SketchUp’s material libraries offer a variety of useful materials that you can add to your models. To meet your design intent, you may need to create materials using 2D image files as a starting point.
Windows
To create a new material from your own files or color codes open the Materials panel and follow these steps:
- On the Select tab, click Create New Material (
). The Create Material dialog will open.
- Type a name for the new material in the text field.
- Use the color wheel to choose a color.
- To use an image add, select Use Texture Image.
- In the File Explorer window that appears locate and select an image file.
- Adjust the texture size and opacity. If you have corresponding texture maps for your image texture, you can add and adjust them here.
- Click OK. Your new material will appear selected in the In Model collection.

MacOS
To create a new material from an image, open the Colors panel and follow these steps:
- Click the Textures Palette tab.
- Using the dropdown, select the collection where you want the new material to appear.
- Click the context menu and select New Material.
- In the Finder window that appears, select an image file for your texture.
- Type a name for the texture, set the width and height for the tile size, and click OK.
- Your new material will now appear in the selected collection.
To use a specific color as a material:
- Select the Color Wheel, Color Sliders, Image Palettes, or Pencils tab.
- Use the options in your selected tab to create a color.
- Select the Textures Palette tab.
- Using the dropdown, select the collection where you want to save the color.
- Drag the color swatch from the bottom of the Colors panel into that collection’s list of materials.