Alex Schreyer's Blog, Projects, Books, and More
One problem when exporting a SketchUp model that contains images as textures to Google Earth is file size. You do not want to have a building model that weighs in at more than 500kB. A 1 MB file may be justified for a very complex building, but anything beyond that will a) load slowly (remember […] Read more..
After a year of amazing development work, the team behind the freeware rendering engine Kerkythea finally released the 2008 version. It is called “Echo” and features some major improvements. While the most noticeable one will be the redesigned sleek user interface (it now has scrollable material list menus!!!), some under-the-hood improvements are worth mentioning, too. […] Read more..
Now this one ought to be quite interesting. Microsoft just bought out Caligari, maker of the 3D modeling, animating and rendering software TrueSpace. Is this a new, free SketchUp in the making? Microsoft wants to use the software for their Virtual Earth platform – similar to Google using SketchUp for their Google Earth platform. This […] Read more..
Some interesting SketchUp-related posts that just landed on my desk: AIA and Google have assembled classic American architecture in 3D Warehouse and Google Earth and have put a sickeningly fast video of it on YouTube.
Digging through the Ruby script archive for SketchUp is just amazing. There is a great tool at every corner. Here’s one of them: The 6-sided cube panorama exporter. Together with a renderer like Kerkythea (and a stitching program), it is extremely easy to create realistic panoramas right out of SketchUp.
Quickly creating 3D-models and doing sketchy renderings is clearly the strength of SketchUp. Most of its modeling feature set is even available in the free version and with downloadable Extensions, anything is possible. One feature that is missing in SketchUp, though, is photo-realistic rendering. But don’t let that stop you…
Now here’s something. First, Google allowed everyone to contribute to their 3D Warehouse, a collection of 3D objects (components) for SketchUp, which got us used to everything from meticulously modeled buildings to the daily occurrence of an oddly shaped box named “my dream home”. Then they convinced some manufacturers to add their CAD data (Marvin […] Read more..