AEC CAD/BIM, SketchUp, Timber Engineering, Web Design and more…
News, tips and tricks and everything else related to Trimble SketchUp. Don’t forget to also check out my book: Architectural Design with SketchUp.
My family just spent an amazing day at the 2012 World Maker Faire in New York. It was a blast! Between the life-sized mousetrap and the kids coloring a Zipcar, there was so much to see and do. What amazed me most was the fact that almost every single booth had at least one 3D […] Read more..
This great video by Mike Beganyi shows how to use SketchUp and LayOut (which is included in SketchUp Pro) together with a few visual tricks to create a complete set of working drawings for timber framing projects. SketchUp + LayOut Overview (my process) – YouTube
Okay… admittedly SketchUp itself looks in the latest maintenance release that came out today (Version 8, Maintenance Release 4) much like it did before the update. What has changed, though, is the logo/icon and therefore, the brand of the software. Here are the changes: New Icon Old Icon SketchUp LayOut Style Builder You can now […] Read more..
Model with shininess (Phong shader) If you export a COLLADA DAE model from SketchUp (using either the 3D Model Export feature in SketchUp or my Sketchfab plugin), then you will notice that any materials in the model (colors or textures) look flat (like you can see in the model shown in the web viewer below). […] Read more..
Although there are ways to get SketchUp models to display on the web (most notably using the 3D Warehouse or VRML if you have SketchUp Pro), none of those technologies are as elegant as using WebGL. This technology needs no plugins and relies only on 3D display capability that is already built into modern browsers. While […] Read more..
A new and interesting SketchUp animation plugin has just been released: SimFonIA Animation Tools. What I find most appealing about it is that you can drive an animation from external data (e.g. a spreadsheet or an analysis program). For more information: SimFonIA Animation Tools
On the heels of the announcement that SketchUp has been sold to Trimble comes another announcement from Google, this time related to Google Earth. As described in various press releases and posts, Google will – among other changes – implement automated building (and vegetation!) generation from flyover data for major cities. The following video explains this: […] Read more..