What’s New in SketchUp 2014? Better Ruby, for Example!

By now you most probably have heard that SketchUp 2014 has been released. There are quite a few great new-feature overviews and reviews out there and I’ll suggest you look at the ones linked at the end of this post to get up to speed. For now, I just wanted to show you why the […] Read more..

New SketchUp Plugin: Flatten Faces

Have you ever modeled something in SketchUp only to find you had an arbitrarily oriented face where you would have killed to have it laid flat on the ground? I was there (and so were my students), so I re-used some code I had and packaged it as a plugin. You can read about it and […] Read more..

Perfecting the SketchUp to LayOut workflow just got easier

Arguably the most important feature in the Pro version of SketchUp has been the included documentation software, LayOut. While SketchUp itself is great for modeling and “inline” documentation (dimensions and floating leader text), once you need to properly document your work on a sheet of paper with a textblock around it, you are hitting a […] Read more..

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year 2014!

While Santa is getting settled in his new abode (looks like there is still some construction to do), it is time for me to wish you all wonderful holidays, a relaxing time with your family and friends and all the best for the new year! I hope to meet you, see you, email you or […] Read more..

SketchUp 3D Basecamp 2014 Announced!

The annual SketchUp user conference has just been announced by Trimble for 2014. It will be: In Vail, CO During skiing season Amazing!!! For more on this, check out their announcement. Registration opens in November. Official SketchUp Blog: Announcing SketchUp 3D Basecamp 2014

Favorite Places mapping web app is now open source

I decided to make my Favorite Places web app (that was the basis for the UMass Favorite Places site) open source. You can now find it on my GitHub page: https://github.com/alexschreyer/My-Favorite-Places In doing so, I made a bunch of improvements and squashed some bugs. Don’t forget to look at the readme.txt file. Please drop me […] Read more..

You can now use SketchUp with Allen/Iano’s Fundamentals of Building Construction book

When it comes to learning construction methods and systems (and, of course, the related materials), it is crucial for a student to understand how things fit together. Every construction system is an assembly of subparts (e.g. beams, bolts, decking) and often a layering based on various functional requirements (e.g. air barrier, insulation, structural sheathing,…). This […] Read more..