Customer Reviews

Google Sketchup Cookbook: Practical Recipes and Essential Techniques

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This book is a huge help! I've been using SketchUp for a few years and never knew about some of the topics covered in this book. For instance you can use section planes and styles as part of an animation, which I never saw explained in another book or video. The stuff on presentation and model display is really helpful for developing models that my clients want to see. The tutorials are easy to follow, and the use of color is great bonus - very unusual for a how-to book. Excellent book!

After trying to teach myself SketchUp last year, I decided to try again this year so I can teach my middle school gifted students how to make 3D models. Using the free tutorials at Google, SketchUp for Dummies, SketchUp Level One DVD, and SketchUp 7: Hands-On Basics (also by Roskes) will provide the new SketchUp user with a strong introductory foundation. Once you are a strong beginner, you should check out Google SketchUp Cookbook to take your SketchUp skills to the next level. Written in a problem & solution format, this book does not have to be read from cover-to-cover (though I did!), rather one can simply use the well-organized table of contents to find exactly the answer needed as problems arise. Full-color screen captures and tons of ready-made models in the 3D Warehouse make this book even more valuable. Some of the skills addressed include Follow Me; using groups, components, and layers; modeling with photos and textures; creating animations; and using the 3D Warehouse and Google Earth. Working through the entire book and all of its `recipes' takes weeks, but in the end you'll be able to anything in SketchUp that is worth doing! :)

A profoundly straight-forward and informative guide to quickly mastering and getting the most out of Google's SketchUp. Bonnie Roskes years of experience in design and education are readily apparent in how the book is organized and presented. Like it's title's namesake: it is literally a volume of practical recipes that anyone can follow easily and without getting bogged down in techno babble and irrelevant details.

The book's usefulness cannot be underestimated and was perfect for both novices and advance users alike. The simple to follow tutorials for solving and learning the many amazing abilities of SketchUp made learning as easy as making pie.

The color graphics liberally included throughout her book provide are useful and perfect for the visually driven users of SketchUp ( a common sense detail clearly lacking in some other How-To Guides for SketchUp ). As a bonus; in this digital age, O'Reilly has thoughtfully included a complete online version of this book through their Safari Books Online service for which the purchaser can access. Also as of this writing, a Kindle version of this book was available through Amazon.com.

- Lee Henry
e-Zine Co-Editor
[...] (Cleveland Digital Publishing Users Group)

This book teaches advanced techniques in SketchUp. The steps were clear and easy to follow and the exercises were fun. I definitely learned a lot and think this would make a great tool for anyone that wants to use SketchUp. I also believe this would be an excellent supplement for math, architecture, and civil engineering classes.

I found this book very helpful....especially if you need to go beyond the basics.
This book assumes you already know the basics.

I knew a little bit about SketchUp from playing with it, but I wanted to learn how to use it as a real tool. This book is a great way to learn from the basics to more advanced subjects, with a clear descriptive narrative and illustrations for each step along the way. All the sample models are easily obtained from 3D Warehouse and everything is well referenced. Highly recommended!

This is a rudimentary explanation of functions that can be found in Sketchup help menu or in their web site training material, all of which is freely available. Consequently, after reading the many five star reviews and ordering this book I found it to be a huge disappointment.

Published in 2009 this book has not aged well and feels like a relic from Sketchup 5.

With Sketchup's 8 new features and the many plug-ins, it's capabilities have expanded dramatically since 2009.

Here are some notable developments:

- SketchupPro 8 now has solid tools, very important for efficient modeling

- There are many free plug-ins like BezierSpline or Jiontpushpull or Toolsonsurface which are essential for most modeling

- Plus many polished pay-for plug-ins are now available, such as Artisan's powerful organic modeling tools or the many rendering plug-ins which transform Sketchup far from it rudimentary push-pull roots.

All of these new developments could benefit from a cookbook approach but you will not find them here.

For the material covered by this book you can find it at Sketchups web site in the self paced tutorials which guides you inside Sketchup using scenes(pages)to learn step by step the concepts of modeling. Then for more insight in technique or practical recipes, you should move on to the latest and greatest at SketchUcation.com and study the many examples there.

If you've been trying to learn Sketchup with the on-line tutorials and just aren't getting anywhere, look no further than this book. It does assume you know some basic Sketchup functionality (like how to use the orbit tool), and then proceeds with dozens of examples in a stepwise manner. The examples start with relatively simple concepts, and then advance to more complex models, often assuming that you will remember concepts from earlier models (a good thing in my opinion - but sometimes hints are provided to jog the memory - and you can always flip back if needed). This is one of those few computer books that delivered just what I needed.

I used this book during my master thesis 2010, I got closer to the intentions and idées I wanted to develop thanks to this book.
Architect Vivi

Has the information I needed and will use it as a good reference.
Recommended.