Timber Frame Design using Google Sketchup

Google Sketchup is a 3D drawing program available free from Google. Its a great tool for modeling timber frame designs in 3D, and you can't beat that price! You can create simple drawings where timbers are represented as simple rectangular solids. This is often all you need to demonstrate to your clients what their frame will look like. But Sketchup is capable of doing much more. You can actually make a highly detailed model that includes all of your joinery design. You can then create accurate shop drawings for laying out timbers in your shop.

Here's an example of a shop drawing that includes all the joinery. These are not hard to make if you lay the proper groundwork by creating a library of timbers and joinery.

Intrigued? Read on.

Sketchup has a built-in ruby interpreter which allows you to create custom extensions to the program. I've created a suite of these extensions specifically for timber framers. I call them the TF Rubies, and I'm making them available for free (all I ask is that you not sue me if something goes wrong :-)

If you're not already using it, download Sketchup. If you're not familiar with how it works, there a lot of resources available on the web for that. There's even a Sketchup for Dummies book. The Sketchup Community Forums are also a great place to ask questions and learn more. Once you feel comfortable with the basics of Sketchup, continue on...

Here's the Sketchup model of the whole frame that includes the post from the previous example. Go ahead and download it, and open it with Sketchup. Grab one of the posts and move it away from the frame. Look carefully, and you'll see that all of the tenons are included in the model, and that each tenon is part of a parent timber. Note that none of the mortises are modeled, however. The mortises are created automatically by the TF Rubies when you create shop drawings. The mortise will always look exactly like the tenon, only inside out. And the mortise location will be determined exactly from the location of the tenon. So if you rearrange the model, the tenons will move with the timbers, and new mortises are created just by re-creating the shop drawings.

The key to making all of this work is to create a library of timbers and joints that you use frequently. I'll share mine with you, but they reflect my own style of frame and joinery design. You'll want to build your own libraries that reflect your own style, using mine as an example.

Installing the TF Rubies

Download the zipped folder named tf_ruby_scripts.

Open the zipped folder and copy all the files to your sketchup plugins folder.

On a PC, that should be something like:

C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins.

On a Mac:

Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 7/SketchUp/plugins

Where Macintosh HD is the default name of the boot disk where the OS and apps are located.

If Sketchup is running, you'll need to close it and restart it.

You should now see a new menu option, TF Rubies, on the Plugins menu. There should be several submenu items under TF Rubies, including About, which should tell you which version of the TF Rubies you are running.

Instruction Manual

A 15-page bound color manual is available from the Timber Framer's Guild.

Topics covered include:

	Installing the rubies
	Configuration options
	Making shop drawings using my examples
	Generating a timber list using my examples
	Creating components and libraries
	Creating your own timbers
	Creating your own joinery
	Adding peg holes
	Advanced example: Splines
	Other rubies and tricks

The manual will take you step by step through the process of creating your own joinery, with lots of screen shots showing each step. All proceeds go to the Guild.

Mailing List

I use an email list to announce new versions, and other news regarding the TF Rubies. Click Here to be included on the list.

Video Tutorials

Here are some YouTube video tutorials I made to demonstrate some of the techniques required to use the TF Rubies:

Stretching a timber:

Creating a joint from scratch:

Using the new Peg Tool (to be released with version 2.0):

Announcements:

Version 2.0 has been Released! New features include:

	Peg Hole Tool. To use it, edit a timber, and select the joint component (note that this is exactly where you'll be right after you "TF Create Joint"). Select the peg tool from the plugins menu under TF Rubies. Click once on the corner of a face that should receive a peg hole. Then click again at the approximate location of the peg. Now read the VCB, and type in the exact distances you want (in x,y format). It should place a peg hole on both sides of the tenon, and mark them as pegs. Watch the youtube video to see more.
	Degree of Difficulty (DoD) for each timber. This allows for more accurate estimating. Just right click on a timber and choose "TF Set DoD", and type in a number (perhaps the number of hours it should take to create this timber). Do this for all the timbers, or use the "assign DoD tool" from the plugins menu (works just like the "rename component instance" tool). The DoDs will appear as a new column in the timber list. There's also a "DoD Report" option on the plugins menu under TF Rubies, that will tell you about missing DoD information. If you save a timber with a DoD to your library, the DoD will be saved along with it.
	Better Metric Support. With a Big Thanks to Jonas Ekefjord for his contribution!

Version 1.18 has been released! New features include:

	Reference face marks are now automatically placed on the shop drawings. In the whole frame model, paint the reference faces a color (easiest to use the ‘repaint face’ tool included in the distribution). You can use more than one color. For example, I use pink to indicate a face that is both a reference face, and does not get sanded (because it’s on the outside of the frame). I use tan to indicate a reference face that does get sanded.
	Mortise Depths are now color coded in gray scale. This give a visual clue as to the depth of a face in a mortise. The further from the top surface of the timber, the darker the color. The coloring takes place when you execute the “TF create joint” function. So your existing library will not be affected. To re-color a joint in your library, just explode it and re-create it, then save the updated timber back to your library.
	Directional labels (NSEWTB) are now much improved. If you didn’t use them before, you may want to give them a try again. They are now offset from the ends of the joinery (not the end of the timber body), and they work better on angled timbers like rafters. The labels are now on their own layer, so you can quickly disable them for an individual timber. Also now compatible with Google Earth: The positive green axis is north.
	Added an option to re-order the four faces in the shop drawings. In addition to the standard “unwrap” order, there is a new option for “roll”, which is the order that Dietrichs uses.
	Built-in dihedral angle finder. If you right click on an edge that has exactly two connected faces, the context menu will display the angle between those faces – the dihedral angle. This is useful for compound joinery, as it will give you the angle to set your saw bevel to.
	Fixed a bug in the timber list function that would ignore named timber if it duplicated the name of another timber. Now it will just be listed twice.

I'll be leading a full-day, hands-on preconference workshop at the TFG Eastern Conference on November 5th, in Saratoga Springs, NY.

I made some YouTube video tutorials demonstrating some of the techniques used with the TF Rubies.

A 14-page bound color manual is now available from the Timber Framer's Guild.

Topics covered include:

	Installing the rubies
	Configuration options
	Making shop drawings using my examples
	Generating a timber list using my examples
	Creating components and libraries
	Creating your own timbers
	Creating your own joinery
	Adding peg holes
	Advanced example: Splines
	Other rubies and tricks

The manual will take you step by step through the process of creating your own joinery, with lots of screen shots showing each step. All proceeds go to the Guild.

	Thanks to everyone who participated in the Sketchup workshops at the Western Conference at Sunriver Resort in Oregon. I hope to present these again at the Eastern Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. Also, I hope to bring back the full-day pre-conference workshop at future conferences. Let the guild know if you'd like to see these offered again.
	Click here for a complete revision history.
	There is an email list for folks who would like to receive news updates about the TF Rubies, including new features. Click Here to be included on the list. Also, feel free to ask questions, either by email, or better yet, TFG Forums in the software section.