After you create a 3D model, you likely need to share your design with others. SketchUp’s tools for sharing and communicating how your designs look are as versatile as a Ginsu kitchen knife set.
Just like the Ginsu, SketchUp’s section planes enable you to slice your model quickly and easily, so you can share a cross-section of your model.
But wait! There’s more!
In SketchUp, you can also
- Simulate walking through a model with the Walk tool.
- Save different views of your model as scenes.
- Animate scenes to create a tour of your model’s exterior and interior.
- Cast realistic shadows based on your location and different times of day.
- View your model in Google Earth, so you can show how your model looks in its intended surroundings.
- Watermark your model with an overlay or background image, such as a company logo.
- Print your model, either on paper or with a 3D printer. (The steps for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X are different, so see the article that covers your operating system.)
And that’s not all you can do!
The ways you can share your designs go beyond SketchUp. In the 3D Warehouse, you can upload your model and share it with the SketchUp Community. If you’re a SketchUp Pro user, you have LayOut, which enables you to create 2D drawings and documentation of your model, including plans, sections, elevations, and perspectives.
Tip: For details about exporting a view of your model as an image file, see Using SketchUp Data with Other Modeling Programs or Tools, which covers how to import or export several different file types into or out of SketchUp.
