 Profoundly straight-forward and informative...
A profoundly straight-forward and informative guide to quickly mastering and getting the most out of Google's SketchUp. Bonnie Roskes years of experience in design and education are readily apparent in how the book is organized and presented. Like it's title's namesake: it is literally a volume of practical recipes that anyone can follow easily and without getting bogged down in techno babble and irrelevant details.
The book's usefulness cannot be underestimated and was perfect for both novices and advance users alike. The simple to follow tutorials for solving and learning the many amazing abilities of SketchUp made learning as easy as making pie.
The color graphics liberally included throughout her book provide are useful and perfect for the visually driven users of SketchUp ( a common sense detail clearly lacking in some other How-To Guides for SketchUp ). As a bonus; in this digital age, O'Reilly has thoughtfully included a complete online version of this book through their Safari Books Online service for which the purchaser can access. Also as of this writing, a Kindle version of this book was available through Amazon.com.
- Lee Henry
e-Zine Co-Editor
[...] (Cleveland Digital Publishing Users Group)
As good as it gets
Many thanks to Bonnie Roskes for a thoughtfully conceived tutorial to a mind-boggling piece of software.
Get up to speed with SketchUp
I knew a little bit about SketchUp from playing with it, but I wanted to learn how to use it as a real tool. This book is a great way to learn from the basics to more advanced subjects, with a clear descriptive narrative and illustrations for each step along the way. All the sample models are easily obtained from 3D Warehouse and everything is well referenced. Highly recommended!
Take your SketchUp skills to the next level!
After trying to teach myself SketchUp last year, I decided to try again this year so I can teach my middle school gifted students how to make 3D models. Using the free tutorials at Google, SketchUp for Dummies, SketchUp Level One DVD, and SketchUp 7: Hands-On Basics (also by Roskes) will provide the new SketchUp user with a strong introductory foundation. Once you are a strong beginner, you should check out Google SketchUp Cookbook to take your SketchUp skills to the next level. Written in a problem & solution format, this book does not have to be read from cover-to-cover (though I did!), rather one can simply use the well-organized table of contents to find exactly the answer needed as problems arise. Full-color screen captures and tons of ready-made models in the 3D Warehouse make this book even more valuable. Some of the skills addressed include Follow Me; using groups, components, and layers; modeling with photos and textures; creating animations; and using the 3D Warehouse and Google Earth. Working through the entire book and all of its `recipes' takes weeks, but in the end you'll be able to anything in SketchUp that is worth doing! :)
Great help for advanced tools
This book is a huge help! I've been using SketchUp for a few years and never knew about some of the topics covered in this book. For instance you can use section planes and styles as part of an animation, which I never saw explained in another book or video. The stuff on presentation and model display is really helpful for developing models that my clients want to see. The tutorials are easy to follow, and the use of color is great bonus - very unusual for a how-to book. Excellent book!
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