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What's the best software for modelling your cabinet prior to building?

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uptown47:
Hi all,
I'm looking to start building my cabinet soon but, for my tiny pea-sized brain, it's quite a complex design.

The last cabinet I built was just done straight out of my head on to the wood and I just ad-libbed with cuts and pieces of wood I needed to support it etc.

I want this new cabinet to be planned properly as one thing that annoys me about my current cabinet is the rats nest of cables in the bottom.

I've seen people using a program called SketchUp for their design and (reading the blurb) it says it's quite an easy learning curve?

Starting as a beginner I can learn whatever I want so, my question is this, is SketchUp the way to go or are there easier/simpler/better-suited software applications out there for what I want to do?

All I want is to be able to design the cabinet in 3D and then see what supports/strenthening I'll need and easily be able to shift parts about. Also (hopefully) have the software tell me the sizes of everything so that I can then explode the drawing into a kind of "parts list" for cutting and assembly?

Will SketchUp do all that? Is there something better?

Thanks :-)

bperkins01:
The free version of Sketchup is great. 

I tried learning a few different design software packages over the year and never *got it*

Then Sketchup + this book Sketchup for Woodworkers

Got me over the hump. 

I worked on my cabinet design for a few months in Sketchup until I got it the way I wanted it.
Was well worth the effort.

uptown47:

--- Quote from: bperkins01 on August 09, 2019, 06:24:54 am ---The free version of Sketchup is great. 

I tried learning a few different design software packages over the year and never *got it*

Then Sketchup + this book Sketchup for Woodworkers

Got me over the hump. 

I worked on my cabinet design for a few months in Sketchup until I got it the way I wanted it.
Was well worth the effort.

--- End quote ---

Great stuff! Yep, I want to put a bit of time into the design of it and don't want to rush it and then make mistakes that I regret or end up having to rework parts of the design on the fly.

I'll go with SketchUp then and plan a few hours in with it this weekend and YouTube and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for getting back to me. :)

bperkins01:
Check out this guys videos:

He made a lot of the topics really simple..  I still go back to them when I forget something.

uptown47:

--- Quote from: bperkins01 on August 09, 2019, 06:34:44 am ---Check out this guys videos:

He made a lot of the topics really simple..  I still go back to them when I forget something.

--- End quote ---

Nice one!! I'll check him out. Thanks!! :)

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