Creating Accurate Build-Ready 3D Fitted Furniture Designs in SketchUp
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- I always believed I could get SketchUp working for my small fitted furniture making business, it's so much more powerful than many people realise. I once blew £2000 on CabinetVision, only to discover I had to pay thousands more to get the features I really needed, and I just wanted to return to Sketchup, for its elegance, speed and flexibility. And because it works natively on a Mac of course!
I committed to making Sketchup do what I needed it to do and I haven't been disappoined.
The process fast-tracked when I discovered the CabinetSense extension. We can now build totally bespoke cabinet designs in front of customers, with all parts automatically sized to millimetre accuracy, according to the settings we choose, and ready to output directly into Cutlist software, for automatically labelled cutlists and optimised sheet cutting diagrams.
We can even set up CNC drilling patterns for parts to be pre-drilled for fixings. This video introduces some of these principles, focusing on producing the initial drawings in one sitting at the customer's house.
That is so impressive. Man I thought I had a fairly decent handle on sketchup but you have so many invested shortcuts built up in there. I can imagine that customers are very impressed doing things to that length.
Awesome video, thanks. 👍👊
Your workflow is perfect
Not quite but thank you
I'm learning cabinet sense right now and this was a great help to me thank you
A great - this is actrualy quite an old video and i gave a much more in depth overview of how we use cabinetsense now in these 2 videos: ua-cam.com/video/WaDJSBjrNjI/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/WIyRCnYMO-A/v-deo.html
@@Alastair_Freebird THANK YOU!
@@MattFormoso you're welcome! Have you seen my more recent sketchup videos? See the ones at the end of this playlist: ua-cam.com/play/PL8WrSzZHZZN9DSOso0ezrfNwzHt0WHStG.html
Nice customer service... I do the same thing its vwry efficient, but sometimes i my cutlist do have problems due to in accurate structural finish.. I do interior only take up measurements of the structure... But still during instalation the modulars wont fit. But over all very effiecient strat. No need to re draw plans.. And helps alot on costing...
I saw this customer last Friday and left the drawings with them, and I’m pleased to report they’ve just agreed to proceed with the design as drawn!
In terms of things I'd like to see personally. I'd love to see you talk about and show how you approach all sorts of different scenarios in terms of designing in the built-in element of projects.
For example, you might have shelves that sit back or flush with an alcove, and somewhere else the shelves might want to extend beyond the depth of the alcove. How do you design in an approach for making a seamless built in, in different scenarios such as that?
Maybe an alcove is very out of square. How do you ensure the cabinet will have enough scribe room and line up with say,a picture rail for example?
Maybe the customer wants the picture rail to carry on around the top of the cabinet. How do you make sure your cabinet will sit at just the right height when you're designing it on a computer and make allowances for scribing?
So many questions. 😄 I'm very new to built in furniture. More of a free-standing kinda guy up until now... 🤔
Black Tea One Sugar noted! I’ll see if I can cover some of this in future videos, thanks.
Wow! I need to accomplish at least 50% of your SketchUp competency. Very impressive
Only just found your channel. I've always thought I knew a lot about SketchUp but hadn't seen cabinet sense. I always draw up my units from scratch, panel by panel. I only use the free version and the Cutlist extension. I have just downloaded Fusion 360 which is better but I'm going to have to learn it.
Very impressive ! what a great insight to your business and thought process thank you for sharing
Dean Johnstone thanks!
That was really quick. I start make my own sketchup dynamic component but I'm far a way. To do this same job I need few hours to do. I wish to be same level with sketchup like you and sit with clients and make a drawings during conversation with them. That it's really impress
Interesting video Alistair - have to get back into Sketchup.
I have quite a few videos on advanced use of sketchup with the CabinetSense plugin, let me know any specific areas of interest and if I have a useful video I'll send the link
Thanks Alastair (I’ve watched the autocorrect so I spell your name correctly this time). Slowly working my way through your videos so will hopeful come across them in time.
These 2 give the best overview of what I’ve been working to achieve in sketchup over a few years now: ua-cam.com/video/WaDJSBjrNjI/v-deo.htmlsi=B4wlIEBnarQ6i1WK
ua-cam.com/video/WIyRCnYMO-A/v-deo.htmlsi=OWSEarJxtejvWwE_
Hi Alistair. I have just in the process of building 2 built-in units in 2 alcoves along with 3 floating shelves above each one ( i followed the way you do them) and a fire surround build for the middle. I drew the whole lot out in Sketchup and the proceeded the hard way to then draw each piece out in SketchUp into a 2440 by 1220 rectangle. to make my cut lists. I ended up with 7 sheets work of cuts. I printed them off and took them to my local B&Q who then proceeded to cut all of them out. I only have a car and getting what seemed like 100 different cuts of MDF at all different sizes including offcuts into my car was quite interesting indeed. In my drawing, I rounded up sizes to make the cutting more efficient and needless to say when I got home and got this lot out of the car and trawled it all down to my garage i didn't have a clue what each piece was. It was a nightmare. Because I had rounded up the sizes for cutting I couldn't tell what was what. I am 3/4 of the way through the install now and what a job it has been. One of the alcoves had a column right in the middle so I am having to try and scribe everything around this column and to the back and sides of which none have been remotely straight and the column its self is narrower at the back than the front by 10mm. No fun at all. I know you use a plugin to create cut lists and I downloaded it and now the free period has run out and I had no clue how to use it. Messed up there. Anyway long story short and sorry for going on but How do you manage a large install which can have upwards of 70 or so different cuts. You banged through the sketch up video quite quickly so I didn't really get to see the workings to well. I thought I could run up a good SketchUp plan but when I saw yours I decided I was just deluding myself :-)
jamie tregidgo it’s taken us a LONG time to get sketchup and cabinetsense working for us this way. Along with CutList. I’m thinking of doing training series videos on this sort of thing, I just don’t know how I can find the time! Have you tried cutlist plus though? You can just type sizes in and it optimises them onto sheets. Having that labelled sheet diagram is the easiest way to check and cross off the cut parts.
cutlistplus.com/
I also design based on available materials. Special on plyboards, in the philippines only common size 4x8.
Hi Alistair. Thanks very much for sharing. Seeing you on sketchup makes me realise how amateur I am at the program. Are you self taught or have you done a coarse? Great insight into your quoting though. I find quoting is one of the hardest things to learn when you first start up.
Kestelle thanks, see my reply to Neil (NenzelMusic) below, I’m self taught on sketchup via UA-cam videos and trial and error, but had some CAD knowledge prior. I hate quoting! Except for standard work which I now have a pricing structure for (mostly mdf; painted; shaker doors)
Great videos Alastair! How do you do the click to animate doors etc? is that a feature of cabinet sense or in sketchup?
Hi Rob it is a feature of the cabinetsense cabinets however you can set it up yourself using dynamic components in sketchup pro. It takes a bit of head scratching but if you want I have a go see this secret video link (normally only available to my members at www.buymeacoffee.com/Freebird) - ua-cam.com/video/hP-q0gYUSbM/v-deo.html
Great video ! How is it on kitchens ? As i was looking at articad but thats really exspensive . How much is this pakadge and what sort of pc a are you on or can recomend a type
terry hunter hi, check out cabinetsense here: www.cabinetsensesoftware.com/. Note that it is an extension to sketchup which you would also need to pay for the pro version of: www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-pro. Definitely good for kitchens. In terms of more established industry software (which you can probably get results from quicker but paying more) ArtiCad is more for visuals I believe, whereas CabinetVision is designed more with outputting cutting lists and CNC drawings in mind.
Ok thanks alot i will look into thid how much is it all roughly
Thanks
Used sketchup intermittently for a little while. Im not that good on it. How long has it taken you to get this fast amd productive at using it?
NenzelMUSIC to be fair I was messing around with my Dads engineering CAD programs since I was a kid so that probably gave me a head start. Then different CAD programs at Architecture school in Sheffield. So when I discovered Sketchup (somewhere between 5 and 10 years ago, not sure) I immediately realised what an improvement it was in terms of simplicity and user experience. Since then I’ve used it every week for pretty much every job I’ve made, plus room layouts for my own house. Since early on in the business I put myself under pressure to draw fast in front of customers, and the pressure helped me learn. In recent months I’ve resolved to watch 1 sketchup training video a day on UA-cam and that’s teaching me more. There’s always more to learn!
wthis was great, but way beyond my knowledge - what are the chances that you will do a Sketchup tutorial?
Hi, I have a whole series on Sketchup starting with the basics, aimed at cabinetmakers! See this playlist link: ua-cam.com/play/PL8WrSzZHZZN9DSOso0ezrfNwzHt0WHStG.html. The information at the start about which free version to download is out of date, but you can still access a free web only version to get started with, and although the interface is a bit different the tutorials should still be helpful
Wow thats a lot of time spent on a free estimate, and you give them the drawing to shop it around? You may want to think about charging for it upfront and to be taken off the job total if they want to proceed
Mark Me I am moving towards charging up front for bigger design projects. However it works well this way if we pre-approve customers so I only spend this amount of time with people who are already keen to buy from us and know we are not the cheapest. There is the good will of them not being billed yet but the process totally wins their trust and the time is priced into the job when they go ahead. When I design with customers the time pressure and immediate feedback makes it far more efficient for me than designing at home and liaising by email on the changes. By designing on the spot I can often get it all agreed, priced, deposit paid and ready to go. If I walk out the door with none of that agreed it can drag on for days or weeks because the momentum is lost, and that ends up costing me more.