Have you ever wanted to create your own 3D drawings? Maybe you want to play around with re-designing your office or home or create your dream office space from scratch. Well now there is a fantastic free tool to help you create anything you can possibly dream of, in 3D to real-life scale. The tool is SketchUp and has been provided as a free download by Google. There is a Pro Version of SketchUp that is used by professionals but there is so much that you can do in the free version that you should not need the Pro version at all.
SketchUp can be downloaded and is available for both Windows and Mac. SketchUp can be used to create virtually any 2D or 3D drawing, model, object or building. From the simplest model to the most complex virtual buildings complete with photo replica interiors and exteriors. SketchUp models can also be added to Google Earth as 3D buildings in their exact locations in the virtual representation of the world.
For modelling your interior office fit out the most important concept you will need to master is scale. SketchUp can work seamlessly in both imperial and metric scales at the same time.
For some advanced options for modelling your office or a complete commercial interior fit out (or even a residential house) there is an excellent video series on You Tube that shows you how to import the CAD drawing into SketchUp and then build the 3D model from there. At Clockwork Projects , they are very happy to give you a simplified CAD layout of your office design so that you can play with it in SketchUp.
Give SketchUp a go - it seems difficult at first but by following the basic online tutorials you can quickly pick up some basic skills and then build on those to create fantastic 3D models of the environment around you.
