Imagine seeing your dream building come to life without laying a single brick, or maybe that floor lamp you want to put beside your couch but you just haven’t found the right design yet. With SketchUp, your mental blueprints become 3D constructs.

SketchUp is a 3D modeling and rendering software that has a wide range of drawing and design applications in the fields of architecture, interior design, product design, civil and mechanical engineering, video game development, and many more. In this Best Courses Guide, we’ve selected the best SketchUp online courses for you from over 110 SketchUp courses available in our catalog.

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• Our Top Picks
• Stats
• Why You Should Trust Us
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Top Picks

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Stats

• Combined, these courses have accrued over 821K enrollments
• 2 courses are free or free-to-audit and 8 courses are paid
• The most-represented course provider in the ranking is LinkedIn Learning, with 4 courses
• 9 courses are in English, and 1 course is in Spanish
• The SketchUp subject is followed by over 4K learners on Class Central.

Best Sketchup & Vray Course for Interior Design (Udemy)

Whether you are an interior designer, architect, engineer or simply a hobbyist, The Complete Sketchup & Vray Course for Interior Design will teach you all about modeling, rendering and post-production with Sketchup, Vray and Photoshop within 7 hours. It is hands-on and consists of 6 projects to model the different rooms of a house such as bedroom and kitchen.

This course is taught by Simon, an architect, 3D artist, author and architectural consultant from Bangalore, India. He graduated from the School of Planning & Architecture, Vijayawada, India. He is the founder of Sketchup Guru and the host of Archgyan Podcast.

You’ll learn:

• Core Sketchup skills for efficient modeling
• Advanced modeling techniques using Sketchup Plugins
• Vray lighting, materials, settings, and render elements for photorealistic renders
• Interior design standards and styles for functional and efficient space design
• Creation of various interior elements such as blankets, pillows, and curtains using plugins.

Best SketchUp Pro Course for Beginners (Udemy)

Learn the fundamentals of SketchUp Pro as well as good 3D modeling habits with the longest SketchUp course on this list, Learn SketchUp Pro 2021 the Right Way!. Aimed towards interior designers, architects, or hobbyists interested in 3D design, this course shows you how to create a living room from scratch, complete with walls, doors, windows and more. It’s taught by Daniel Brown, a designer and 3D modeling specialist who worked as a SketchUp trainer at Google prior to starting his own training at SketchUpTrainer.

You’ll learn:

• Mastery of fundamental SketchUp tools and template setup
• Skills to build and develop a 3D interior model, including walls, windows, and doors
• Techniques for creating groups and components and placing furniture
• Ability to apply textures, materials, and import images to enhance your model
• Knowledge of how to organize your model using tags and scenes
• Proficiency in exporting to LayOut for creating presentation documents with annotations and dimensions.

Best Concise SketchUp Course for Beginners (LinkedIn Learning)

Designed for beginners, SketchUp 2021 Essential Training will help you grasp the basics of SketchUp within just a few hours. You’ll get a foundational understanding of SketchUp, learn to use its drawing and design tools, and apply simple styles and animation. What’s more, you’ll also get enough practice opportunities throughout the course to test your understanding.

Your instructor, Tammy Cody, is an interior designer and SketchUp trainer who has been teaching SketchUp for over 8 years. She is the founder of SketchUp for Interior Designers.

You’ll learn:

• Navigating the SketchUp interface and customizing toolbars for efficiency
• Manipulating objects using various tools such as Move, Rotate, and Scale
• Drawing in SketchUp with precision tools like Line, Rectangle, Circle, and Push/Pull
• Modeling from a floor plan image, including extruding walls and adding doors and windows
• Organizing your model with groups, components, tags, and using the Outliner window
• Applying and editing materials, importing textures, and managing the material list
• Documenting your design with shadows, fog, styles, scenes, and creating section cuts
• Enhancing your model with dimensioning, dashed lines, labels, 3D text, and animations
• Exporting your work in both 2D and 3D formats for presentation or further processing.

Also Great 3D Design and Modeling Course for Beginners (Domestika)

From conceptual design to the final model, in Introducción a SketchUp, you’ll learn from scratch how to design and model in 3D quickly and efficiently. By the end of this Spanish course with English subtitles, you’ll be able to smoothly and effortlessly design your own 3D models and visualizations using SketchUp.

You will:

• Familiarize yourself with SketchUp and its basic tools
• Configure the camera, create your first strokes, and generate volumes
• Use polygons, the move tool, and learn to copy models
• Create and manage groups and components, and work with solid volumes
• Design your own materials, map textures, and adapt photos to 3D models
• Combine layers and styles, create sections, manage shadows, and set up scenes
• Perform virtual walkthroughs, create animations, and export your models in various formats
• Deepen your understanding of SketchUp extensions.

Best Course for Mastering SketchUp Free – Web Version (Udemy)

SketchUp Free is the web-based version of the software that contains many of the features found in the paid versions such as SketchUp Pro. “SketchUp Free 2022 – All you need to know!” is a project-based course for beginners that will get you started with SketchUp Free. You’ll not only explore the essential tools and techniques for 3D modeling, you’ll actually learn by drawing and designing furniture and interiors.

In this course, you’ll learn:

• Mastery of SketchUp’s most important tools and functions for starting your own projects
• Understanding the difference between groups and components for professional modeling
• Strategies to save time by utilizing the 3D model library for models and textures
• Insider tips and tricks to create special shapes and geometries efficiently
• Skills to import, edit, and present models in an appealing way.

Also Great Course for Mastering SketchUp Free (LinkedIn Learning)

Learning SketchUp Free ensures you’ll be well-versed in SketchUp Free’s interface and capabilities. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to navigate the software, create detailed 3D models, and understand how to stay organized within your projects. This course is a stepping stone to mastering 3D visualization and modeling, and it’s delivered in a concise format.

You’ll learn:

• Navigating and customizing the SketchUp Free interface
• Basic and advanced drawing techniques, including 3D drawing and creating complex shapes
• Manipulating objects through selecting, moving, scaling, and rotating
• Organizing your work using groups, components, and layers
• Measuring, labeling, and dimensioning your models accurately
• Applying and creating materials and textures for a realistic look
• Importing and exporting files for sharing and 3D printing.

Best SketchUp Course for Architectural Modeling (LinkedIn Learning)

Are you an architect looking to create cool CAD models of buildings using SketchUp? Then this intermediate-level course, SketchUp for Architecture, is a must for you. Right from designing the site plan to adding walls, floors, roof and even furniture and appliances, this course will take you through the whole process of transforming simple drawings into 3D presentations.

You’ll learn:

• Setting up SketchUp for architectural modeling, including templates and toolbars
• Mastering SketchUp’s tools and features for creating complex shapes and structures
• Importing 2D CAD drawings and transforming them into 3D models
• Applying materials and textures to give life to your architectural designs
• Landscaping and adding external features to your model for a realistic touch
• Furnishing interiors with detailed fixtures and finishes
• Styling your model and creating scenes for presentations
• Geolocating your model to study the impact of shadows and light.

Best SketchUp Pro for Interior Design Detailing (LinkedIn Learning)

If you are already experienced in using SketchUp Pro, then this intermediate-level course is for you. In SketchUp Pro: Interior Design Detailing, you’ll create an interior design in SketchUp Pro from the floor plan, build it up three dimensionally, add furniture and fixtures, and finally document the design for your clients. Some familiarity with AutoCAD is helpful but not required.

You’ll learn:

• How to set up and organize your interior design project in SketchUp Pro
• Techniques for importing AutoCAD drawings and photos to use as references
• The process of creating walls, doors, and window openings, and organizing them with tags
• Strategies for creating and importing objects, including modeling a basic kitchen and sofa from scratch
• Ways to enhance your design with lighting, materials, and realistic details using extensions
• How to create professional 2D drawings, such as floor plans and furniture layouts, and export them to scale.

Best SketchUp Free YouTube Tutorials (TheSketchUpEssentials)

Within a matter of a couple of hours, you’ll learn all the basics of SketchUp Free you need to know in order to make a 3D house model in SketchUp Free Tutorials (Online Version). Moreover, you’ll be using the free, web-based version of SketchUp, SketchUp Free, for this course and work from creating the floor plan all the way up to rendering your 3D model.

Best SketchUp Pro YouTube Tutorials (SketchUp School)

This beginner-friendly course will teach you how to model in 3D using SketchUp Pro. Using SketchUp Pro? Watch These covers all the basic utilities of SketchUp Pro that you need to know to get started with 3D modeling in SketchUp, especially to model a room in 3D. You’ll create a floor plan, measure and model a room, turn 2D floor plans into 3D models, use LayOut for SketchUp Pro, compare rendering with Vray and Lumion, compare SketchUp extensions, and model complex objects.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 60 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 200,000 online courses and 200,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.

I (Archisha) first came to know about SketchUp from the Guided Project, Product Design: Designing a modern table lamp using SketchUp. I took it back in 2020 and I made (as the name suggests) a 3D table lamp. Thinking about it now as a civil engineer, I can see SketchUp has some good applications in the construction and architecture domain as well.

My certificate for Product Design: Designing a modern table lamp using SketchUp

I am also a Guided Project Instructor and a Beta Tester at Coursera, having tested many courses before they’re officially launched. I have taken over 50 online courses in various subjects. My experience as an online learner and teacher has given me some perspective on what to look for in an online course. I used my experience to evaluate each course in this list.

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how we approached this task.

First, we combed through Class Central’s Catalog and the internet to find a variety of free and paid courses.

Second, when choosing courses, we considered the following factors:

• Instructor experience: we looked for certified instructors with extensive experience in SketchUp.
• Course content: we looked for courses that covered a wide range of topics, from the basics to more advanced techniques.
• Student reviews: we read student reviews (when available) to get a sense of the quality of each course.

To evaluate each course, we watched some of the course videos and read the course syllabus. We also looked at the course’s rating and reviews on Class Central and course provider sites.

Ultimately, we used a combination of data and our own judgment to make these picks. We’re confident these recommendations will provide you with the knowledge to master SketchUp.

Fabio revised the research and the latest version of this article.