Google SketchUp for Site Design: A Guide to Modeling Site Plans, Terrain and Architecture
ISBN:9780470345252 read summary

I have to admit, I have little patience for 3d work as I'm an illustrator that makes "2D" paintings. However, I have seen the uses of SketchUp by other artists, and wanted to give this a shot. In fact, it encouraged me to build a desktop just for the purpose of dabbling in 3D.

I found other books and immediately was turned off by the tech speak, even the "for Dummies" was a little hard to grasp. Along with the videos out there covering SketchUp with this book I started understanding how to create little environments with this neat App by Google.

You may have my problem and be a bit impatient with the tech speak, and terms, but just go over the chapters in order as requested in the book. It also gives you links to extras and goodies too. The author is pretty thorough and despite some technical jargon, he's still rather simple and to the point. There are a great number of illustrations in the book to help you through it.

Learning 3D work is a bit of a daunting task for me, but this book has come in handy since I love how people were able to use the tools to help create 2D works with 3D programs. Slowly but surely I'll be able to build and even try other 3D programs. I know, I'm making it sound harder than it actually is, but if you have no patience with most 3D apps you can understand why I belabored over trying this and getting a book to actually understand all of it. I definitely am thankful the author knows how to make it interesting!

The author's qualifications as both a practicing architect and an expert Sketchup user make this an outstanding tutorial, with a wealth of practical advice on both the craft of site planning and the ins and outs of Sketchup. The exercises themselves are real-world examples that touch on all the relevant features of the applicatiion. The presentation as a Kindle book makes it possible to keep the book open on a separate screen while working through the exercises.

Google sketchup rocks! This book is probably the best one I've used. I just learned how to use sketchup for urban planning concept display. The book is easy to understand and it provides excellent tutorials, workflow methodologies, and places to download free Ruby scripts to enhance your Google Sketchup. I'm currently using the Pro version (not the free version) and am very pleased that I can design rich 3-D graphics and animations for the public to view.

I highly recommend this book if you are in the site plan, architectural, and planning profession. This book is good for anyone else who wants to learn Google Sketchup!

Tim Hennig
Green Bay, WI

This book certainly provided an excellent approach to both basic and complex Sketchup modeling. While I had used Sketchup before in school, it was on a limited and unorganized basis. For my current work, Google Sketchup for Site Design helped me to understand how to be much more efficient and effective with a greater understanding of Sketchup's tools and organization. Plus, the online downloads that go along with the book tutorials were very helpful for checking my models as I worked through the exercises. No matter your current proficiency with Sketchup, this book will be very helpful and should be included as part of your library.

The tutorials are worthless, unless you are already a sketchup expert, in which case you don't need the book! I gave up on the first tutorial after a few steps because I had to look up how to perform most of the actions using the sketchup online documentation. So what's the point of the book? Some nice models? I can get those for free on the web.