I don't think I am smart enough to use Sketchup!

[Mitchell Andrus]

There are MANY tutorials on Youtube.

It's butt-in-the-chair time that makes the light go on.
.

[tim rowledge]

+1

I think many people underestimate the fact that even people that 'get it' spend a considerable amount of time 'getting it.'

Exactly. If you're really not smart enough to use SketchUp I'd be worried about you being smart enough to operate a handsaw, let alone any power tools. Practice along with tuition (freely available as previously mentioned) will get you there, just as with any other skill.

[John Schreiber]

Exactly. If you're really not smart enough to use SketchUp I'd be worried about you being smart enough to . . .

I gotta disagree. I'm pretty good at SketchUp, but there are some things I just can't learn. I've never been able to pick up a foreign language and I've really tried hard. I can't sing anything - not even Happy Birthday. (I just can't hear things like octaves or harmony or missed notes.)

If someone says they can't pick up how to work in three dimensions on a two dimensional screen, I won't assume they are stupid. That's just not a skill they have.

[Ryan Stagg]

I gotta disagree. I'm pretty good at SketchUp, but there are some things I just can't learn. I've never been able to pick up a foreign language and I've really tried hard. I can't sing anything - not even Happy Birthday. (I just can't hear things like octaves or harmony or missed notes.)

If someone says they can't pick up how to work in three dimensions on a two dimensional screen, I won't assume they are stupid. That's just not a skill they have.

Respectfully, I think your examples are apples and oranges. Tone deafness is a defect not much different than hearing impairment - but caused by genetics or brain injury. Foreign language is a function of immersion - if you live in Spanish-speaking country, you will eventually pick up Spanish, if not always the perfect enunciation per your tone deafness. Very few people pick up a language that's different than the one they have an opportunity to speak every day.

If you can do woodworking, you can work in three dimensions. Reproducing a piece of furniture, whether from photograph or plan, proves this. You mill boards, you fasten them in a certain 3D arrangement. "Constructing" something in Sketchup leverages the same cognitive skills, just with a different-shaped hammer.

[Larry Browning]

Respectfully, I think your examples are apples and oranges. Tone deafness is a defect not much different than hearing impairment - but caused by genetics or brain injury. Foreign language is a function of immersion - if you live in Spanish-speaking country, you will eventually pick up Spanish, if not always the perfect enunciation per your tone deafness. Very few people pick up a language that's different than the one they have an opportunity to speak every day.

If you can do woodworking, you can work in three dimensions. Reproducing a piece of furniture, whether from photograph or plan, proves this. You mill boards, you fasten them in a certain 3D arrangement. "Constructing" something in Sketchup leverages the same cognitive skills, just with a different-shaped hammer.

I disagree. having no talent for singing is not tone deafness, but rather lack of talent. I thing that any person, given enough motivation can learn to sing BETTER, but will never be able to sing like Frank. A person can learn to play baseball, but very few can make it to the major leagues. It takes both talent and motivation to be good at these things. If a person has a natural talent for something learning it comes easy and quick, but if there is no motivation, they will lose interest and never become really good at it.
Likewise, if a person has lots of motivation and very little talent, at some point, frustration takes over and they give up.

In my case, I have a moderate amount of motivation, and absolutely no talent for sketchup. So I am doomed to fail. I find it much less frustrating to make a simple drawing on some graph paper. To me sketchup is WAY too frustrating. I am much happier not using it than using it. This hit me, during my last go round with it. When it took me literally all day to draw a simple cabinet that I could have drawn in about an hour or less on some graph paper. After all this is a hobby that I am supposed to enjoy. If I don't enjoy an aspect of it why should I do it?



I think SU is sort of that

[Caspar Hauser]

I'm very fond of pencils...

[John Schreiber]

. . . any person, given enough motivation can learn to sing BETTER . . .

I actually had a music teacher in grade school who said "John, you are really good at humming. Why don't you hum while the other kids sing?" I felt really good about my humming skills. It wasn't until I was in high school that some friends tested me and I figured out what I could and could not hear.

If you are good with a pencil. Go to it.

[tim rowledge]

Don't forget, folks, that there is a difference between being good at something in the sense of having learned all the details, having developed requisite muscle strengths and memory etc and being smart enough to understand what you need to do. I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough to understand baseball/cricket/violin playing/etc but I don't have the physical co-ordination nor strength in the right places. Actually I take part of that back; no-one is smart enough to understand cricket.

Larry is right inasmuch as if he doesn't enjoy using SU for a hobby he shouldn't use it. Do what makes you happy - so long as it doesn't prevent someone else from having their chance of happiness. Playing with SU makes me very happy. Your mileage may vary. Batteries not included. Please return your hostess to the full upright and clothed position before landing.

[Caspar Hauser]

no-one is smart enough to understand cricket......tut tut..

http://sccwa.tripod.com/crick.html

http://static.cricinfo.com/db/ABOUT_..._AMERICAN.html

http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hoski...xplanation.htm

and finally http://www.lords.org/laws-and-spirit/laws-of-cricket/

[Larry Browning]

no-one is smart enough to understand cricket.

I have a colleague from England that is an avid cricket fan. He was over here last year and we had an occasion to watch a baseball game together. He was completely lost! He had trouble understanding why sometimes you had to tag a player and sometimes you didn't to get an out at a base. He just rolled his eyes and said "How can anyone understand the rules of this crazy game?" when I tried to explain the infield fly rule.

[Caspar Hauser]

I should preface this by saying that I'm not much of a sports fan.

I did however play Cricket, Association Football and Rugby Union at school, a distressingly long time ago now. I still enjoy watching a good game of Cricket though I'm very far from expert, it can be relaxing to the point of somnolence or buttock clenchingly exciting, a full Test match (5 days) is an excellent, civilised excuse, should you need one, to sit in the sun and address the beverage of your choice.

I've only been to one Baseball game, tremendous fun. To this day I have no idea who won, apparently I cheered at all the most inappropriate moments!

My amused confusion at what was going on came in part with similar language meaning different things, Innings for instance means something else in Cricket (I couldn't work out why there were so many!), I was also busy trying to work out what I was being reminded of, then it came to me, when I was very small we played a game called Rounders at school, very similar in structure if I remember correctly.

On a side note I was amused to hear on NPR that Baseball is refered to in a Jane Austen novel, I forget which one, apparently predating American reference and therefore Baseball was an English game.

There was as you might imagine some outraged commentary.

I was even more amused to hear the remarks following the announcement of a theory tracing Cricket, that quintessentially English game, to a game played by Mediaevel Flemish shepherds and was, therefore, Belgian!

CH


I shall be investigating sketchup, but I'm not giving up my day pencil..

[Caspar Hauser]

More appropos I'm curious as to how you view a computer generated model with all its crisp perfection. I understand that programs such as sketchup can be used as a tool to visualise and adjust proportion, to clarify construction and dimension. I am not decrying its use or utility, this isn't a sharpening thread. I'm interested as to if having such a precisely perfect exemplar isn't daunting or in a sense limiting?

I suppose what I'm asking is how does it inform your creative process or is it just a draughting tool?

CH

[John Schreiber]

. . . how does it effect your creative process or is it just a draughting tool?. . .

For me, SU can be as much a part of the creative process as doodling, then drawing, then drafting.

I recently made a bedside table for my daughter. I wasn't quite sure what style I wanted, so I quickly modeled some shapes based on designs I saw on-line, just to see what would work. After I found something which seemed likely, I modeled it and adjusted the proportions to meet her needs. Then I added a bit of context including a lamp from the 3D Warehouse so I could show it to my customers (my wife and daughter).

After I received their approval, I made adjustments to the model based on the lumber I had available. At that point, the basic shape was set. I modeled the joinery, decided how I would handle the stock preparation, and figured out the best order to do the work. I didn't need to, but I could have generated a cut-list at that point.

Then I produced dimensioned production drawings. I could have made full size templates if that would have been helpful.

After I actually built the bedside table, I posted the plan in the 3D Warehouse just in case anybody else might benefit from it. Here's a jpg of the model.

and you can go to the 3D warehouse here where you can download the model and see a photo of the finished product.

[Thomas Bank]

I suppose what I'm asking is how does it inform your creative process or is it just a draughting tool?

For me, SU can be as much a part of the creative process as doodling, then drawing, then drafting.

I too greatly enjoy SketchUp's "sketchy" personality and the way in which you model. It is very easy to start with shapes without really paying attention to scale and work something up. Then go back and clean things up and work it out to meaningful dimensions.

Typical CAD you are much more inclined to make everything precise and get caught up with that over the design process. But I can start with a box roughly the size that I want and then add detail to it in SketchUp.

I really liken it to a cross between sketching and modeling in clay as to how I work with it.

[Larry Browning]

I suppose what I'm asking is how does it inform your creative process or is it just a draughting tool?
CH

I really believe it would depend on who you ask. For someone who is proficient in its use, the technical aspects do not get in the way and it can actually enhance creativity. Due in part to how easy it is to make changes to the drawing. But for someone like me, I get all caught up in how to operate the program and always seeming to do it wrong, that the only thing there is is frustration. So whatever creativity I might have, is overshadowed by that frustration.