3D Warehouse: The Top 10 Searches in SketchUp's Massive Online Library

3D Warehouse Herman Miller collection — Courtesy Trimble 3D Warehouse's massive collections derive from virtual objects contributed by individual members and manufacturers, including Herman Miller.

Architects and designers who spend many of their working—or waking—hours in BIM and modeling programs have likely dug into the virtual treasure trove that is SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse. The online repository hosts more than 2.5 million 3D models and materials, which are all free and can be imported into several programs in addition to Trimble SketchUp. Looking for a wall sconce? Here are 486 (and counting). Need entourage? Here are hundreds of people and trees. How about characters from The Simpsons? Yep.

3D Warehouse Simpsons — Someguy121 Models of real and made-up buildings can be found in 3D Warehouse.

Behind this volume of objects are two entities: manufacturers that make their proprietary furniture and products available both as a service to designers and to get product placement in building models; and millions of designers who proudly post their model portfolios and commiserate in online forums, such as SketchUp Community and SketchUpdate. To enhance engagement among these users within the 3D Warehouse platform, Trimble recently added social features.

Like most online publications and social media sites, 3D Warehouse now offers commenting for the models in its library. Members can turn on private messaging and personalize their user profile with links to personal or business websites and social media accounts. They can also create a personal 3D Warehouse portfolio with a custom URL in the manner of 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/by/[username].

3D Warehouse social features — Courtesy Trimble 3D Warehouse has added social features that allow members to comment on individual 3D models and contact each other privately.

With the massive amount of inventory in 3D Warehouse, we at ARCHITECT wondered what everyone is looking for. So we queried the folks at Trimble for the 10 most popular search terms in 3D Warehouse.

The results are oriented toward residential and interior architecture. “The community is exceptionally interested in interior fixtures, furnishings and equipment,” says Mike Tadros, 3D Warehouse product manager, at Trimble. “It is likely that interior building products are most popular on 3D Warehouse because of the common interest in these products among architects, interior designers and consumers—the top demographics of SketchUp users.”

Below are the top 10 search queries, from least to most popular, complete with the most popular 3D model in the search results for each term, and the number of times that particular model has been downloaded at the time of publication. For fun, try imagining them all together in one project and you'll have a pretty good snapshot of the everyday home, but with a zebra-print rug in the bedroom and a Porsche in the driveway.