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Google Sketchup for Dummies

  • Considerably easier to use than other 3D software, Google SketchUp has found a niche in architecture, landscaping, real estate development, furniture building, and other design professions
  • The fun and friendly approach assumes no previous 3D modeling experience and explains the basic concepts involved in 3D modeling
  • Shows readers how to build a 3D model, print it, share it, export it to another professional design package, export it to Google Earth, and create a 3D animated tour
  • Helps readers harness the power of Google SketchUp so that they can populate Google Earth with 3D buildings, monuments, and other sculptures

Biography

Aidan Chopra has always had a thing for computers — his parents thoughtfully sent him to Apple camp instead of hockey lessons like every other eight-year-old in Montreal — but he learned to draft and build physical models the old-fashioned way, working for his architect father. These days, Aidan is a Product Evangelist at Google, where he’s been since that company bought SketchUp in the first part of 2006. In the three years since he graduated with a Master of Architecture degree from Rice University, he’s done a lot of writing and lecturing about the way software is used in design. Aidan writes the SketchUpdate, a monthly e-mail newsletter that reaches a half million SketchUp users worldwide. He has taught architecture at the university level and, at Google, works on ways to mediate between power and usability; he believes the best software in the world isn’t worth a darn if nobody can figure out how it works. Aidan is based in Boulder, Colorado, even though he is what many would consider to be the diametric opposite of a world-class endurance athlete.

Table of Contents

Introduction.

Part I: Getting Started with SketchUp.

Chapter 1: Meeting Google SketchUp.

Chapter 2: Establishing the Modeling Mind-set.

Chapter 3: Getting Off to a Running Start.

Part II: Modeling in SketchUp.

Chapter 4: Building Buildings.

Chapter 5: Keeping Your Model Organized.

Chapter 6: Going Beyond Buildings.

Chapter 7: Modeling with Photographs.

Part III: Viewing Your Model in Different Ways.

Chapter 8: Changing Your Model’s Appearance with Styles.

Chapter 9: Working with Light and Shadow.

Chapter 10: Presenting Your Model Inside SketchUp.

Part IV: Sharing What You’ve Made.

Chapter 11: Working with Google Earth and the 3D Warehouse.

Chapter 12: Printing Your Work.

Chapter 13: Exporting Images and Animations.

Chapter 14: Exporting to CAD, Illustration, and Other Modeling Software.

Chapter 15: Creating Presentation Documents with LayOut.

Part V: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 16: Ten SketchUp Traps and Their Work-arounds.

Chapter 17: Ten Plugins, Extensions, and Resources Worth Getting.

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Discover Even More.

Index.

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