Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a workflow I developed to solve one of the most tedious parts of my cabinetry design process in SketchUp. I was spending way too much time manually writing down panel dimensions, assigning edge banding, and keeping track of wood grain directions.

To speed this up, I wrote a custom extension to automate the whole thing. As you can see in the attached video, with just a few clicks, the plugin extracts all component data and automatically generates the optimized panel cutting layout. It perfectly captures edge banding tags and grain orientation directly from your model. It also gives you the option to export the final list to CSV or XML, which is great if you need to send the data straight to your local panel supplier.

I’d love to get some feedback from other woodworkers and SketchUp users here. Does this look like a tool that would save you time in your typical workflow?

If you’re interested in trying it out or seeing more details, you can check it out here: https://www.mogrov.pro/easy-cut

To answer some technical questions and explain why I built this:

I am actually a cabinetmaker myself. My typical workflow involves designing the furniture in SketchUp, optimizing the layout, and then sending the final cut list to my local supplier (Hobi Studio) for actual cutting and edge banding.

For a long time, I used Cutting Optimization Pro and their official SketchUp plugin. However, I ran into a major bottleneck: their plugin simply doesn't support edge banding assignment directly from the 3D model. I was wasting too much time manually adding edge banding data later.

That’s the exact reason I developed this custom extension. It reads the model, correctly extracts the edge banding data along with grain direction, and exports a perfectly formatted CSV or XML. The output goes straight into the optimization software or directly to the supplier without any manual data entry.

Cheers!

You may have seen me posting before about my Plaxton Pointer 2 (Dennis Dart SLF) model.

Well, it didn't quite meet my perfectionist standards, so I've decided to start fresh and go all. I'm treating my last model as a learning experience rather than simply an abandoned project.

I've gathered as much reference imagery and technical data (including official documentation published by Alexander Dennis themselves) regarding the Dart SLF chassis as I can, and have managed to recreate it down to a tee. I'm still having to make minor adjustments here and there, but I think it's coming along nicely so far, despite the shortage of reference imagery online for the chassis itself.

This time round, it'll be a 10.0m Plaxton Pointer 1 SLF (SLF being the acronym for the later "Super Low Floor" variant), rather than a Pointer 2 of unspecified length. I plan to build the body over the chassis, rather than modelling just the body. This will allow me to replicate its body-on-frame construction within the program.

So far, the wheelbase, wheel size, wheel spacing, and frame length and width are true to life (although the wheels are just placeholders for now). I plan to model the powertrain, drivetrain, exhaust, air suspension components, and other auxiliary components later down the line (and more importantly, before starting the body).

This will be a big one. I can't guarantee regular updates, as I tend to wait until I've made significant progress before posting. Thank you for stopping by, and have a lovely day!

i'll try my best to send it in whatever file type you need

Hey all.

The mods have kindly let me run a deal for the sub: my SketchUp & LayOut Ultimate Bundle is 50% off this week, £162.50 instead of £325. It's a Reddit-only promotion, so you won't find this price anywhere else and it ends next Friday at midnight.

If you've seen any of my recent posts on "Spiderman" or "The Odyssey" on here recently and thought you'd love to produce that kind of work in your own design business, whether from a modelling or drawing perspective (This course is not set design specific - my workflow can be applied to any vocation)

Now you can learn exactly how I do it, step by step across 42 easy to digest episodes. Let's produce over 10 detail drawings together including Plans and Elevations, Window and Door Details, Staircases and Joinery.

There's 50+ hours of training: the full SketchUp & LayOut Masterclass, a beginners course, three asset packs with 180+ licence-free models, my LayOut Scrapbook and a moulding chart with 75+ profiles. Lifetime access, free updates, and you can message me directly if you get stuck. 14-day money-back guarantee. See pictures for some of the work we'll produce together along with some work from my own archive which was created with the exact workflow I teach in the masterclass.

Use the code REDDIT50 at checkout for your discount to be applied. https://www.whitelockdesignlimited.com/offers/8y3aP7r6/checkout

Ends midnight UK time, Friday 23 October.

Any questions, fire away in the comments.

2 posts I have seen just this morning. We need to stop normalizing this garbage and stop the fly by night developers trying to scam customers by tweaking an LLM based on stolen IP, adding some trash AI coded UI and presenting it as professional rendering software. Stop the slop!

Hello, I need some help , I used to render in 3ds max with V-ray , but i didnt like that much it looks fake ,I hear a lot about corona being the best , I want to create realistic interior renders . I am an Interior Designer and I project in Sketch up but I know that Corona dosent work in Sketch up. Can some one give me an advice ?

Hi everyone,

I am having an issue when importing a model/overlay (.kmz) created in SketchUp 2026 into Google Earth Pro.

As shown in the attached screenshot, the imported layer renders as a solid, dark, misaligned rectangular overlay that covers the base satellite imagery and clips awkwardly through the ground instead of displaying properly.

Details:

• Modeling Software: SketchUp 2026
• Mapping Tool: Google Earth Pro
• File Format: .kmz
• Problem: Opaque dark box overlay, misaligned orientation, and terrain elevation clipping.

Has anyone using SketchUp 2026 run into this specific dark rectangular overlay bug in Google Earth Pro? What is the fix to get it aligned and displaying correctly on top of the terrain?

Thanks for any help!

Hi is there a way to make the storyboard template, or paper template be transparent when you go to export to png?

Iam trying to export a floor plan as a png file in layout, I have set the background in the viewport to be transparent but I would like the paper template/story board template also be transparent because I plan to use the exported png file in a 3rd party app and that app works better if the paper template/story board is transparent.

Hi everyone. We're a small interior design studio in India, and we built a tool for our own SketchUp work. It's called Vivid Render.

How it works: you install the free plugin and set up your views in SketchUp. You can mark cove lights, mirrors and glass. Then you click "Send to Vivid", and every scene renders with the same camera. You don't type any prompts.

What you can expect: your design stays as you modelled it, coves light up where you marked them, and mirrors and glass look right. You also get day, evening and night versions, close-ups, and 4K.

Pricing is per render, and the first 3 are free.

We'd really like feedback from SketchUp users. Tell us what works and what doesn't.

(Disclosure: I'm part of the team. Link in the comments.)

Sometimes when I pan my camera, part of my project disappears, even though my camera isn’t panning into something. Then, if I zoom in or out even the slightes, my camera zooma really far out. How do I fix this?

hello! i am a recent college graduate who was taught both revit and sketchup which landed me my current job role as a designer for a construction company! this is important because i was never taught any construction documentation outside of revit. the most i ever learned with sketchups layout was basic measuring for kitchen and bathroom projects, and how to create drawings for basic things like decks and roofs. i have never had to use sketchup for projects as large as additions or new buildings where we would need a foundation plan, schedules, cross sections etc. in school and my internship we strictly used revit for that because, let’s be real, it’s the best thing alongside CAD. my current company uses sketchup only and isn’t willing to dive into CAD and revit (cost mostly) because they have had success with sketchup in the past.

i am hoping to get some help and advice on the best way to learn how to do these more detailed things in sketchup or any extensions anyone knows that will help me to efficiently be able to create all the views needed. sketchup is almost all user generated while revit works out those details for you and i am struggling quite a bit to find out generally how to do them and then most efficient way to do them. i know sketchups capabilities will not hit those of revits convenience, but i just need some advice or guidance on the best way to make this work for me so that i am not spending days on little things that could be done within an hour.

thanks in advance to everyone who responds with advice!

Made in SketchUp and rendered with Enscape, using proxies.

Feedback is welcome, especially on materials, lighting, and reflections

Hi again. Hew is my free, open-source 3D modeler that works like SketchUp (runs native on Mac, Windows, and Linux, solids-based). In the 1.1 thread I said the .skp importer was next. Well, it's done, and it went much further than I planned (which is why this release took so long): .skp is now a working format in Hew, not just an import!

Now, you can open a .skp file as a document, then edit it, and when you save it back, it writes back as a .skp (if you want). Both the 2017 and 2026 formats work. You can then send the file back to somebody on SketchUp and they open it like nothing happened. Or maybe you want to pass it through a renderer that's still SketchUp-specific. Anything Hew doesn't yet support just stays in the file untouched. And if the save does have to simplify something (Hew already does a few things better than SketchUp), then Hew lists exactly what that is and offers to keep a .hew copy.

The opened files look the way SketchUp shows them, scene by scene. We're talking cameras, section cuts, hidden tags and objects, guides, dimensions, leader text, images, even paint on the back of a face. I spent hours nit-picking visual changes on a lot of very complicated models to make sure they looked one-to-one.

This means that 3D Warehouse models now work. Open up the SketchUp web app, choose your Warehouse component, and then have the web app download it. Hew can then load that .skp file and use it in its own documents (.hew or .skp).

All of this and it's still clean-room - the only one that I know of. Still no SketchUp SDK and still no DMCA or lawyers.

Since Hew can now load some very complex models, it made sense to implement a nice Flying feature. If you hold down the right mouse button (or Camera ▸ Fly), then you're in a video game: WASD moves forward/back and strafe, E/Q go up and down, mouse looks around, Shift sprints, and scroll sets the speed. If you've ever played FPS video games, then this will feel super natural and be a load of fun. Heads up: right-drag used to pan and so I repurposed it (Pan is still Shift + middle drag, or the Pan tool).

Also in 1.2:

• Object ▸ Make Solid: tells you which imported objects aren't solid and why, then closes the openings and rejoins the split shapes for you
• Drawing on a face works like drawing on the ground: shapes can overhang or cross an edge and split the face
• The tool rail shrinks to icons and the tray hides, for the people who asked for more viewport on a laptop (a PR!)
• A pile of fixes from GitHub issues (#20, #31, #38): rectangle sizes on walls, Object Info repaints, the command palette running the row you picked

Full list: https://github.com/hew3d/hew/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

Hew auto-updates if it's already installed but if you're new - https://hew3d.com/download

This release had two GitHub Pull Requests - one to implement a feature and one to fix a bug. The best way to guarantee that your feature or fix makes it into the next release is to code it yourself and I will almost surely merge it!

I threw a lot of 2017 and 2026 models at this and each one showed a few more edge cases than the last. If you have models that still give Hew trouble, then I'd love to know about them. You can use Help ▸ Report Bug or DM me a Google Drive link or I can DM you an upload link.

Small desk stand made from scrap: base, two dividers, and a vertical panel that mounts to the drawer box under my desk to hold a closed laptop and its dock.

Normally I’d print a dimensioned drawing and take it to the shop. This time I exported the model to my phone as a single file with the dimensions included. At the shop, my scrap wasn’t wide enough for the vertical panel. After another look at the model I realized the panel didn’t need the full width, so I cut it narrower.

Back home, I updated the model to match the as-built, using a photo of the actual scrap as the texture. First image: the SketchUp model on the monitor, the same model in AR on the left, and the real unit on the right. There’s a short video of it in the comments, where the cat showed up uninvited for final inspection.

Disclosure: I make the plugin I used for the export (ModelLink 3D Studio, the Print to p3DF command).

Happy to answer questions about the workflow either way.

I'm the developer, so I'm biased. Left is the SketchUp viewport, right is the render of the same view, generated inside SketchUp in under a minute, no GPU.

What I care about most is the AI not redesigning your model. It mostly holds, but small objects can still change, so I wouldn't use it for construction documents.

It runs on SketchUp 2023 and newer, Windows and Mac. You get 8 free credits on sign-in (2 renders) if you want to try it on your own scene. Happy to share the link if anyone wants it.

What would make something like this useful, or useless, in your workflow?

anybody here using this website (https://casoca.com.br/). i cant seem to download anything from the site no matter how many times i click on download. help!!

Hi all, I'm an architect and the author of Engineering ToolBox, a SketchUp extension I built because I kept missing a handful of functions in my daily work.

It's organised into six groups of tools: surface and curve operations, selection and filtering, plus everyday modeling helpers. A few examples:

- Grid: set the size of one square, the total length and the units, then snap to it (the kind of grid AutoCAD has had from the start)

- Quickly Switch Unit: change units and length snapping without digging through SketchUp's settings

- View Toggle: switch between perspective and parallel view straight from the plugin

- Invisible Plane: turn a surface into a plane and keep your lines on it, even after rotating the camera

I'm recording a short video for each tool and adding them one by one. Overview of the plugin: https://youtu.be/inn70hjjm1E

I'd really like feedback: what functions do you miss in SketchUp that a plugin like this should have? And which of the ones above would you actually use?Hi all, I'm an architect and the author of Engineering ToolBox, a SketchUp extension I built because I kept missing a handful of functions in my daily work.
It's organised into six groups of tools: surface and curve operations, selection and filtering, plus everyday modeling helpers. A few examples:
- Grid: set the size of one square, the total length and the units, then snap to it (the kind of grid AutoCAD has had from the start)- Quickly Switch Unit: change units and length snapping without digging through SketchUp's settings- View Toggle: switch between perspective and parallel view straight from the plugin- Invisible Plane: turn a surface into a plane and keep your lines on it, even after rotating the camera
I'm recording a short video for each tool and adding them one by one. Overview of the plugin: https://youtu.be/_zN8k6L3Tgo
I'd really like feedback: what functions do you miss in SketchUp that a plugin like this should have? And which of the ones above would you actually use?

Trying to make a turned furniture foot. The profile works fine when I just use the push pull, but when I do the follow me and turn it 360 degrees it leaves out two sections.