Fundamentals of Residential Construction, 5th Edition is Here!

I am very happy to announce that after a full year of editing, writing, photographing, reviewing, proof-reading, and then proof-reading again, the new edition of Fundamentals of Residential Construction by Allen/Schreyer/Thallon is now available! As before, it comes in an eBook version as well as a hardcover. For this edition, I was able to implement […] Read more..

New Extension Feature: Randomly Erase Objects

I just published a new feature in my Random Tools extension (in v. 1.3): Randomly Erase Objects. This feature lets you erase objects (groups or component instances) randomly based on a percentage chance of deletion. This works well with the other random placement tools in that it allows you to adjust the placement afterwards. Tip: […] Read more..

Joyful Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year 2022!

To my readers, friends and colleagues: I wish you and your loved ones a peaceful and joyous holiday season, a Merry Christmas (to those that celebrate it), and a healthy, happy, and successful new year 2022! Cheers, Alex P.S.: As usual, I modeled everything in this image and the animation in SketchUp (except for some […] Read more..

Introducing my new web-project: A construction mockups archive

When I recently organized my many construction images, I realized that I had a rather large collection of pictures of various construction mockups. Those structures typically only serve a temporary purpose during construction and are then removed once a project is complete. It always seemed to me (as an educator) to be quite a waste […] Read more..

Merry Christmas, Joyful Holidays, and a Happy (and Much Better) New Year 2021!

Dear friends and colleagues, I wish you and your loved ones a peaceful and joyous holiday season, a Merry Christmas, and a healthy, happy, and successful new year 2021! After the current year turned out a bit differently than everyone expected, there is certainly much hope and some certainty that next year will be better […] Read more..

Just Added Features and Squashed Bugs

I just updated three of my most popular SketchUp extensions: Scale By (Image/Attractors/Equation) Tools, Random Tools, and Unwrap and Flatten Faces. Beyond squashing a handful of bugs, these are the most important new features: Scale By (Image/Attractors/Equation) Tools now lets you transform objects by proximity to other objects (“attractors”). Not sure what this means? Check […] Read more..

My Second New Extension This Week: Scale By Tools

My second new SketchUp extension that is being released this week also combines various Ruby Scripts that I had laying around or that were in my book, Architectural Design with SketchUp. It makes those more accessible to everyone and should lead to some really beautiful designs. This time the extension has to do with transforming […] Read more..