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People use Google SketchUp for all sorts of things. One of them is geo-modeling - making photo-textured models of real-life buildings that appear in Google Earth. For some, geo-modeling is a hobby; they get a kick out of building something that provides a real benefit to the people in their community. Local geo-modelers are the unsung heroes of the virtual world - no longer.

With all the hullabaloo about Personal Fabrication lately, scads of committed SketchUp modelers are getting very excited about turning their digital models into honest-to-goodness, physical things. The idea is thrilling, but the process of actually going "from idea to object" can be intimidating. The PF train is just leaving the station, but with a little bit of help, anyone who knows their way around SketchUp can climb aboard. I promise.

"Pretty soon you'll be able to print your 3-D projects at the local Staples."

See our Gallery of SketchUp models created by K-12 students, as well as our new case-study video profiling SketchUp in the classroom below.

Add standard and customized parametric components - like flange beams, lumbers, piping and more - to your Google SketchUp model by using sketchup.engineeringtoolbox.com.

Styles from SketchUp Artists This project will help you use styles to display a nice model like this

This page documents how to use Google SketchUp to create 3D models suitable for fabrication. These instructions should work on both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of SketchUp.

Out-of-the-box 3D Printing - starting at just $499.

Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform manufacturing and allow more people to start making things