Mr T":1z7ppic7 said:
After working with sketchup for about 18 months I am considering discarding it as a design aid.
Chris
If your abilities to draw by hand are good enough that you can create a decent visual representation of the item you plan to make I don't see much point in using SketchUp or any other 3D programme for that matter, eg, 3D Studio Max, etc.
As furniture makers we generally don't make things that are so large and complex that a fairly quickly hand drawn representation won't work, and not just work, but work very well. I do see some visually quite stunning drawings of interiors and architectural representations created on StudioMax. They do seem to take weeks to create though, but then so might creating a hand drawn representation. take a long time too: but as I said earlier, we generally don't work on that scale of project.
In the early design stages, assuming you have the ability to draw, you can fill fifteen or twenty A3 pages with ideas and variations of those ideas in an hour or so. That gives you chance to get all those ideas out, spread the pages around you on the wall and refine the design from there or, alternatively, completely abandon what you've got so far and start again.
For a furniture designer I have no use for things like SketchUp or AutoCAD in the conceptualisation process. The process of creating the drawing on a computer is just a hindrance and stifles creativity because you're stuck within the step-by-step limitations of the programme. However, once you've got the idea developed to the point where a working drawing is required then I don't think it matters how you create that working drawing. I use both an old fashioned drawing board and, increasingly, AutoCAD.
One of the problems I have as someone that has to assess the design development of projects is the generally cheesy sameness of drawings created by users of SketchUp or other similar 3D programmes. It may be that the users of these programmes are not particularly competent at using them so they're struggling to get a good rendering just as much as if they can't draw by hand.
I find that some of my students, for example, turn to SketchUp because they think it will save them the need to develop old fashioned drawing skills. Unfortunately, to be a designer, you need to develop design development and presentation skills one way or another and there are no shortcuts-- you either develop good enough hand skills or you have to develop good enoughcomputer programme skills.
I suppose the final problem I have with all these 3D programmes is that all the drawings look the same. Yes, it's obvious that the creators of the designs are individuals and that the pieces designed are different, but every project looks like it was drawn by Mr SketchUp or Mr Studio 3D Max-- there's little individuality between the drawing of one person and the next, even when the computer rendering is very sophisticated and created by a highly competent programme user.
On the other hand, 2D representations of the proposed item in a working drawing need to be as simple and clear as possible. AutoCAD, drawing board and T square or SketchUp will fit the bill fine for that. Slainte.
I still have a working copy of AutoCad from when I closed the business but sketchup is now my tool of choice.
