which one might be the "best"? Luckily, TechRadar has just released their list of leading architecture software for this year.
Architects are always trying to be more efficient and adding more value for clients. But with most software, rendering is very time-consuming, impairing efficiency significantly. It is exhausting for designers when the process of visual processing uses energy that would be better invested in design and architecture itself.
With the Enscape plugin, real-time rendering and virtual reality can help to remedy this situation. The plugin integrates as a toolbar in the popular design platforms Rhino, Revit and SketchUp, with a version for Archicad also currently in development. Because the software is a plugin for these popular programs, architects do not need to learn to use new software, but work in their familiar system with some additional features. And since the software runs on the local graphics card, projects do not have to be uploaded to the cloud.
Communicating design intent and conveying space to non-technical clients has always been a challenge for architects. Fortunately, advancements such as virtual reality (VR) are starting to pave the way for new tools to address this challenge. The most immersive and effective solutions are ones that empower you to fully navigate 3D models, like Prospect by IrisVR. Created by architects, Prospect enables designers to easily jump into a 1:1, true to scale VR version of their 3D model.
Have you ever spent hours calibrating the nozzle of a 3D printer or preparing a print-ready file – only to find that the model has failed because of a missed zero-thickness wall? With this in mind, the Platonics Ark—a 3D printer currently being developed in Helsinki, Finland—has one simple goal: to remove all unnecessary set-up and technical processes by means of intelligent automation and, as a result, almost entirely eliminate the wasted time that architects and designers spend calibrating printers, or working up print-ready files.
Are you a SketchUp user? Don’t let Revit hold you hostage! Break free with rvt2skp and get back to your beloved tool. The rvt2skp plugin enables the Autodesk® Revit® to SketchUp export option in Revit — conserving the geometry, materials, and linked models of your 3D model. It’s now available on the Autodesk App Store and supports Revit 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, including Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, and Revit MEP.
A 3D visualization multiplex is a system to instantly visualize 3D models on multiple devices: desktop computers, smartphones, tablets, augmented reality gear, and virtual reality glasses.
It's an everyday tool to streamline conversations between architects, engineers, contractors, their clients, and the rest of the world.
With the formidable combination of CAD software programs - e.g. SketchUp or Revit - and a multiplex, 3D storytelling has never been simpler.
It works on both high-end immersive headsets and on smartphones with - or without - very capable $10+ glasses. Using augmented reality, a model can be directly integrated into the real world.
Developed by the POLOMADERA Program at the University of Concepción, the 3D Building Construction Solutions Catalog is a free tool that helps users design construction details for lightweight wooden structural systems.
Though created with the intention of meeting new standards soon to be implemented nationally in Chile (and therefore in Spanish), the catalog was developed jointly with international experts from the Wood Construction Institute at the Holzbau Institut in Germany, and thus incorporates best practices that are applicable around the world.
The catalog allows users to find and download different construction solutions in wood, with details categorized under Foundations, Mezzanines, Doors and Windows, Partitions, Roofs, and Terraces.
