SketchUp for Archicad

The integration of SketchUp® with Archicad lets architects and Principals alike, focus on creativity at the earliest concept phase of any new project knowing that their designs can be automatically imported into Archicad®. This tool allows users to automatically re-use as much of the Sketch­­Up model data in Archicad as possible, without the need to manually rework it.

This SketchUp add-on means, in day-to-day design terms, a smoother workflow from a building's very conception through to a 3D model. Now even these earliest sketch concepts, formed in SketchUp, can be incorporated into the intelligent Virtual Building environment, where detail can then be easily added and data interoperability can open the model to a range of other applications. Now feasibility studies of volume and materials can be performed at the sketch phase, linking the building data to the SketchUp faces in Archicad to support the design brief at this critical stage of client cooperation.

You can win the project with your clear SketchUp concept design, but now in Archicad you can prove your design is viable. Existing SketchUp users who also use Archicad should download their free add-on here.

Through its add-on, this mature and globally popular solution ensures a seamless data transfer from concept surfaces and colors into intelligent architectural objects and materials. In Archicad the user will find walls, slabs and other intelligent elements, just the way they had been created in SketchUp from the outset.

Key benefits of SketchUp for ArchiCAD

• Start in great visual 3D, finish in intelligent 3D. If you initially use SketchUp but later revert to 2D CAD, why step backwards? Now you, your team, and your practise can carry your 3D modeling advantage forward throughout all the stages of your project with Archicad.
• Add more value to your conceptual design by linking real building data to your preliminary Sketch­Up model through Archicad. You can now easily get draft quantity calculations and Bills of Materials at the earliest feasibility stage to prove you've met the brief of your client.
• Faster projects delivery - Automating data input for detailed design models by re-using most of the available conceptual design models, allows users to finish their detailed designs sooner - and of course Archicad can more quickly/simply be used to develop more complex real building elements and objects.

So what does this mean for you?

• Import Sketch­Up models easily! With the Automatic Transfer option, Sketch­Up models can be imported into Archicad in a mouse-click. Based on the geometric characteristics of the SketchUp elements, they will be converted into Archicad construction elements (horizontal surfaces to slabs, vertical ones to walls, oblique ones to roofs, components to objects, doors or windows).
• Fine-tune that import! To import only parts of SketchUp models, or to fine-tune the characteristics of the Archicad construction elements during the import, you can use the comprehensive Manual Transfer option. You can predefine rules based on which SketchUp elements will be converted into intelligent Archicad construction elements.
• Create the documentation set at once! Even multi-story buildings can be handled with ease during the transfer. You can easily slice up the Sketch­Up model at each story height, and in Archicad the floor-plan of each story will be created automatically. In the click of a button the entire set of plans can be created from SketchUp models in Archicad.
• Store your import settings! Once you have set up the rules of transfer for the optimum result, you can easily save and store them for later. To whatever degree you have fine-tuned the manual import, you need not worry having to repeat the same steps in the future - you can easily apply the same rules for any other projects.

"Sketch Up has, I have to say, changed my life. Sounds dramatic but true. I have rediscovered my profession because I can design so quickly," says Andrew Lemon, WS Atkins - Abu Dhabi.

Now those savings from SketchUp can be built on through the design's transition directly into the Virtual Building.

Or as Brad Schell, the founder of @Last Software, so aptly puts it: "SketchUp 5 makes it insanely easy to put your ideas into 3D." Now we've made the next step insanely simple, taking these 3D sketches into a fully workable Virtual Building with the click of a mouse so they can really take off!