Google SketchUp For Dummies
Chapter One
Meeting Google SketchUp
In This Chapter
* Finding out why it's free from Google
* Comparing SketchUp with other 3D software
* Finding out what you can and can't do with SketchUp
* Looking around the application
Once upon a time, software for building three-dimensional (3D) models of
thing like buildings, cars, and other stuff was hard to use. I mean really
hard - people went to school for years to learn it. And if that wasn't bad
enough, 3D modeling software was expensive. It was so expensive that the
only people who used it were professionals and software pirates (people who
stole it, basically). Then along came SketchUp.
Operating under the assumption that lots of people might want - and need - to
make 3D models, the folks who invented SketchUp decided to design a
program that worked more intuitively. Instead of making you think about 3D
models as complex mathematical constructs (the way computers think), they
created an interface that lets you build models using elements you're already
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