Customer Reviews

Google SketchUp For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am a retired professional engineer, architect, and 3D graphics artist/instructor. I have been using SketchUp Pro for about 3 years mainly for creating Earth and space structures that I later import into Daz Bryce for rendering. This well written, light-hearted, and extremely thorough book is an essential asset for begineers and a valuable reference tool for anyone using SketchUp. Computer software manual writers can often times get over zealous with methods and confuse everyone but themselves. Fortunately Aidan Chopra is not one of those people. If you want to draw most anything you can imagine you need to do two things. First download the free version of SketchUp and second buy this book. You will be very pleased with both actions.

I bought the book because I wanted to get started using SketchUp to draw a house construction plan. I wanted to see what the house would look like in 3-dimension. I reviewed the on-line training files and got a good understanding of what SketchUp could do, but, as one might expect, there was not a lot of "how-to-get-started" information.
The book is well written and easy to follow. It is set up based on a training theory I like, trial and error. The base example is a house sketch with vague dimensions. As you begin to follow the instructions, you make mistakes. You quickly learn how to erase your mistakes and re-start. After a bit, I began to have something worth saving. Once saved, it became a means of re-starting after "big" mistakes.
It is truly a learn-by-doing tool.
I haven't used the book for the more complex features of the program.
I got what I wanted and the price of the book was a small price to pay for the lesson.
I used to use MacDraw years ago on a Mac. This is the best casual drawing tool I've seen since then.

This book along with the online videos will get you up and running fast. It's see one, read one, now do one. The online videos are the key to doing the book as sometimes the books doesn't contain all the information for completing the project. So you have to write down the dimensions from the video into the book. This is what I did and I was able to follow along with the book and complete the projects. In a word "excellent."

Google SketchUp is free!
This book is $14.99 with free Amazon Prime shipping!
There are 54 Utube video tutorials by the author with another three dozen on the way which are free supplements to the book!

This SketchUP 7 for Dummies book is a good basic intro to SketchUP, but does not cover any intermediate or advanced topics or skills (except it does cover "Photo Match" modeling from photos OK). If you bought his previous book, (not a "Dummies" book) on SketchUP 6 you probably need not buy this book... this is virtually that book, word for word, and picture by picture (It was pretty good too), with just a little bit of new info on things like Dynamic Components. I wish the book went just a little deeper into the topics covered...its a bit too surface in coverage. It also does not cover some entire aspects of both the FREE as well as the PRO versions. The biggest weakness of this book (and his previous book) is the quality of the illustrations. These COULD be very good and helpful. They are primarily screen shots of the program in use. However they are so small, low contrast, and fuzzy that the important info supposedly being conveyed is hard to glean. SketchUP works so easy because of clever, simple use of COLOR, THICKNESS and DASHES etc of lines... these are crucial to use (and see). The illustrations fail to capture these well. As screen shots it would have been very easy to spend a few seconds with each image in a simple image editor enhancing contrast, etc. The writing style is friendly, easy to understand, and clear. IF the images were handled better, and larger, this would be an EXCELLENT beginning intro book; as it is, it is GOOD book.

I recently taught a Google Sketchup introductory class to my Woodworking group - after sampling some of the video tutorials Aidan has available I sought out and purchased the book that references them (this book!). I've found it invaluable as a reference and recommend it to anyone thinking about using Sketchup - it's well written, simply presented and provides ample guidance for the self-learner. It also provided me with some good ideas on presentation when delivering a classroom session on the topic. I plan to present several more classes in Sketchup with a focus on the woodworker and small project design. The book can be used as reference with little adaptation. Sketchup is one of those programs that can be taken in small chunks for a beginner to get up and designing, or it can be explored in depth to produce some stunning presentations, integrated into an entire project plan with examples, production details, animation and movement, multiple perspectives and even cutlists for woodworkers (using the Cutlist plugin). Kudos to the conception and execution and to Aidan Chopra, both the writer of this guide and the Google Sketchup advocate.

Overall the book is good and helpful. I was disappointed that it only focused on architectural design and didn't offer much for design like furniture, etc. which is what I was more interested in. Even with that short coming it was well written and very helpful.

If you are into SketchUp then Aidan Chopra's great read gets you up to speed. His web site has some excellent educational video's on SketchUp and along with the SketchUp download it's all for free....G.J.Crabb

This book is clear, consise and contains all the basics you need to start using sketchup.
The first three parts (roughly 250 pages) in the book are all you need to start using skecthup efficiently. The remaining parts of the books discuss more advanced topics.
In conjonction with the several online tutorials this book is the perfect companion to start using skectup.

Chopra has written an excellent book. Good sense of humor, easy to understand, practical and well organized. Some of the "For Dummies" books are a little too cute. The writing style gets in the way of the information. That is not the case with Chopra's book. His humor and personality make the subject interesting. I am a beginner with Sketchup, but I think more advanced users will benefit from this book too because of the way the book is organized and the depth of the information. The book works as a reference as well as a collection of tutorials.