Google SketchUp for Site Design: A Guide to Modeling Site Plans, Terrain and Architecture [Paperback]

As a new sketchup user (going on 3 months) and a purchaser of four books on how to use Google's Sketchup, this book is without a doubt, the most comprehensive introduction to utilizing an amazing tool to design (in 3D) to your hearts desires.
Being a newbie to sketchup can be a daunting experience, such a powerful, yet easy to use tool can get one into all sorts of trouble and lead to many a sleepless night. Aidan Chopra's `Google sketchup 7 For Dummies' was a godsend, as were the numerous online tutorials on Youtube and various online sketchup forums.

Tal's book however has made all the difference, by offering a concise and easy to understand process of how to model effectively. He delivers it with an engaging style that makes all the difference when one is trying to learn something new. The book doesn't suffer the dryness that `Google sketchup 7 Bible' sadly offered. He makes it fun because it really is fun.

Daniel Tal's book is an altogether different beast. A guide book that encourages one to simplify ones approaches by getting organized from the outset, it's all about the process to get the most out of sketchup and ease up on the headaches and sleepless nights that can often entail- no small feat to accomplish in the written word, I can assure you.

The book is set up in four parts the first of which covers the rudimentary tools. The second is where Daniel's expertise and knowledge really start to unfold. On every page, for me at least, there were numerous A-ha moments. So, that's how it's done!!, it's all so easy when one knows how.

The other benefits of the book are the tutorials. These provide numerous exercises' to hone ones skills and climb the ladder to "Sketchup awareness". Part 3 offers an all too rare glimpse into the powerful tools that the `Sandbox' can provide (a feature that I understand Tal was instrumental in fine tuning with the people at Google) to create terrain and organic forms that can really add to ones models and offer endless possibilities. If you can imagine it, Tal's methods enable you to build it. Part four is perhaps the most important one, dealing with Sketchup's unique abilities to import CAD files and also how to greatly increase productivity and turnaround time by using the numerous `Ruby' scripts available.

This is more than just a beginner's book and it is more than just a landscape architects approach to using sketchup in his work. Whether you are an interior designer, a home builder, carpenter, student, an aspiring 3D artist, or a garden designer like me, this book is indispensable.

If you love to model in 3D, you will find this book to be of immense value. Words cannot convey the gratitude I have for this book. It has made me a better, wiser, calmer and happier modeler than even I thought was possible.

Two thumbs up and five stars all the way.

A trip to your local bookseller searching for the precise book which holds the secret to getting from a blank screen to a finished model using SketchUp often ends up with the hopeful user being fifty dollars poorer and having another book to fill their software library shelf. It seems like most of the books that target SketchUp training are aimed at taking the reader through the process of teaching you every nuance of the program and then turning you loose to figure out, on your own, how to apply your new tool set of skills on the problems that sent you to the bookstore looking for a software Rosetta Stone in the first place.

Google SketchUp for Site Design takes a different approach to bringing you up to speed. The cover of the book provides an example of what you can expect to be able to do with SketchUp if you chose to purchase the book and take the time to work through and mastering SketchUp methods introduced early in the book. Daniel calls this SketchUp Process Modeling and it's a great way to model with SketchUp.

Treating the task of software mastery by breaking it down into easy understand method the reader is guided through the process of building and managing complex models. I found each exercise helped me to understand how to model in SketchUp as well as why to model the way the author suggests. This is the first software book I have purchased that truly lives up to the subtitle on the cover. It really is a guide for modeling site plans, terrain, and architecture.

Daniel Tal walks you through the integration of CAD and SketchUp and introduces you to modeling workflow with more than one application, which is often left out in software training books. In addition you are introduced to the resources that can be found in the Google 3D Warehouse to enhance your models as well as add on tools for SketchUp that enhance the capabilities of the program.

If you are interested in investing the time with learning SketchUp you will find Google SketchUp for Site Design to be an able guide to take your modeling skills to the next level. The book is much more than another SketchUp software book. It is filled with quality content that represents the distilled knowledge and experience of someone who not only knows SketchUp but also uses it daily in his work as a practicing landscape architect.

I have used SketchUp since 2004 and I still learned something new on almost every page and chapter. Google SketchUp for Site Design will spend more time open on my desktop beside my keyboard actively being used that it will gathering dust on the shelf. This is a book that anyone who is looking to understand modeling should seriously consider purchasing.

My experience with SketchUp instruction manuals is limited (this is the first one I've read), but overall, I was happy with the book, however, I have reservations before recommending it to others.

The examples that Tal includes were very clear, well-explained, and organized in a logical order. The images are helpful, and go a long way in showing what SketchUp is capable of in terrain modeling. Tal's approach makes it easy to learn some of the more complex techniques dealing with terrain grids, follow contours, and the like. That said, I felt that the book was generally thin in complex techniques. By the time I read this book, I'd been using SketchUp for a couple years, and had already learned most of this stuff through Google's online tutorial videos and the Go-2-School podcast series, both free. I also left the book a little hazy on some of the finer points of terrain modeling, like drape vs. stamp, etc, and wish that Tal had really spent more than a couple paragraphs on these.

I also wish that Tal had devoted more space to explaining how best to present a finished model. This could include using Scenes effectively to export images, describing the ideal views for a project, proper workflow to see a project through from beginning to end, and even on using LayOut (included in SketchUp Pro). I would think many readers, who spend a number of hours building a model, would want to know the best, cleanest ways to show off their work.

In the end, Tal's book is very useful for someone who would like to use SketchUp for terrain modeling, but 1) hasn't really started to explore the software's features, and isn't sure where to start, and 2) doesn't really know what SketchUp is capable of in terrain modeling exercises.