Alex Schreyer's Blog, Projects, Books, and More
Now that the semester is winding down, I can finally look back and post about the great SketchUp 3D Basecamp conference that happened 4/14-4/16 this year in Vail, Colorado. As in years past, this was a meeting of SketchUp users, plugin authors, technology vendors, and, of course, all the makers of SketchUp. What was especially […] Read more..
While my SketchUp plugins were all working fine with the newly released SketchUp 2014, some things still irked me and so I set out to update them. As you can see above, they now also sport some neater icons. If you are interested in what has changed for a specific plugin, check out the appropriate […] Read more..
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..
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..
This extension allows the user to do three things: Unwraps non-coplanar faces (any shape objects, shells etc.) using an automatic (randomized) algorithm and then lays the resulting set of faces flat on the ground. This is done without creating any distortions. Lays any arbitrarily-oriented face or collection of coplanar faces flat on the ground (without distortion). Use e.g. in combination with a manual unfold tool or to make sure faces are perfectly horizontal. Projects a set of faces to one of the three main planes by smashing all faces flat. This creates distortions, of course.
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..
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..