Constructing Geodesic Spheres on Google SketchUp

Here is an extremely simple tutorial on how to construct icosahedral geodesic spheres using the 3D CAD software SketchUp. It's so easy to do even a 1 year old could accomplish this.

The very first thing you need to do is to have SketchUp installed. You can download it for free (SketchUp Make 2017) at: https://help.sketchup.com/en/downloading-older-versions

Once installed, start the software

Set Conditions:
- Go to Edit > Edge Style > Disable Profiles
- Go to Window > Model Info > Units
- Set Format to Decimal > Meters
- Enable length snapping at 0.01m
- Enable display units format
- Enable angle snapping at 15.0 degrees
- Make all precision at 0.00m

Download the entire file for this tutorial (The SketchUp file)

Step 1: Icosahedron - 1V Geodesic Sphere

The first thing we will do is construct an icosahedron.

An icosahedron is basically a 20 sided 3D shape made up of equilateral triangles. This is the standard format for most geodesic domes as it provides a minimum degree of difference in the surface area for each triangle face and the length of the edges (also known as struts).

It can also be called a 1V geodesic sphere. V means the number of triangle subdivisions on each side of the icosahedron.

Download the entire file for this tutorial

Step 2: 2V Geodesic Sphere

The next level is to make the basic 1V geodesic sphere more complex by increasing the number of triangular subdivisions per face to create a 2V geodesic sphere.

Download the entire file for this tutorial