Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Chapter 5
Rendering in SketchUp
This chapter introduces methods to create photorealistic renderings of SketchUp models and
use them for highly polished presentation images. It covers setting up a rendering workflow,
gives an overview of rendering methods, and presents techniques for setting up the rendering
environment, lights, and materials.
Key Topics:
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Non-photorealistic rendering methods in SketchUp
Principles of photorealistic rendering
Overview of rendering software
Using free rendering software for a sample model
Using commercial rendering software
Rendering components: environments, lights, materials, objects
Tips for successful renderings
Making renderings presentable
Let’s Get Visual!
An important—arguably the most important—aspect of a designer’s workflow has always
been the presentation of the work. In school, this consisted of desk crits and pinups, and in
work life, it encompasses presentations to clients and banks, for example, and even town hall
meetings. In any of these situations, the designer’s work has to be presented clearly, accurately,
enticingly, and convincingly. This is the case for anything from hand-sketches through
renderings to fabrication drawings.
Let’s take a look at how SketchUp can help us with this.
What Is Already in SketchUp?
A major strength of SketchUp has always been its inclusion of presentation capabilities in the
modeling environment. Many other CAD software packages fail to offer this combination—
they typically separate modeling from presentation (think of “Model space” and “Paper space”
in Autodesk’s AutoCAD, for example). With SketchUp, however, it is possible to easily create
a model, add annotation and dimensions, save the view of the modeling environment as an
image, and then present it. It is even possible to present an annotated model interactively.
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