Rendering in SketchUp: From Modeling to Presentation for Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Interior Design

Premade Component Websites

The following three websites (Trimble 3D Warehouse, FormFonts, and DynaSCAPE Sketch3D) are well suited to provide the types of component details you can use. Collectively, they offer a broad assortment of free and commercial components. The resource website for this book (see Chapter 2) provides direct links to these resources.

These three websites require that you download components one at a time. Although this can be inconvenient, it is to prevent piracy and illegal sharing of models that might occur if components were packaged in groups.

Using the reference material in this chapter, make sure you download any components into an organized Component Library (Fig. 13.12). Regularly spend time downloading them, and collect them when you’re modeling a project. You will quickly build up your Component Library.

3D Warehouse

3D Warehouse is a search engine for 3D models. It’s the single, largest repository of SketchUp models on the Web (Fig. 13.13). SketchUp users, companies, and institutions upload their models to the Warehouse for others to view, download, and freely use.

Fig. 13.12: A Component Library

Fig. 13.13: 3D Warehouse is easy to search directly from inside SketchUp.

Accessing 3D Warehouse is simple. In SketchUp, select File ⇒ 3D Warehouse ...