Alex Schreyer's Blog, Projects, Books, and More
The IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability) has just released the latest version of the IFC specifications as an Alpha version for discussion. If you have never heard about IFC, then consider this a great file format to exchange object-oriented building information (= entire BIM building models) between various CAD and analysis applications. Most CAD software […] Read more..
Inspired by one of David Fano’s recent blog posts, I decided to give Rhino’s Grasshopper plugin (formerly called Explicit History) a try. It is pretty amazing what can be done with it and how easy it is to use. I haven’t venture too far at this point – there’ll be more to come when I […] Read more..
A comment on one of my SketchUp posts prompted me to provide clarification in the form of a new post rather than just a quick reply. The issue was that exported images from CAD files (SU in this case) can be quite grainy. To export an image of the current view in SketchUp, go to […] Read more..
So far I have used SketchUp for a lot of things, but a 50-minute presentation wasn’t among those. Besides, one of the big no-no’s for “classic” Powerpoint presentations is having too much happen on-screen (flying-in arrows and the like). Given the dynamic 3D interface of SketchUp I was curious if flying around inside its space […] Read 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..
If you liked Demeter, then you’ll like this one. The Department of Energy has just released a plugin for SketchUp (works with both the free and full version) that allows for an EnergyPlus analysis to be run on a SketchUp building model from within the familiar SketchUp interface. The geometry of a building can be […] Read more..
After working a while with SketchUp, every 3D modeler will invariably find out that the best thing about this software is that it can easily be extended using free plugins. If a function is not available in plain (free) SketchUp, then chances are actually quite good that there is a plugin available on the internet […] Read more..