SketchUp… The Process

My Experience

The construction of my house was a frustrating, yet rewarding process. It was frustrating in that I had a vivid image of what I wanted to make as I knew how every nook and cranny of my home looked, but I either did not have the SketchUp skills or SketchUp lacked the functionality necessary for me to portray certain features.

Specifically, I struggled making shapes that were representative of features of my house. Unfortunately, features of my house such as doorknobs and windows require more complex shapes that were not able to be constructed are not entirely made up of rectangles and circles. Additionally, not being fluent with the SketchUp commands was problematic and time consuming. I probably spent 15-20 minutes figuring out how to copy and paste objects and space them out consistently. Another command that I struggled with was deleting objects; it was easy to undo commands, but there were times where wanted to discard an object constructed earlier and SketchUp would not let me select and delete it. It may have been a simple roadblock, but I eventually caved and tried to use the object into the house.

My Advice

My advice for brand new SketchUp users to watch this tutorial on the basic features of Sketchup before trying to make anything, and then try to reproduce the dog house (or a structure that utilizes many of the features from the video). Of course, if you get stuck, feel free to reference the video or make use of these references cards. Once you’ve reassembled this assignment, you should have enough practice to build more complex structures, and you know which resources to access when you reach a road block.

Humanistic Uses in Research and Teaching

The copy feature can surely be used to to repeat structures that are common in most architectural structures. For example, digital humanists wishing to model a skyscraper would want to replicate windows on the building that are evenly spaced throughout the structure. As for deletion, digital humanists make mistakes over the course of constructing models, and it is important that they have functionality that enables them to delete such mistakes.