Although many people are interested in design, most of us don’t have the skills to put our visual ideas down on paper. In the past, 3D design software was generally expensive and excessively complicated. Google Sketchup is neither.

This free program uses a handful of simple tools to create basic geometric shapes and lets you turn them into convincing and attractive 3D models.

In this Workshop, we’ll show how to design a barn-conversion style house complete with garage and conservatory. As well, we’ll demonstrate how to add realistic textures and even shadows to produce a finished design ready for printing out.

How to use Google Sketchup

Part two of this workshop can be found here.