The axis lines-red for left-right, green for front-back, blue for up-down-help keep you oriented. The program has a wealth of on-screen prompts and color-coded guides that practically force you to be quick and precise. You always work in three dimensions and always full-size, not to a scale like one inch to one foot. SketchUp comes with several features that make it easy to work smart.

It lets you create molding, chamfers, or round-overs with just a single mouse-click. The Push/Pull tool adds the third dimension to a shape. The drawing tools also include circles, rectangles, and arcs.

To draw a line, grab the Line tool-it looks like a pencil. For instance, the Tape Measure tool works like a combination square, marking gauge, chalk line, and, yes, a tape measure. Most of SketchUp’s tools work like their real-life counterparts, and the rest are pretty self-explanatory. In my view, neither one is well-suited for woodworkers, because you can’t easily generate a cutlist or print scaled drawings with them. SketchUp recently added two web-based versions: the stripped-down SketchUp Free and the fuller-featured SketchUp Shop, which costs $119 a year. I recommend it for newbies, and everything shown in this article can be done with Make. You can get a free version, called SketchUp Make 2017, which is available for non-professional use. Today, there are several versions available from /download/all. SketchUp first appeared in 2000 as a downloadable program. I’ll show you what you need to know to get the most out of SketchUp. You can create amazing designs with this program-if you learn and follow some basic good practices. If you’re one of those people, you’ve probably found that SketchUp is not terrifically hard to learn but not foolproof. More and more woodworkers have switched from T-square and pencil to the SketchUp 3D program to design their projects and generate plans.

This amazing 3D design program can make you a better woodworker.

Sketchup classes for woodworkers