For example, you can easily remove a face from a solid, invalidating it from 3D printing, which you will discover when slicing it later. This is because SketchUp is fundamentally a 3D modeling tool for visual assets, not a true solid modeling system.

That’s correct: you can make unprintable 3D models almost instantly, as I have within seconds in the example shown at top. Note they provide the “guy” along with the 3D model unless you delete him first My invalid 3D model generated by SketchUp Free.

However, SketchUp Free suffers from the same issue that the regular SketchUp has had for years: it is ludicrously simple to effortlessly create invalid 3D models. You do have a somewhat restricted set of features, as compared to the Pro version, but certainly a sufficient amount do to basic 3D modeling operations. Don’t bother with this unless you’re on an actual desktop system. The warning you receive if you try using SketchUp Free on a mobile deviceĪnd that is definitely the case, as my experiments on tablet use resulted in multiple and even recursive crashes. You can give it a try if you want, but just know that we really haven’t done anything special to make it work right yet. Whoa there, cowboy! SketchUp has not been optimized for mobile browsers with their fancy multi-touch user interfaces.

I did give the software a test on a tablet and smartphone but found that a) it’s really, really slow to start, and b) There is a fancy warning message that explains you really shouldn’t do this at all: For example, it should run without issue on MacOS, Windows, Linux and other desktop operating systems. The browser-based version should ensure the SketchUp system is easily accessible by anyone with a computer, and in particular students. Now it’s come out of beta testing and is available to the general public. Just launch SketchUp Free and you’re good to go.

Recently Trimble has been testing a web-only version of SketchUp, which operates entirely without the need for software installation.

Sketchup for the web