Free Collection of sketchup Plugins That Make you model Crazy Forms And Shapes, This Sketchup plugins Are free to Download SKETCHUP 2014 plugins, SKETCHUP 2015 plugins, SKETCHUP 2016 plugins SKETCHUP, TUTORIAL, tutorials, Plugins, SKETCHUP 2014 plugins, SKETCHUP 2015 plugins, SKETCHUP 2016 plugins, Vray, FREE SKETCHUP PLUGINS COLLECTION. Be sure you review our F.A.Q. And Overview articles in the Help Center to be sure you’re familiar with SketchUp Free and come back here to post as your needs and desires dictate. SketchUp free is the new web-based version of SketchUp, available from any computer and even mobile devices (with some limitations.) To use it you’ll need to visit. This free plugin is a no brainer for speeding up your workflow. The history of SketchUp For many people when they hear the word SketchUp they instantly think of Google, and thats understandable but it was actually originally created by @Last Software in 2000. After the success of its 6th edition in 2007, Sketchup became one of the world's most widely used 3D modeling software products. This is thanks to its intuitive toolbar, interdisciplinary use. Learning how to install Sketchup plugins and extensions can immensely increase your productivity, but it isn't so intuitive. It's important that you learn the difference between tools, plugins, and extensions so moving forward you're not confused about what's what. After that's clear.
We’ve sifted through the add-ons currently available to bring you our list of the 10 most vital plug-ins. While it’s still perfectly possible to build complex structures using the standard SketchUp toolset, sometimes it’s nice to have helpers to take a little of the load off you. Some of the results shown here are achievable with the standard toolset, but these plug-ins will save you time – something that working artists never have enough of.
Some of these plug-ins automate tasks that would take a fair bit of planning and desk time, while others add capabilities that would simply not be achievable using the base toolbox. Furthermore, all but one are free. Since Ruby is a scripting language, they will run equally capably on the Mac OS X or Windows versions of SketchUp (and on both SketchUp and SketchUp Pro).
01. Extended Push/Pull
SketchUp is founded on its Push/Pull tool, which enables you to easily extrude planes into volumes. Sooner or later, though, you’ll come across a situation where you want to perform a Push/Pull operation on a curved surface. In this case, SketchUp’s own tool will resolutely refuse to work. It is possible to achieve the same result by building the surface using Offset and Line, but it’s a time-consuming process that’s prone to error.
This is where the Joint Push Pull plug-in from SketchUp user Fredo6 comes into its own. It actually offers three different methods for pushing or pulling a surface. The first is Joint Push Pull, which extrudes along normals, giving a smooth, contiguous, offset face. The second is Vector Push Pull, which will skew the offset faces along a vector defined by dragging the mouse. The third is Normal Push Pull, which is similar to Joint Push Pull, but creates separate faces, extruded along face normals. 02. Easy multi-curve surfaces
Its Sandbox tools notwithstanding, SketchUp doesn’t do organic curved shapes particularly well. There are ways of generating certain curved surfaces from scratch, but typically the only option you’re left with is importing another program’s output – which brings its own set of problems. Developed by Josef Leibinger, Soap Skin & Bubble is a plug-in that puts tools used for creating tensile structures in your toolbox. Simply create a closed curve from arcs and lines, and Soap Skin & Bubble will fit a surface to them. You can set the number of segments in a surface, the tension in a surface and its inflation (incident pressure). Soap Skin & Bubble also animates the fitting process: another nice touch.
03. Better bevelling
It is possible to create bevelled edges in SketchUp using the Follow Me tool and a bit of forethought, but it doesn’t always work – for example, where more than three edges converge on a point. Thankfully, there are two plug-ins currently available that make bevelling a breeze. Chris Phillips’ SketchyBevel applies bevelling to every edge on an object. Simply select the whole object, right-click and select Bevel. Successively applying SketchyBevel will produce more rounded corners. (Generally speaking, a 3x followed by 1x bevel distance will produce an acceptable result.) But if you want a little more control over your modelled output, Fredo6’s Round Edge (by Bezier) is the the plug-in for you. This clever add-on enables you to set the number of edges in the bevel, and uses Bezier curves to draw them, to ensure continuity between the resulting curve and the straight edges of the model. You can also pre-pick edges to bevel them selectively, although you may need to do a little clean-up with the Eraser tool afterwards.
04. Add subdivision modelling
Costing a meagre $22, Dale Martens’ plug-in SubdivideAndSmooth puts true subdivision surface modelling inside SketchUp. Selecting an object and clicking the Subdivide button in the Tool palette produces a perfectly subdivided object. You can set the number of iterations between 1 and 4 to increase the surface’s fidelity. SubdivideAndSmooth also handles holes and uncapped solids with aplomb, and is not limited to just triangles and quads. Making an object into a group before subdividing will give you a proxy cage, which you can use to manipulate the underlying surface. SubdivideAndSmooth gives you the option to crease edges and vertices so that they remain sharp, plus a Knife tool that will cut through a proxy cage, introducing more control points for finer control. The Extrude tool gets around the problem with the Push/Pull tool introducing interstitial faces, which can have unexpected consequences for the shape of the derived surface. Creating a component from a group also gives you the chance to mirror-duplicate it and work on one half, effectively giving you symmetrical modelling.
05. Tools on non-planar surfaces
How often do you want to use SketchUp’s standard drawing and construction tools on a curved surface? With Fredo6’s Tools on Surface, you can. The plug-in installs a tool palette with analogues for all of SketchUp’s drawing tools: Line, Arc, Rectangle, Circle and Freehand. In addition you get the new tools Ellipse, Parallelogram, Sector (Pie), Circle (3 Points) and an Offset on Surface tool. It’s hard to believe this plug-in really works, but it does. Drawing tools wrap around the curved surface as you draw, leaving perfectly formed faces that can be acted upon by the author’s Joint Push Pull plug-in. It will even draw curves on Sandbox meshes, although you must remember to smooth out the TIN’s edges within the new face, so that it’s seen as a single entity.
06. Freeform deformations
SketchyFFD adds a freeform deformation matrix to your model, making it malleable. Simply pull on the deformation handles to distort your model any way you want. Objects need to be at a single group level – that is, non-nested – for SketchyFFD to work.
07. Automatic explosions
Bomb automates one of the most mind-numbing tasks in SketchUp: exploding everything down to the base level before exporting, say, to a renderer. All you need to do is run the script. It can take quite a while, but it still saves you from a tedious manual process. When finished, select items by material, group and export.
08. Free scaling
FreeScale beefs up SketchUp’s native Scale function. It adds features including a wireframe preview of a scaled object and taper scaling. Best of all, FreeScale aligns a scaling box to the object and allows immediate orientation of the scaling box to any face or edge in the model, so there’s no need to change the axes.
09. Real Booleans
OSCoolean is the only free script that can give true Booleans in SketchUp. This means it will draw in the surfaces formed by a cut: something SketchUp’s Intersect command can’t do. This also saves on cleaning up geometry. As this Ruby script is in beta, you’ll have to register at the site to download it.
10. Watch these spaces...Free Sketchup Plug-ins For Download
Since the introduction of the Ruby scripting interface to SketchUp 4.0, people have been encouraged to develop their own scripts to improve the software. Keep an eye on these twoforum threads to see new Rubies and what they can do.
The Extension Warehouse and SketchUp were made to work together. In most cases, to add an extension on your local copy of SketchUp, you simply click the Install button on the extension details page and wait a moment while the software does the rest of the work.
However, this magical installation process comes with a few caveats:
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Note: If you’re not familiar with the features on the extension details page, check out the introduction to the Extension Warehouse interface in Getting Started. If you’re wondering how to uninstall, update, or otherwise manage your extensions, see Managing Extensions.
The following sections explain what you need to know about installing extensions manually, purchasing extensions, and using an extension after it’s installed.
Table of ContentsFree Sketchup PluginsInstalling extensions manually in SketchUp Preferences
If you download an extension from the Extension Warehouse via a web browser or from a developer’s website, your extension is packaged as an
.rbz file that you can install manually. Here are the steps you need to follow:
Trying or purchasing extensions in the Extension Warehouse
Whether you’re signed in to the Extension Warehouse through your browser or SketchUp, you can purchase an extension. However, to install a trial or purchased extension, you need to be signed in to the Extension Warehouse via SketchUp.
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The following steps walk you through making a purchase:
Tip: After you purchase an extension, the Extension Warehouse doesn’t offer refunds. If you’d like to try out an extension before you purchase it, look for an Install Trial button, which enables you to try how the extension works before you buy it. If you’re having trouble purchasing an extension or would like to contact us about an Extension Warehouse purchase you’ve made, fill out our Customer Service Contact form and, from the You Would Like To drop-down list, select Resolve a Purchasing Issue.
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To install a trial or purchased extension, follow these steps:
Finding and using an extension after it’s installedBest Free Sketchup Rendering Plugins
After you install an extension, how do you use it in SketchUp?
Sometimes, an extension appears on an Extensions menu, as shown in the following figure. Simply select an extension from the menu to start using it. The extension may also add a toolbar for using the extension’s features, such as the Curve Maker toolbar shown in the figure. Other times, an extension is on the Draw menu, the Tools menu, or a context menu.
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Tip: For details about how to use an extension, read the extension’s documentation, which you can find on or via the extension’s details page. For example, the extension details page might include a video, instructions, or links to more documentation about how the extension works. If you have a question, check out the reviews from other users (also on the extension details page) or check whether the developer provides contact information via the details page, their profile, or their website.
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