5 Essential Sketchup Plugins., Sketchup plugins can make a world of difference when you’re modeling. Finding the right ones can take a ton of time and I simply don’t want that for you. I’ve collected the 5 I use daily when working in sketchup to help you get to modeling faster sooner! If you need help I’ve created a post to walk you step-by-step through that process. 5 Essential Sketchup Plugins If something looks good in the top parallel projection view, but in 3d has lines all over the place, you can use this tool to squish all the lines to the same plane. Sometimes this alone will help create faces easily by simply adding another line, sometimes it doesn’t. Remove Lonely Vertices I hate having more lines then I need, and in a large file, unnecessary lines can add up and really hinder your workflow.
Of all the sketchup plugins I’ve used this seems to do the best job for getting rid of those extra segments you don’t need. Weld will combine any lines you select into a single line and ask to close your line to make a shape. If your face edge looks right but won’t close, chances are it’s not a closed shape. This takes the guess work out of trying to find where your shape is still open. When you get to making complex shapes, closed shapes sometimes won’t close.
This plugin is a good quick way to try to make a face from a complex closed shape that sketchup won’t recognize. Joint Push Pull Simply put, vanilla sketchup doesn’t allow you to extrude faces that are curved but this plugin does! Hope this helps you model quicker and with fewer headaches! If you found this helpful you might enjoy our other.
Author: bac9-flcl While SketchUp tools are pretty much sufficient for work, there are several plugins that can greatly help you. First, install LibFredo6 - important shared Ruby library required for lots of plugins mentioned below. It is available there, detailed instructions on installation provided: Now let's get see the plugins. 7.1. RoundCorner Author: Fredo6 Thread: Excellently executed plugin, allowing you to round, sharpen and bevel edges of any configuration and complexity. Detailed documentation and intuitive interface. Greatly helps in modeling workflow, both when working on optimization (e.g.
Chamfering edges to reduce smoothing groups count) or on complex props (e.g. Various machinery with complicated metal parts). 7.2. Joint Push/Pull Author: Fredo6 Thread: Another great tool. The.gif is self-explanatory - it is extending the well-know Push/Pull tool functionality, so that the same operation can be performed with multiple surfaces at once, and, practically, with a surface of almost any configuration. Very useful for architecture, e.g. For creating volumetric solids curved in multiple axes or building elements extruded along the walls. 7.3. FredoScale Author: Fredo6 Thread: A set of purely awesome tools from the same all-mighty Fredo6: With FredoScale you can orientate the selection box around a set of objects and interactively apply a number of geometric transformations, such as Scaling, Tapering, Stretching, Plane Shear, Twisting, Bending and Rotation.
By extension, some transformation can be done without a selection box. The.gif is self-explanatory. The plugin can be very helpful for working with deformed/destructed objects and complicated surfaces. 7.4. TriangulateFaces Author: CPhillips; TIG; ThomThom Thread: A simple but really handy tool that triangulates the selected area of the mesh. As you know, you're working with non-triangulated geometry in SketchUp, but sometimes it's needed to look at the triangulation structure to check it, or even to manually set the proper triangulation in some problematic areas prior to the export process. Also, even though it is not actual for PlayUp users (errors are fixed in it's own pipeline), 3ds Max users can find it helpful: fully triangulating your model with this plugin prior to export is fixing all invalid faces your model may contain. 7.5. Tools On Surface Author: Fredo6 Thread: Tools on Surface is a Suite of Tools drawing on curved surfaces, with lines, various shapes, offset and Freehand / Polyline. Gaeb viewer ohne installation instructions.
It provides an inference mechanism, a Contour Editor and a dedicated Eraser. 7.6. BezierSpline Author: Fredo6 Thread: BezierSpline draws a variety of Polylines, Bezier and Spline curves, all in 3D. All curves are based on a sequence of control points, which is entered by the user in interactive mode. Handy when you need something more complex than default SketchUp circular curves. 7.7. Cleanup Author: thomthom Thread: This plugin does it best at optimize and clean up a model. Features include fixing of duplicate component definition names, purging of unused items, erasing of hidden geometry, duplicate faces, lonely edges, removal of edge materials, repair of split edges, relocating geometry to Layer0 and merging of identical materials & connected co-planar faces.
7.8. SketchyFFD Author: CPhillips Thread: Powerful transformation tool that can be used with FredoScale. 7.9. Sculpt Tools Author: BTM Thread: Set of sculpting tools that can be used where the usual Sandbox toolset isn't powerful enough. Includes Bulge, Push, Smooth and Smudge, along with Planar Lock.
Stability of work on latest SU versions is not confirmed. 7.10. Shape Bender Author: Chris Fullmer Thread: This script will bend an existing group to match a curved line or series of connected lines. Can be useful for modeling of some geometry, e.g. Serpentine roads. 7.11. Follow Me and keep Author: wikii Thread: Enhancement for Follow Me tool that is preserving the orientation of profile on 3d paths. Useful for some cases of spline-based modeling.
Best Free Sketchup Plugins
7.12. Extrude Tools Author: TIG Thread: A powerful set of Extrude tools with various output. Useful for work with curved surfaces. 7.13. UVTools/UV Bridge Author: Whaat Thread: Beta version of a very promising plugin with basic UV mapping functionality, and, most importantly, UV Bridge feature that's allowing you to export certain geometry to external software (e.g. 3ds Max or UVLayout), create complicated mapping layout there, and then import it back into your SU model. 7.14. Perpendicular Face Tools Author: Chris Fullmer Thread: Helps to create faces perpendicular to the end of lines, can come in handy when working with complex irregularly oriented surfaces that require reference plane; or in cases when complicated rotation orientation is required.
Plugins For Sketchup 2018
7.15. Curviloft Author: Fredo6 Thread: Curviloft is a script dedicated to Loft and Skinning, that is, generation of surfaces from contours. Loft by Spline joins separate contours, open or closed, by smooth splines; Loft along Path joins contours, along a given rail curve; and Skinning create surfaces bounded by 4 or 3 contiguous contours. Very powerful tool, the best for closing any hole in any model or for spline skinning. 7.16. PlayUp And, of course, PlayUp Tools. Be sure to use the latest version that you can get here:.
I should say that installation and usage of aforementioned plugins is not mandatory nor critical in most cases, they are mostly for enhancing your workflow in some specific cases. Don't rush with installing them if you're not sure if you really need them. ) The list does not pretend to be complete, so feel free to check this forum for other interesting plugins that can be out there: I'd recommend to register on that forum and keep an eye for the Plugins section, as something new and awesome appears there literally every day, so who knows, maybe you'll find a UVW plugin or something that awesome there tomorrow.