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My Strategy with SketchUp

Plugins - An Updated List

David Richards, contributor

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Every once in awhile I get an e-mail from a reader asking me about the plugins I use. The plugins I use seems to change and evolve from time to time. There are some new ones in my Plugins folder so I thought I'd go over some of them. These are in no particular order. I've included links to where you can download them if you want. Some of the links will require that you sign in and not all of the plugins are free.

It may seem like a good idea to download every plugin you can get your hands on. I don't think that's a good idea, though. The more plugins you have in the Plugins directory, the longer it takes SketchUp to start up. There are a number of plugins that simplify procedures in SketchUp but it's a good idea to learn how to do those things manually as well.

On with the list.

Bezier and BezierSpline make it easier to draw non-circular curves of various types. BezierSpline includes a toolbar.

Skin fills in faces between edges. This is nice for creating curved surfaces.

PurgeAll purges unused components, materials, layers and styles. Of all the plugins I have, this one is the most used. I run it before I quit working on a model to get rid of stuff I don't need and to reduce file size.

ToolsonSurface makes it easy to draw and do other operations on non flat surfaces. This plugin includes a toolbar.

Weld does what it says. It welds line segments together so that they behave as a single entity. One use of this plugin is to weld the line segments used to create molding profiles that will be used with Follow Me. Welding the segments prior to running Follow Me will eliminate the need to do a bunch of edge softening afterward.

CutList and Layout is an indispensible tool if you're trying to create shop drawings. The layout part of it is still in development but it is still useful.

TubeAlongPath draws a tube following a path made of line segments.

Dashed Lines does what it says.

PathCopy copies a component and places the copies along a path.

Time Track is a handy tool if you need to keep track of the time you spend drawing in SketchUp.

Shape Bender bends a shape to match a curved line. I've written about this here.

Projection Tools make it easy to project lines on to a face or to extrude lines to create faces.

There are more but these are some of the ones I've been using more often as I draw. If you're interested in my previous post on plugins, here's the link to it.

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Comments (7)

jhrob2004 writes: Thanks, Dave. I got it. Jerry Robinson Posted: 1:30 pm on August 26th

DaveRichards writes: jhrob, remember that this is a plugin. the ZIP file should be extracted into the Plugins folder under SketchUp. You'll end up with a file called CutListAndMaterials.rb which is 155Kb and a folder called cutlistui. Both of them need to be in the Plugins folder. Then restart SketchUp. Posted: 5:32 pm on August 23rd

jhrob2004 writes: Dave--I had the cutlist plugin in Sketchup 6. However, I deleted it when I downloaded Sketchup 7. Now I'm trying to get the Cutlist plugin into my version 7. When I download Cutlist 4.0.7, I get a 155KB sketchup file and some other smaller files in a separate folder. When I double click the larger file, I get a message that it doesn't appear to be a sketchup file. The downloaded cutlist files appear under the Sketchup folder in my C:/ directory. But they don't show up when I open Sketchup. Do you have any thoughts about what I am doing wrong and how I can get the plugin to work in Sketchup? Many thanks. Posted: 4:29 pm on August 21st

DaveRichards writes: jdspdx, Bezierspline is indeed a useful tool.

FWIW, if you've checked the Examples box under Window>Preferences>Extensions (SketchUp>Preferences>Extensions on the Mac), you'll get Point at Center in the Context menu if you right click on a circle of an arc. If the circle has been exploded as it would be after a Follow Me operation, Point at Center won't work. Then Centerpoint.rb can be useful.

Dave Posted: 8:59 pm on August 3rd

jdspdx writes: Thanks for the excellent information! BezierSpline is a very useful plugin. After having some minor problems with it I found on SketchUcation that it has been updated fairly recently. My favorite plugin right now is centerpoint.rb. I have found that circles are not recognized by SketchUp after they are used as a Follow-me path. This is bothersome when doing lots of lathe work. Thanks again for the great information. Posted: 4:01 pm on August 3rd

USNERDOC writes: Dave -

This is an excellent resource. Thanks for posting an update!

David

http://foldingrule.blogspot.com/

Posted: 11:05 pm on July 19th

litehart writes: Excellent post! Loads of great info for the SU user. It's info like this that makes the annual online subscription to FWW website such a bargain. Thanks. Posted: 12:01 pm on July 16th

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