Vali Architects Plugins

Author: Vali Architects

Description of the plugins:


1- Instant Roof:
"* Create a complex roof in seconds - just select faces and edges; then run Instant Roof.

* Hip, gable, shed, dutch-gable, mansard, plantation, gambrel, open-trellis, combined, more...

* Eave types: boxed-in, exposed, soffited

* Hips and rafters with customizable ends

* Fascia, fascia-trim, ridge and hip tiles, shingles, or sheet-metal

* Complete mission tile or standing-seam roof

* Use default roof styles - or create your own

* Export and Import user defined roof styles"

"Sketchup Ur Space" Magazine - October 2010

Sketchup4Architect magazine update.

Issue October 2010.

Download PDF Here

or you can see it online Here.

Issue Sept. 2010: Here

Axsotic 3D Spheric Mouse

SketchUp is not at the supported software list of the Axsotic 3D Spherical Mouse yet.

"In a normal 3D-Workflow, you need to serialize navigation steps to move, zoom and rotate, and then finally you can work.

With the 3D-Spheric-Mouse you can do all of the steps at the same time.

This is possible, because the 3D-Spheric-Mouse gives direct control of your 3D-Navigation, without any failure input.

Working with the 3D-Spheric-Mouse feels as natural as drawing with a pen tablet."

Solar Panels "Skelion" Plugin

Author: Juantxo

Description: "You can use this plugin for insert solar panels in any surface and for find out tilt and azimuth."

Silhouette to Plane Plugin

Author: TIG

Usage: "Make or choose a 'WorkPlane' that is located on the 'plane' onto which you want to project your 'flattened' Geometry.

Select the 'WorkPlane' and the required Geometry [Edges etc, note that Faces etc will be ignored], and/or Groups, and/or Component_Instances. 

Run this Tool from the menu 'Plugins' > 'Silhouette to Plane' or type 'silhouettetoplane' in the Ruby Console. (...)"

Caleidos4D Ribbon Toolbar for SketchUp Plugin

Author: Caleidos4D

Description: "The Ribbon is a contextual interface that offers functionality based on the context the user is working in. The Ribbon GUI provides the user interface of an application with a large toolbar filled with graphical representations of control elements which are grouped by different functionality. The Ribbon can also contain tabs to expose different sets of control elements eliminating the need for a lot of different icon-based tool bars." (from Wikipedia)

"Caleidos4D Ribbon have only the calls of Plugins, the plugins are not distribuite inside .zip package, the plugins can be downloaded from their website."

To see the list and download the Toolbar:

Goldilocks Plugin - Materials & Geometry Analysis

Author: AdamB

Description: "Goldilocks analyses your materials and model with respect to the current viewpoint and produces a bar chart showing which textures are about the right resolution (green bars), and which are too high resolution resulting in wasted space/larger filesize, or too low resolution resulting in a blurry look - both shown as red bars." "Goldilocks v2.0 adds Geometry analysis."

SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers (eBook)

Author: Tim Killen

Description: "SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers is a comprehensive step-by-step manual to help furniture makers master Google's powerful 3-D computer-based drawing program. It's an essential guide for woodworkers who are new to SketchUp or users who want to improve their skills and results."

To get this e-book:

The future of SketchUp?

The SketchUp Team recieve "innovative ideas to work with when building out our next release."

Top five ideas from the "SketchUp Questions and Ideas Series" series this year:

* Plugin Manager for Ruby Scripts

* Improve Texturing Tools

* Improve Toolbars

* SketchUp for Linux

* Improve Performance

To read the full article:

Tgi3D Plugins for SketchUp

"Now it’s much easier to create highly sophisticated 3D models. Tgi3D SU Amorph empowers you while creating and editing free form curves and surfaces. It also improves Google SketchUp's extrusion capabilities.

Tgi3D SU Amorph requires Google SketchUp v7.1 or higher."

For more info:

Visit Here

Connecting SketchUp & LayOut

"Connecting SketchUp Scenes to LayOut templates": Is an old article from the official Google SketchUp blog . 

"This technique allows you to auto-populate a LayOut Template with a set of Scenes from a SketchUp file."

Read the article:

Visit Here

Play Grow Configuration - 3D Model

Author: Google

"Explore Fort Fun's: 3 slides, plank bridge, tube bridge, monkey bars, fire pole escape, and tons of nooks and crannies to play and hide in."

Download Here

Or visit the download page: Here

SketchUp Tool Icons

Author: John Bacus

Description: "Hi-res tool icons for SketchUp and LayOut"

Download Here

Strange that they don´t publish the Standard Toolbar icons.

Soon I will publish the 3D Models of the tools that I made (you can see a preview of them on the left image and on this .gif):

Boolean Plugin - "OSCoolean"

Author: oscarlok

Description: SU 8 Pro include tools for additive and subtractive modeling (Solid Tools). For the ones using the free version you can use "OSCoolean". "This ruby tool can do intersect, union, cut, trim and split with groups only."

Download Here

Look Around Tool

"Use the Look Around tool to pivot the camera (your view) around a stationary point. The Look Around tool behaves similarly to a person standing still while turning their head to up, down (tilt), and side to side (pan). The Look Around tool is particularly useful for viewing the inside of spaces, or to evaluate visibility after using the Position Camera tool."

More Info: Here

Convert your SketchUp Files Online

"Babel3D is an online 3D file translation service. The input for translation to Babel3D can be an Autodesk 3DS, DXF, DWG, Rhino 3DM, SketchUp SKP, STEP, IGES or OBJ file. These files can be translated into the 3DS, OBJ and XAML 3D formats. Additionally, Babel3D also allows you to convert DXF and DWG files to 2D PDF format."

Visit Here

"Right now we are able to translate SketchUp 7 and below version files. We will start supporting SketchUp 8 as soon as possible. In the meantime, please see if you can convert your file to a lower version of SketchUp, and the then try translating again."

SketchUp .DXF Importer Plugin

Author: honoluludesktop

Description: SketchUp Pro can Import DXF files... but here is a plugin for the ones using SU v8 free.

"Unsupported geometric entities include polyface mesh, and (nested blocks). If you require unsupported entities, explode them into their basic parts before creating your dxf."

Download Here

"DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs." says Wikipedia.

Bitmap To Mesh Plugin

Author: thomthom

Description: "Generates a mesh from a given BMP image.

Note! Generates two triangles per pixel!

250x250 pixel image generates a mesh of ~125K faces! ( 250 * 250 * 2 )"

"White is high point and black is low point - then you have shades of grey in between."

Download Here

SketchUp 8: Quick Reference Card

With every release, the Google SketchUp team publishes a Quick Reference Card: an easy-to-print graphic of tools and their modifier keys. Here the links:

Windows Download

Mac OS X Download

For older versions and for Layout QRC Visit: Here

Paint Bucket Tool

Use the Paint Bucket tool to assign materials and colors to entities in your model. You can use it to paint individual entities, fill a number of connected faces, or replace a material with another throughout your model. 

Keyboard Shortcut: B

More Info: Here