Creating Wood Framing in SketchUp – The SketchUp Essentials #42

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One of the most powerful things that people use SketchUp for is modeling buildings. Architects use it to draw full architectural models. In addition, contractors use SketchUp to generate drawings that can be used for actual construction.

Sometimes, you may want to generate the actual framing involved with a building for various reasons – you may want to see how a building will be constructed, or you may want to use your model to generate the actual quantities of building materials required.

Whatever the purpose, this video will show you several different ways to create framing in SketchUp.

The first is the simplest – you can just build the framing yourself by modeling 2×4’s, top and bottom plates.

For a very simple building, this may be the best option – you can generate your plates using extrusion or the follow me tool, then model your 2 x 4’s as components. This would allow you to pick and choose what pieces you want to put where.

Probably the best way to start with this would be to draw your floor plan as a rectangle first. You could then use the follow me tool to quickly generate a bottom plate. Then, you could model your 2 x 4 once as a component, then use the move tool in copy mode to generate your framing.

This is definitely a fine way to do this. However, it can get a bit time consuming. Sometimes, it’s better to find an extension to do some of the work for you. The extension you pick really depends on what you’re trying to do. Your options range from very simple to very complex, and also from low cost to high cost.

If you’re trying to just model a building for visual purposes, there’s an extension you can download called house builder. It allows you to set your framing type, as well as adding doors and windows. It’s a free extension, and it seems to be very powerful. It allows for going back and editing of walls and windows as well as the creation of roofs. This is a great tool for visual building of framing. The downside (if you consider it a downside) is that the buildings aren’t “smart,” meaning you can’t generate quantities out of them.

Another option for something like this is profile builder. Profile builder is a smart profile building extension that allows you to build different smart assemblies, so that it would automatically generate everything from framing to drywall, etc. This is great if you’re trying to get actual, useable quantities out of your wall framing assemblies, because you can actually run a report that generates those quantities for you. The downside to this extension is that you can’t really set it up to generate doors and windows, so you’d have to model them separately and then insert them into your model manually.

There are other extensions you can use for this as well. My understanding is that you can generate full BIM (Building Information Models) out of an extension called Plus-Spec, but it’s a very powerful, very expensive extension probably more well-suited for full time contractors and construction/design professionals.

 

 

About Justin Geis

Hi, I'm Justin Geis, and I'm the founder of The SketchUp Essentials. I started using SketchUp as part of my work as a general contractor in 2008. I quickly realized the power of the software and started using it for personal projects. I started The SketchUp Essentials as a place to share easy to follow SketchUp tutorials and tips to help everyone harness the power of 3D Modeling in their lives. When not working with SketchUp, I enjoy playing soccer and spending time with my wife and our two dogs.