You are very unlikely to be disappointed.I saw many recommendations for Steve Ramsey's tutorial. And you can get it running on most platforms (I run it on a Linux box). I use it to resolve design problems that I can't get right in my head, such as odd joints (I did a weird M+T one for the garage window frames that seems to have worked well). But the free version is easily good enough to make workable designs for woodworking.

On the other hand, it's the 3D equivalent of Acrobat - everyone has it, so things can be shared and recycled in a way that's pretty much impossible with the likes of Autocad. To get good results from it, you do have to learn workarounds for bits of it that don't work particularly nicely. I don't think it is particularly easy to use. Then they lost interest in the conversation. If I had a problem, and asked the kids, 'Did your teacher show you how to do.?' The answer was usually that they hadn't tried that. I doubt their teachers are able to do it, anyway. When they saw I was using it they were a bit dismissive, on the basis it was a very simple thing, a toy.Īs far as I can tell, the way it's used in 'ICT'* lessons seems only to be illustrative, 'This is how you can use a PC for 3D modelling,' rather than getting into the detail, to really make it sing. They could draw a 3D house with windows and a chimney in five minutes. I'm in two minds about whether SU really is easy to learn, or not. These problems can be overcome, but for success and freedom from headaches at crucial moments, you need to know quite a lot about what's going on under the surface, which Dave does. They're decisions about how to do stuff, which have set precedents and then stuck. SU has some built-in limitations (everything does) going back to its origins. Dave has also helped me in the past with quirky things like making 3D curved surfaces in SU, and how you make one object modify another.

Roger is quite right, for example, components are THE way to work. Have a look at his blog on the Fine Woodworking web site. He's a woodworker, and understands both SU and the nature of the tasks in woodworking design/construction.

Using sketchup for woodworking