Pen Tools included in version 1.4 are:
- Soft Draw – is to help you create softened or smoothed lines. It works the same way the eraser tool (with ctrl) works to soften lines and thus curves. You can trace over existing lines with this tool to soften them. (To see the lines turn on Hidden Geometry)
- Hide Draw – is at it implies. Helps you to create hidden lines. (Turn on Hidden Geometry)
- Guide Draw – allows you to create guide lines.
- Weld Draw – helps to create connected lines to draw out curves. It serves as multiple soft draw tool. (Turn on Hidden Geometry)
- Edge Draw – creates edges of lines without the faces. Comes in handy when sketching objects that do not need faces.
- Line Draw – exactly the same as the Line Tool that comes with SketchUp.
- Point Draw – helps to create construction points.

This plugin works with Google SketchUp 8. And after some getting used to can be very handy when utilizing SketchUp. The only drawback is that the Weld Tool could be a little bit more user friendly and intuitive. Maybe adding a new pen tool that allows you to draw a curve in 3D, or allowing you to chisel in the x, y and z axis. Though we cannot really complain, this plugin becomes more and more useful as you use it.

Overall, the Pen Tool + plugin created by R. Obrien on the Ruby Library Depot is an essential tool for advanced SketchUp users and can really help speed up the design process. At the time of this review this plugin is FREE and is available at The Ruby Library Depot. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars.

The Curve Maker, Taper Maker and Stock Maker plugins created by Terry Ross on DrawMetal.com are great plugins for those in metal working or sculpting. This plugin comes with 3 plugins as mentioned and is compatible with SketchUp 8.

The first is The Curve Maker, this plugin is going to be your main tool in creating your designs. The plugin offers you a variety of standard curves. Including the Archimedes spiral, Bernoulli (logarithmic or equiangular) spiral, Catenary, Cornu spline, Cotes spiral, Euler (clothoide or Cornu) spiral, Fermat spiral, Golden spiral, Helix, Hyperbolic cotangent spiral, Hyperbolic spiral, Hyperbolic tangent spiral, Lituus (volute, shepherd’s crook or bishop’s crook), Parabola, and Sine wave and Cosine wave functions. Once selecting a spiral the plugin allows you to input the measurements such as radius, length, height etc. At this point though your not done.

Once the spiral is created you will need to give it a shape. The Taper Maker thus comes in handy here. You can choose from a variety of standard shapes such as circular, square, diamond, octagon, etc. And these can be tapered or kept the same at both ends. If you have a more complicated shape then the Follow-Me Tool would come in handy. But unfortunately using the Follow-Me Tool will not taper, thus an additional taper plugin may be necessary.

Also as part of the DrawMetal package, The Stock Maker is available. This tool allows you to have an accurate estimate as to the stock of metal to be used. These raw material requirements are important for metal working. Using this tool has a few steps and I suggest referring to the DrawMetal website. But essentially it will give you a print out of what is needed for your project.

Overall, The Curve Maker, Taper Maker and Stock Maker plugins created by Terry Ross on DrawMetal.com is a great plugin for those in the metal working industry. At the time of this review this plugin is FREE and is available at DrawMetal.com. I give this plugin 4 out 5 stars.

Download Notes: Note that ther are 2 versions, one for MAC and other for PC. The file contains all 3 plugins.

The Vertex Tools plugin created by Thomas Thomassen is a great plugin allowing for easy manipulation of a series of vertices at once. The plugin is great for creating landscapes for surveying, free hand manipulations/sculpting, designing organic projects and many other uses. It allows you to create smooth slopes and even the ability to specify the slope distance and change them as you go. The plugin comes with built in features allowing you to select free hand, or by square and circle or by points in a click by click style fashion.

At first it was tough to figure out how to use this plugin. NOTE, if you create your mesh using the Sandbox tools, you need to explode the mesh and keep it selected in order for it to work with the Vertex tools plugin. Once you have your mesh selected you can use the tool in the Tools menu. It was frustrating to keep having to go to the tool menu but I discovered that you can create a toolbar shortcut by right clicking (on pc) and selecting the Preferences button and then checking the Toolbar and Context Menu boxes. Once you get a grip on how to use the tool it works great. Below is a video tutorial on how to use the plugin in more detail.

A major drawback is that this tool lacks the ability to create specific/calculated shapes. It would be a great benefit if there was a way to impose or project a 2D object as a selection on your grid without having to manually select the nodes. This could be very time consuming for complicated objects. And even if you are trying to use the circle and a square in conjunction, the tool does not respond well and creates craters where the objects intersect. And even ran into problems that once I have selected a certain area and wanted to adjust the settings the selection would disappear.

Overall, the Vertex Tools plugin created by Thomas Thomassen is a very useful plugin for general use but lacks the specificity to use the tool to its full potential. At the time of this review this plugin is $20 for a single license and is available at www.thomthom.net. I give this plugin 3.5 out 5 stars.

*Updated: 6/30/2010
New version of the plugin is available. Includes a scale from 1-100 as suggested below.

The Superellipse plugin created by Regular Polygon on regularpolygon.blogspot.com is a plugin to create super ellipses or square like ellipses. In general this simple plugin allows you to create these shapes that up until now have been over looked.

The plugin works by first setting the X and Y coordinates, creating a simple rectangle. Then you enter the exponent (affecting the squareness of the shape) and the segment count (controls the smoothness of the curve). This plugin works similar to the Round Corner Plugin but instead of rounding a square, it squares an ellipse. If you notice closely the image above has rounded sides as well. The final product does not end up with straight lines, unless you play with the options to limit it to only 4 segments.

IN OLD VERSION* We noticed that a drawback of this plugin is that there is no known scale for the exponent input. As of now its pretty much a shot in the dark as to how square the superellipse will come out. Perhaps having a scale of 1-100 (100 being a perfect square) the plugin would be more manageable.

Overall, The Superellipse plugin created by Regular Polygon is a useful plugin to have. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at regularpolygon.blogspot.com. I give this plugin 4 out 5 stars.

The RoundCorner 2.1 plugin created by Fredo6 on SketchUcation.com is a useful tool to create round corners in your SketchUp model. It comes with three main functions, the “Round Corners in 3D”, “Sharp Corners in 3D” and “Bevel Edges and Corners”.

The round corners does just that, create rounded corners from selected faces. The sharp corners adds sharp lines connecting the corners in a similar fashion of a diamond, and the bevel edges creates a bevel on the selected corner. This plugin works well and gives you a variety of options to use in order to adjust the effect. You can control the soft or hardness of the edges, the distance of the offset (which comes with a great visual to actually see where the corner begins) and you can select the number segments that will be included in that corner. There really aren’t many drawbacks to this plugin other than needing to practice a bit on how to use it. And note that this plugin does require LibFredo6 v3.3 or higher .

Overall, the RoundCorner 2.1 plugin created by Fredo6 is a worthwhile investment to your SketchUp arsenal. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars.

The LSS Toolbar created by created by Kirill is a great toolbar that combines many of Kirill’s plugins in one easy to use menu. It has been slightly overdue but now that its here it is a great addition! Kirill’s famous plugin is the SU Blend plugin that will blend or morph two faces into one object with levels (if desired).

Though the new toolbar comes with many other useful blending tools. Included is the original sublend named “Blend” on the toolbar. In addition is the “2 Faces + Path” blending tool that allows you to take the sublend concept and blend along a path. Works really well and has many options to get the blend exactly as you like it. Another set of tools that comes with the LSS Toolbar is the control points to manipulate objects. This can be used to manipulate curved objects such as spheres. Though the drawback on these tools is that they can be a little tricky to use and get used to. First you need to set up control points (be sure to play with all the options first as they all do slightly different things). Then once you have control points set up you need to DOUBLE CLICK on the point and then you can move them in any which direction you choose. The great thing about these is that you can control the power of the controls as you wish. And other tools involving the control points are the rotate, scale, stick in or stick out, and deform face.

The LSS Toolbar also allows you to create curves based off of points to draw smooth lines and the biggest feature is the ability to edit these lines after using the “Edit Geom Interpolated Curve” button. Though this tool is similar to the Bezier Spine Tools which is a set of tools specifically for these types of curves.

One of the most useful features of the LSS Toolbar is the “Create 3D Mesh from Construction Points” it creates that all too sought after tool to create smooth curves based on predefined points. We suggest also downloading the Draw Construction Lines tool to assist you in creating these points. A great benefit to this plugin is that it also has the ability to draw the contours of the lines of the mesh. And finally the “Stick Objects to Mesh” tool allows you to drop objects down onto a surface and perfectly fit onto the surface.

See below for a great video on the use of the tools of the LSS Toolbar.

Overall, The LSS Toolbar created by created by Kirill is a very useful plugin and works great to manipulate surfaces and create curves exactly as you wish. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at Kirill’s live journal page. Though his plugin does require other rubyscript files to fully work. The download button below includes ALL the necessary files. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars!

The Shape Bender plugin created by Chris Fullmer on SketchUcation.com is a fantastic tool to warp objects along curved paths. This tool really allows you to take SketchUp one step further allowing you to create curved objects with specific accuracy, which many tools of this kind lack.

The tool allows you to specify what area to be fit along a path and the shape bender plugin automatically fits the object along the path. And you have control of flipping the object either inside or outside the path area. Sometimes you will need to play with the location of the object by pressing the up and down arrows. The plugin works well but it is very important to note that the object to be fitted should be a group or component and the line describing the objects length should be on the RED axis. And we found that if you create the line on lets say the green axis and then rotate it to the red, it will not work. The line actually has be created on the red axis. Another limitation is that this only works on a open curve, it cannot be curved, thus a complete circle will not work. But if you create a little opening (like we did in the image above) then it will work.

See below for a great tutorial on how to make a curved road along an incline and go to SketchUcation.com there are a couple more videos that have great step by step tutorials.

Overall, the Shape Bender plugin created by Chris Fullmer is a very useful tool to have and really comes in handy. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 4 out 5 stars.

The Fredo Scale plugin created by Fredo6 on SketchUcation.com is a great tool to use for manipulating objects in specific ways. In general the tool works the same way as the normal scale tool in the respect that it provides you end points to manipulate similarly to the scale tool. Though this tool takes the scale tool many steps ahead.

The tool set comes with a palette with a basket full of tools. Actually all the tools are not even listed on the toolbar. This set of tools allows you to scale, taper, shear on a plane, stretch, twist, radial bend and rotate in many different ways. There is so much that this tool can do that we cannot get into everything here. Make sure to read the user manual for a full set of instructions on how to use the plugin. Also below is a great video tutorial for this plugin.

A great tool that comes with this plugin allows you to scale an object without completely scaling aspects of the object, such as trims or general objects within, this tool is called the “Stretching with Orientation to Scaling Box”. We did notice that it can be hard to adjust the center from where to reference the stretching. Another tool that is great is the “Radial Bending by Selection of Plane and Angle”, this tool lets you curve objects in certain angles (like the arch in the above picture), though note that the object needs to be divided in order for this to work correctly to curve the object. So far we have not been able to notice any major drawbacks and are very pleased with this plugin!

Overall, the Fredo Scale plugin created by Fredo6 is an essential tool to have. Though we do strongly recommend that you review the user manual to get the most out of the plugin. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars!

The Joint Push Pull plugin created by Fredo on SketchUcation.com is a useful tool to use the push pull command on curved surfaces. There are times that you need to do this and the original tool provided by SketchUp will not work on surfaces if they have even a slight curve to them. Joint Push Pull solves this dilemma.

Using the tool is simple, first make sure to download the newest version from SketchUcation.com called “JointPushPull – 25 Aug 09.zip” and place the files in the plugin folder as normal. Once you have the file installed using it in SketchUp is simple. It comes with 3 different tools. First is, Joint Push Pull, this allows you to extrude the curve following the shape of the curve. Though, if the curve is to complex the extrusion will intersect itself. Vector Push Pull is the next tool, and this allows you to move the surface or entire object in a certain position. This is best understood once using the tool. The last tool is Normal Push Pull, which pulls the surface normal to the curve but only by segment. Controlling the amount of surfaces to be extruded depends on the amount of segments in that model. And the tool also comes with undo and redo buttons that can come in handy.

Overall, the Joint Push Pull plugin created by Fredo is an essential tool and really helps you to effectively model in SketchUp. At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 5 out 5 stars!

Be sure to be logged into SketchUcation in order to download the file.

The Bezier Spline plugin created by Fredo6 on SketchUcation.com is a set of tools to create bezier curves easily. As SketchUp does not come with a good option for this, Bezier Spline allows you to create these curves with ease by utilizing the almost 13 tools in the palette.

The most commonly used is the “Classic Bezier Curve” tool, it allows you to place the dependent arc points outside of the arc to control the curve. Also allowing you to place as many points as these as needed. Another useful tool from the palette is the “Polyline Arc Corners” tool, it allows you to create a polyline as you wish continuously and creating a bend which is determined by placing the radius measurement in the dialogue box when first using the tool. There are many more tools that work similarly. Some of the different tools are the “Polyline Dog-Bone Corners” and “Polyline T-Bone Corners” these tools in the palette allow you to place circles in place of corners, these two differ on the place ment of the circle. Some other great features of this plugin is that you can edit curves after you use them with the “Edit” button and it even has a tool to complete curves called “Close Loop Nicely” and “Close Loop With a Line”. This plugin has many features and is best to experiment with them to really understand the full effect of this Plugin.

The plugin has very little drawbacks, but the main thing that this plugin cannot do in our experience is to create curves on all 3 axis’. No matter how much we try the plugin always creates curves on one single plane.

Overall, The Bezier Spline plugin created by Fredo6 is a… At the time of this review this plugin is free and is available at SketchUcation.com. I give this plugin 4 out 5 stars.

Be sure to be logged into SketchUcation in order to download the file.