Sketchup vs Fusion 360

Would like to learn a program to be able to draw up objects/parts for both woodworking and metalworking. Dabbled in Sketchup in the past but didn't dedicate the time necessary to become proficient. Would be starting from scratch.Someone suggested Fusion 360 with which I am totally unfamiliar.

Initial online research seems to lean towards Sketchup as it might be easier and therefore faster to learn. Strictly for home hobbyist projects.

Your thoughts appreciated.

Doug

SketchUp is a little frustrating and clunky in my view. It’s good for architectural-scale projects where you want to get the feel for a possible change to a room/space.

Fusion is not difficult. It’s pretty standard CAD; every program has particularities. I’d strongly recommend you learn Fusion over SketchUp.

Another advantage to Fusion is the built in CAM if you are looking to go that direction. If you don't mind spending a little money then you could look at Alibre's Atom3D.

I played around with Sketchup from about 2015 through 2020, using what I could in the older free versions. I wasn't doing anything overly sophisticated, but it was useful.

I wanted to get into 3D printing and needed some design software. A friend strongly recommended Fusion 360 and, after having used it for about 5 months, I'm so glad that I went in that direction. It felt familiar after having used Sketchup, though not the same. There is a learning curve, but I would was able to sketch out a simple 3D design and 3D print it on my first day of use. As I continue to use it, I'm impressed by its utility. I've also heard its a bit more intuitive than Solidworks, but I can't confirm.

You can get a 30-day free trial to check it out and then there is a free version that seems to be pretty good, so you don't have to spend anything on it. If you want/need the pay-for version, you will likely receive multiple offers to "buy it" at a discount in the first 30 days. I signed up with 20% discount. I quoted "buy it" because it's an annual fee around $480 I think.

I agree that Sketchup felt a bit clunky compared to F360, though I was using Sketchup 2016. My vote, after having used both Sketchup and F360 is for Fusion 360.

There's no comparison. Fusion isn't perfect, but it's leagues better than Sketchup.

one guy at our shop uses sketchup from what i've learned it works well for a visual tool for us especially for another one of our divisions for carpentry and buildouts to give a visual to customers about what the space or project would look like. more for building , designers, ect.... the big problem i have is when something is drawn in sketchup and try to export a dxf into CAM it doesn't export well it gives approx values or rounds stuff off or in other cases its completely useless and we have to redraw everything from scratch.

short end of it stop spending any time in sketchup and start using fusion. if you want to start designing and making parts comparing fusion and sketchup is not a comparison.

Fusion is great, plus if down the road you want to move into the serious big boy players (assuming Fusion doesn't become one before long lol) Fusion's close enough that the transition will be very easy. Solidworks for example was pretty quick to get the hang of after using Fusion for a while

I'd vote for Fusion but I don't have any experience with SketchUp. I've been using Fusion for a little over 18 months. Previously (and still) an experienced Solidworks user. I got Fusion for the CAM capabilities but have since started using it more and more for the design side. I'm pretty pleased with it, the best part for me was the Autodesk Forums. If you ever get stuck you can normally get an answer from the forums within a day.

If you are a hobbyist, I'd suggest Alibre Atom3D or the free version of Onshape.

I've been using 360 for 2 years now and could not be happier with it. There is a learning curve to it initially, but there are endless youtube tutorials and forums that will get you moving quickly and answer almost any question with a simple search. It is a very powerful program with tons of features.

Sketchup does not handle circles, and treats them as polygons.

It is excellent for architectural stuff, working out concepts, and tubing/dimensional lumber projects.

I use it for sheet metal at work because I need to design parts around 3d scans and it's the fastest program for me to develop something when I don't know what the end result will be when I start working, and it has to work with the aesthetics of the scanned vehicle.


It requires extensive manual clean up work and manual sheet metal calculations, but we go from a truck rolling in to a complete product release in three days, so the modelling speed is worth it.

I use both, Sketchup for woodworking designs and Fusion 360 for metal working.
They have a lot of similar functions like push/pull, but Fusion is miles above Sketchup .
There’s a lot of great YouTube videos for Fusion 360 and if your at all familiar with graphic program, you’ll catch on quickly.

I have used both of them as well, and generally I would use Sketchup for conceptual modeling and woodwork-type projects. I did some additions to my house based on 3D Sketchup models, with permit/working drawings completed in AutoCad. I basically modeled the whole house and surrounding space, and it works well for that sort of thing. Fusion is something I use for tooling design, checking my guys' precision optomechanical assembly design work (step files from Solidworks), and just starting to do some CNC programming with it. It also has (in the Ultimate version) some basic simulation capability in various regimes. Fusion is a real 3D modeling software package, Sketchup is hobbyist grade with much more limited capability. Be aware that cloud-based software has all the related pitfalls.