Local Improvement District

One great use for sketchup is to be able to convey to the general public what a project may look like. In this particular case we were working on a Local Improvement District where we go in and improve the road. The road would get wider in some areas and curb, gutters, and sidewalk would be added as well as storm drainage. The traditional way of showing the residents what they will be getting for their money is to give them a 2d black and white autocad drawing and maybe some photos of nearby areas. With sketchup you can show them a 3d view of their house and the before and after. I haven't created the proposed improvements view yet but this image above shows an area that doesn't have sidewalk and a wide enough road. The idea would be to show this image and then another image that would have the sidewalk and road width continuing through.

Other benefits would be to convince a City Council or County Commission that a project is worth doing. With 3d renderings and videos it is much more convincing that a project has value than the standard 2d cad drawing.