• Free Sketchup Rendering Plugin

These days, there’s plenty to like about the little 3D modeling program that could. SketchUp has transformed in the past decade - from bastard brain-child of a couple hippie University of Colorado ‘graduates’ to full-fledged visualization powerhouse. The journey was not an easy one, it its rise to competent modeling program has been aided by its compatibility with some of the most powerful plugins and pieces of rendering software the market offers.

95 of the top 100 architecture firms in the world render with V-Ray every day. V-RAY COLLECTION V-Ray for SketchUp is also available as part of the V-Ray Collection: The ultimate 3d rendering. Discover Enscape 2.8! Experience architectural projects within just a click. Our real-time rendering supports virtual reality. Download for free.

Interactive Render Overlay. Thea for SketchUp allows you to run interactive rendering either inside Thea window or directly inside the SketchUp view, a feature that we call interactive render overlay.Additionally, with the use of interactive region rendering, you can select and render a region of the SketchUp view, providing ultra-fast feedback for complex scenery. It’s simple to setup and provides seamless integration with SketchUp Make and Pro. Renderin Renderin is a fully integrated, real-time radiosity engine for SketchUp Make and Pro users. It’s powered by Artlantis 6.5’s rendering engine to give SketchUp users high-definition, photorealistic renderings in an easy-to-use application.

SketchUp is here to stay, and might be just what you need to get your feet wet in the 3D modeling, rendering, and visualization industry. Master these plugins, and be on your way to producing images and animations the Rhino bullies on your block only dream of.

And no matter where you stand in your skill level as a computer-savvy rendering artist, SketchUp has something to offer. It’s fast, nimble, and...er...sketchy. It’s as easy a way to put ideas on paper as it is a tool to design and produce. The user-friendly nature of its parts and pieces lend themselves to be easily approached by beginners, and fun to master for professionals. Get to know SketchUp, so when you open up this war chest of auxiliary plugins, you’ll be ready to make full use of their potential.

Here are the best plugins for Google Sketchup.

1 | VRAY

Everyone who’s set foot inside a design studio knows what VRAY is. What many of us design nerds don’t know, however, is that VRAY is fully compatible with SketchUp via an equally as user-friendly plugin. If you’re looking to get photo-realistic renderings out of SketchUp, VRAY is probably where you’ll want to look first. It comes complete with a material editor (thank God because SketchUp’s is AWFUL), and all the other useful tools you’ll need to produce pro quality images and animations.

Better yet? You can get VRAY up and running in SketchUp for no charge to yourself (unless you consider signing up for an email newsletter a ‘charge’ - which you might). VRAY serves up a base set of tools and materials to you for free, with the option to put a bit of skin in the game for their full bevy of options and setting. It’s not a bad deal, and should give you enough to see if your SketchUp chops translate to the world of 3D visualization as well.

2 | JointPushPull

Hi there SketchUp user. Ever get tired of that regular old push/pull tool and its rather stunted ability to...push and pull? Well, you’re in luck! JointPushPull is a modeling plugin that features 6 specific tools for turning your model into a digital gumby. The tools are joint, round, vector, normal, extrude, and follow. I won’t deep dive into what each tool does from a technical standpoint, but rest assured: mastering this plugin will shave hours off modeling time. Hours you can spend learning VRAY for SketchUp because if you didn’t hear me before IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

3 | CurviLoft

So, you thought SketchUp was a child’s tool used for making rectilinear garbage cubes? WRONG! With CurviLoft, you’ll have all the power you need to start building curvilinear models that you thought were reserved for programs like Maya and Rhino. Curviloft consists of 3 tools: loft by spline, loft along path, and skinning. In practice, the tool works similarly to the ‘follow me’ tool, only rather than a simple extrusion along a path, CurviLoft is able to connect two different shapes along a path. That’s right. This is next level.

Tools like CurviLoft should really be packaged in with the base software. But since Google is too busy trying to map the entire world (universe?) in images and 3D models, I guess a simple download will have to suffice.

4 | Podium

Podium is another rendering plugin a la VRAY, with a reputation that’s slowly building towards James Bond proportions. I’m not really sure what I mean by that, but trust me, it’s good. Podium offers a vast material library off the bat, and like VRAY, offers a free trial that gets you started without ponying up any cash. Do this. Every renderer has a specific taste and tolerance for their software, so taking the Porsche out for a test ride before forking over a second mortgage is probably your best course of action. Take it from me: Podium is great. It’s an incredibly powerful alternative to VRAY, and fits into SketchUp like a tailored Italian glove.

5 | Purge All

Keeping your model clean and organized in SketchUp can be an arduous and infuriating task. It’s also a completely necessary one, as your layers and model components can spread like the plague if your model gets large enough. Purge All is a simple, yet essential plugin that pretty much does exactly what you think. It purges all. This plugin is more robust and precise than SketchUp’s default purging tools, and even gives you a full report of what got tossed in case that component of your silhouetted ex-girlfriend waving goodbye to you was something you were saving for a rainy day. Purge. Purge often. Good talk.

6 | Twilight Render

I’ll be honest. Twilight Render isn’t quite there yet. It’s a free rendering plugin that will give you decent image output and a respectable library of materials But be clear, VRAY this is not. I’ve included it because software like TR are incredibly important to the growth of the visualization industry. It’s a capable bit of software that works well with Sketchup and allows people to - for free - become completely familiar with a rendering tool. In fact, it’s a lot like SketchUp itself in that way.

If you’re a professional rendering artists working for Shumaker Shumaker and Chu in Brooklyn, this isn’t the program for you. But if you’re Joe Everyman looking to breakthrough in a fun and rewarding industry, Twilight Render is your huckleberry.

7 | Mirror

It seems silly that a modeling tool as ubiquitous and commonly used as ‘mirror’ has to be added onto a base modeling software, but such is the case. Mirror was created by Frank Wiesner then perfected by TIG in version 3.1, and is probably the first piece of software you should Frankenstein onto SketchUp once you boot it up. It’s simple: select object to be mirrored, select surface or line for which to be mirrored, mirror. I get it, SketchUp, you’re trying to be lean and mean, but could we splurge for a proper mirror tool? All praise Frank Wiesner.

8 | Brighter3D

I love Brighter3D. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite rendering engines for use with SketchUp. It advertises an easy-to-use interface with a simplified toolset but plenty of rendering power under the hood. Brighter delivers, offering seamless SketchUp integration and a snappy preview tool that give you an accurate sample image in a matter of seconds. It uses unbiased rendering technology to produce lightning fast results. The future is brighter, indeed. Sorry. I’ll leave.

Whether you use SketchUp for Web on a computer or Chromebook, your device needs mouse and keyboard input.

You can use SketchUp for Web on most internet-connected computers via a recommended browser (Chrome 59+ or Firefox 52+).

To use SketchUp for Web on a Chromebook, your Chromebook needs to meet the minimum specifications. However, the minimum requirements don't offer the best experience using SketchUp for Web on a Chromebook. Ideally, your Chromebook meets the following recommended specifications.

We recommend choosing the largest available offering of RAM for any listed Chromebook. 4GB is strongly preferable to 2GB.

SketchUp for Web supports Retina (high DPI) displays.

Like many computer programs, SketchUp requires certain hardware and software specifications in order to install and run. These are basic requirements, though, so you may want to use our recommended suggestions to improve performance.

• Software
  • An internet connection is required to install and authorize SketchUp and to use some of the features.
  • Microsoft® Internet Explorer 9.0 or higher.
  • SketchUp Pro requires .NET Framework version 4.5.2. For more information about the .NET framework, click here.
  SketchUp requires a 64-bit version of Windows. Also, to install SketchUp, Windows 8.1 must be current with Windows Update.
  Boot Camp, VMWare, and Parallels are not supported environments.
• Recommended hardware
  • 2+ GHz processor
  • 8+ GB RAM
  • 700MB of available hard-disk space
  • 3D class video card with 1 GB of memory or higher and support for hardware acceleration. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL 3.1 or higher and is up to date.
    SketchUp's performance relies heavily on the graphics card driver and its ability to support OpenGL 3.1 or higher. To test your graphics card's compatibility, please download and run the SketchUp Checkup application. Historically, people have seen problems with Intel-based cards with SketchUp. We don't recommend using these graphics cards with SketchUp at this time.
  • 3-button, scroll-wheel mouse.
• Minimum hardware
  • 1 GHz processor
  • 4GB RAM
  • 500MB of free hard-disk space
  • 3D class video card with 512 MB of memory or higher and support for hardware acceleration. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL 3.1 or higher and is up to date.

• Software
  • An internet connection is required to authorize SketchUp and to use some of the features.
  • QuickTime 5.0 and web browser for multimedia tutorials.
  • Safari
  Boot Camp, VMWare, and Parallels are not supported environments.
• Recommended hardware
  • 2.1+ GHz processor
  • 8GB RAM
  • 700MB of available hard-disk space
    Alert: Please be aware, SketchUp is unable to support case sensitive hard drives with our installation. If you use a case sensitive hard drive you'll experience crashes at launch which cannot be resolved.
  • 3D class video card with 1 GB of memory or higher and support for hardware acceleration. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 3.1 or higher and is up to date.
  • 3-button, scroll-wheel mouse
• Minimum hardware
  • 2.1+ GHz Intel™ processor
  • 4GB RAM
  • 500MB of available hard-disk space.
  • 3D class video card with 512 MB of memory or higher and support for hardware acceleration. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 3.1 or higher and up to date.
  • 3-button, scroll-wheel mouse.

SketchUp 2020
With the release of SketchUp 2020 we've removed support for Mac OS X 10.12 (Sierra). When signing into web features such as the Warehouses you'll be taken to an external browser to complete the signin process.

SketchUp 2019
With the release of SketchUp 2019 we've removed support for Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). You need to sign in with a Trimble ID to access the SketchUp Pro 2019 subscription or to participate in a Free Trial. SketchUp Desktop 2019 Classic licenses do not require a sign-in.

SketchUp 2018
With the release of SketchUp 2018 we've removed support for Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). There is no longer a SketchUp Make for download, our free version of SketchUp is called SketchUp Free and available in all modern web browsers.

SketchUp 2017
With the release of SketchUp 2017, we've removed support for 32-bit operating systems, OpenGL 2.0, and software rendering of models (as opposed to hardware acceleration). We also removed support for OS X 10.9 (Mavericks.)

SketchUp 2016
With the release of SketchUp 2016 we’ve removed support for OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and earlier.

SketchUp 2015
With the release of SketchUp 2015 we’ve removed support for Windows Vista, Windows XP and OS X 10.7 (Lion) and earlier. SketchUp 2015 and earlier isn't supported on Mac OS X Sierra, but is supported on Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and Yosemite. Additionally you must have Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 or greater.

SketchUp 2014
No System requirement changes were made.

SketchUp 2013
With the release of SketchUp 2013 we reduced the level of support we can offer for Windows XP and removed support for OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and earlier.

SketchUp 8
With the release of SketchUp 8 we removed support for OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and earlier.

SketchUp 7
With the release of SketchUp 7 we removed support for Windows 2000 and earlier.

High DPI Support
SketchUp is DPI aware and can adjust the sizes of Icons and drawing elements so they are sized correctly for High DPI screens. Icons are sized when SketchUp starts up. If you adjust your DPI or scaling (Microsoft Windows – but only up to 150%) you will need to restart SketchUp to see correctly sized Icons and drawing elements.

Mac OS X 10.12 (Mojave)
SketchUp 2018 has a known issue that leads to a one-time crash of SketchUp 2018 on MacOS Mojave in the first 10-15 minutes (or so).

Windows Vista and older
These versions of Windows are no longer supported.

Mac OS X 10.12 (Sierra) and older
These versions of OS X are no longer supported.

Linux
A Linux version of SketchUp isn't available at this time. However, you may be interested to see how others have had success running SketchUp on Linux using Wine.

Virtualized Environments
At this time, SketchUp doesn't support operation in a virtualized environments such as VMWare or Citrix.
Per the SketchUp Pro License in section 1.1: You may not use or host the Software in a virtual server environment.

Boot Camp/Parallels/VMWare
Neither Boot Camp, VMWare nor Parallels are supported environments.

Remote Desktop Connections
Due to hardware restrictions in shared environments we can't reliably predict how SketchUp will perform. At this time SketchUp is not supported via a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) on any platform.

Free Sketchup Rendering Plugin