I'm putting this in the glass section because it seems this is where most of the do-it-yourself'ers are posting. The do-it-yourself forum seems mostly engine related anymore..

I downloaded Google Sketchup 8 last week and been playing with it. Its really amazing how quick you can mock something up with it. The learning curve isn't too terrible. Every answer I've needed came from just typing my question into google..

What have you guys built with it?

i use it for fast rudimentary shaped objects and it works great. Did a quickie shop rendering and i like the ability to get objects from the online warehouse. I like Rhino for detailed complex shapes although i think SketchupPro has stronger shape management abilities.

Please excuse the boxes . . . .haven't finished moving in yet . . . . donuts on the workbench

I haven't got much use out of the warehouse stuff. I tried to download an eyebolt and I could NOT get the dang scaling right on it because I had to downsize it so much. I watched a couple videos on boat design using sketchup, but it's still above my head.. back to drawing dog houses for awhile!

lol, yea the learning curve for some of this stuff takes a while. The tutorials are invaluable. I had a similar problem with the sketch above. Pretty much everything i imported was scaled right until i tried to get a stupid wall clock. wtf? . . . . it was like twenty feet across . . . all of them were . . . . for the most part the scaling has been right on and if not they were not to tough to correct. Heck even the box of Duncan Donuts on the bench and the keg fridge were in there lol. Fun program but i still prefer Rhino though.

I have one client who sends me stuff from Sketchup. It may work fine if you are using it beginning to end, but trying to convert it to anything useable by mainstream CAD programs generally involves recreating virtually everything.

I haven't seen its capabilities, but it does not appear to be great for modeling organic type shapes. I don't think it uses NURBS.

I have Rhino, AutoCad and SolidWorks. Rhino definitely gets the most mileage and is far and away the best bang for your buck.

I think SketchUp is just a rudimentary 3D program that allows the guy off the street the ability to loft some general representations. I like it cuz its fast and has quick access to some neat imports as far as objects you want to add, not sure i would use it for anything other then building layouts. I cant imagine anyone seriously using it in any kind of professional situation. Rhino is the shizz though, been using it for several years