Books
SketchUp to LayOut
The beginner's guide to SketchUp Pro and LayOut
Written by: Matt Donley
SketchUp to LayOut, 2nd edition is a complete beginner’s guide for learning SketchUp and LayOut. Effortlessly turn your ideas into 3D models using SketchUp, then document them in SketchUp’s companion drawing program, LayOut. Even if you’ve never designed in 3D before, this book will guide you step by step.
SketchUp & LayOut for Architecture
The Step-by-step Workflow of Nick Sonder
Written by: Matt Donley, Nick Sonder
Learn the workflow for designing an entire house and site plan in SketchUp, and how to create a complete set of construction documents in LayOut.
Tutorials
SketchUp.com/learn
This is the official Trimble SketchUp website, and the link goes to their “learning hub”, where they have a number of different resources there for you to learn SketchUp. If you’re brand new to SketchUp, I’d definitely watch the few videos on that page, then check out their link to more video training to dig deeper.
SketchUcation.com
One of the long standing SketchUp resources, this is one of the places I visited frequently when learning how to use SketchUp. They have tutorials, a store, and a forum packed full of SketchUp experts.
- Tutorials - Beginner, intermediate, and advanced, written by numerous authors.
- Shop - Models, styles, textures, books, extensions
- Plugin Store - Plugins & extensions, free & paid. Many exclusive, not available in the SketchUp extension warehouse
- Forums - Large, active SketchUp community
SketchUpARTISTS.com
A great resource, especially for rendering techniques using various software. There are also many advanced modeling techniques, such as this tutorial on making a blackhawk helicopter, or combining SketchUp and hand drawing. In addition to tutorials, they are also a great resource for downloading free SketchUp styles.
TheSketchUpEssentials.com
Justin Geis from the SketchUp Essentials runs a YouTube channel covering a wide array of SketchUp topics. He creates tutorials and reviews of SketchUp extensions.
Downloads
MasterSketchUp Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are the best way to speed up your workflow. I have created custom keyboard shortcut guides for SketchUp for Desktop and SketchUp for Web, for Mac and Windows.
Download the keyboard shortcut guides for free by creating a free MasterSketchUp account. Sign up here, or login.
SketchUp Viewers
There are several SketchUp model viewers that are available for free. Viewers allow you to view and measure your model, but they don't have any drawing or modification tools. You can check out my review video of the SketchUp viewer for mobile apps here.
Android - SketchUp Viewer for Mobile
iPhone - SketchUp Viewer for Mobile
Desktop - SketchUp Viewer for Mac or PC
VR - (Premium) VR viewer available with subscription.
3dwarehouse.sketchup.com
The official SketchUp 3D warehouse is where you can find a ton of free 3D models that you can download and use in your model. Anyone can upload a model to the 3D warehouse. Sometimes this makes searching difficult because the quality and consistency of the models vary. The 3D warehouse also allows you to upload your model and embed it online with the interactive 3D model viewer.
FormFonts.com
If you’re using SketchUp professionally, FormFonts is a great place to find high quality models of all sorts of objects. Don’t waste time modeling secondary objects in your model when you can quickly download them from FormFonts. Never worry about trying to find good, quality models on the 3D warehouse. Formfonts creates models that are of high quality, but low polygon count in order to increase performance. They are always adding new models, and you can also request specific models at no additional cost. In addition to models, they also have custom SketchUp styles and 2D images. Formfonts is a subscription service, and I'm an affiliate so if you end up subscribing through my link, I'll earn a small commission. Thank you in advance!
SketchUpTextureClub.com
This is a great resource for finding a ton of free materials that you can using in SketchUp. They also have some great collections of 3D models to download for free as well. You’ll even find some tutorials for SketchUp, V-Ray and more on this site. A valuable resource, with a ton of free content.
Extensions
Extensions provide additional functionality to SketchUp. You can use extensions in all versions of SketchUp prior to 2018, but they became an exclusive feature of SketchUp Pro as of 2018. Many are free, and some are paid. You can find extensions on the official SketchUp extension warehouse, as well as other third party sites.
mind.sight.studios
Some of my favorite plugins, like Profile Builder, Artisan, Quantifier, PlaceMaker, and more are made by mind.sight.studios. (Disclaimer: Affiliate links.)
extensions.sketchup.com
SketchUp's official extension warehouse. Here you will find hundreds of free and paid extensions. You can access the Extension Warehouse and install extensions from within SketchUp. Go to Window > Extension Warehouse.
SketchUcation Plugin Store
SketchUcation developed their own Plugin Store and extension management plugin. Many free and paid extensions, many of which are not available on the official extension warehouse.
Forums
Have a question? Join one of the SketchUp communities to engage with a large group of SketchUp users who talk about about all things SketchUp.
forums.sketchup.com
The official SketchUp forum is a great place to find help on SketchUp. You’ll find a lot of helpful folks on there, including many SketchUp team members who are happy to help you with any questions you may have. I especially like the platform the forum is hosted on. You can paste images directly into posts, making it easy to share screenshots of SketchUp. The forum also looks great on any device, so you can keep tabs on the community on the go.
sketchucation.com/forums
This is one of the oldest SketchUp forums and the most helpful community of SketchUp fanatics online. With 100,000’s of posts, you can bet there’s an answer to any question you have about SketchUp. It is a very active forum which you’ll find people will respond to posts within hours, sometimes within minutes. It’s truly incredible the amount of help you can receive from this community at the SketchUcation forum.
Other Tools I use
Gusto Payroll
If you're a business owner, you know running payroll sucks. I've tried several payroll services in the past, and I like Gusto by far. If you sign up with my link, you'll get a $100 gift card after running your first payroll. You can also check out my other website where I did an in-depth review of Gusto.
Bluehost Web Hosting
When I first started my website, I used Bluehost to host my WordPress site. Bluehost is a very affordable way to have your own website.
