Google SketchUp® 7 For Dummies®

Part I. Getting Started with SketchUp

In this part . . .

This part of the book is dedicated to helping you get your bearings. It's not a step-by-step guide to starting a new file in SketchUp; instead, it provides a little bit of information about what SketchUp is, what you can use it to do, and how to get the most out of it.

Chapter 1 is a very general overview of Google SketchUp. I try not to bore you with too much background information, but here's where you can read about what the software is supposed to let you do, how it compares to other 3D modeling applications, and where everything is.

In Chapter 2, I jump right in. There are a few things about SketchUp you absolutely need to know when you're just getting started, and here's where I lay them out. I think this is the most important chapter in this book; read it, and you'll know more about SketchUp than millions of other folks who already use it every day.

The contents of Chapter 3 are included for the benefit of those readers who like to learn software by getting their hands dirty right away. The whole chapter is a workflow that takes you through the process of making a simple model, changing the way it looks, and creating an image of it that you can keep forever.