Sketchup books

[baok]

I've been considering one of the two recent sketchup books aimed at woodworking.

Does anybody have an opinion on which one (if any) would be the best?

[Trip]

I have Lang's stuff --- it's good.

[rmac]

I have both Bob Lang's self-published eBook and the one by Tim Killen published by Fine Woodworking. I much preferred Killen's. It happens to be priced quite a bit less, too, although your big investment with either one of them will be time and not money.

http://craftsmanplans.com/sketchup.htm

http://www.tauntonst...ook-077846.html

-- Russ

[baok]

I bought Tom Killen's last night. Now: off to read!

[rmac]

@Greg: Two hints based on my own experience:

1. Don't just read the book, actually do all the examples yourself on your computer as you're reading them.

2. Force yourself to learn the keyboard shortcuts for the various editing operations (E is for "erase", L is for "line", R is for "rectangle", and so on.) This made a huge difference for me in terms of productivity and actually liking the program.

-- Russ

[baok]

Sounds like good advice. I started down the Sketchup road several years ago when it was first made available. I can't remember why I abandoned it - probably to do with the fact that I needed it to export something that a CNC router could read and it didn't at the time.

Anyway, I remember making extensive use of those shortcuts. I printed out a cheat sheet.

Hopefully, they will come back to me.

[baok]

Update: I'm going through the book and it's proving to be very useful. Things are going well.

[Bob Lang]

Here is an in depth review of my book:

 

http://jeffbranch.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/a-review-of-bob-langs-woodworkers-guide-to-sketchup/#more-3731

 

Bob Lang