Alex Schreyer's Blog, Projects, Books, and More
As announced in their latest blog post, Google has just released an optimization feature for their online spreadsheets (which, of course, are part of Google Docs). With this new feature, linear optimization problems can be solved easily. This is a great feature and makes online spreadsheets even more Excel-like and usable. Here are some of […] Read more..
Shells and tension structures (cable nets or fabrics) are beautiful structural elements that provide a very lightweight organic shape with a visually clear structural language. When it comes to creating these, however, specialized tools are required since the underlying math is anything but trivial. If you want to work with shells or tension structures, try […] Read more..
This project explored the application of the visualization capabilities of Infrared Thermography in conjunction with three-dimensional models of buildings. Three-dimensional modeling is a powerful tool for visualizing and representing building conditions that is used by architects, builders, and contractors. Also, a three-dimensional model is better understandable than a more abstract two-dimensional representation (like a floor plan or an image).
A little while ago, I had a need for calculating centroids for planar shapes in SketchUp. To be more exact, my students had the need since I gave them an assignment that required this. Not knowing of a plugin for SketchUp that would accomplish this feat, they did it in Rhino or AutoCAD instead.
To rid SketchUp of this shortcoming, I decided to re-use some old Pascal code of mine and try my hand at writing a plugin for this. Here is the result.
When it comes to architectural or structural design of wood buildings, there are only a few software packages available in North America (compared to what is out there for steel or concrete design). While these (e.g. cadwork, Dietrich’s, IES VisualDesign and more here and here) have great tools to design and size anything from a […] Read more..
Now Autodesk has two green thumbs! In a press release published earlier today, Autodesk has announced that it has acquired ECOTECT. Let’s see how they weave Revit, Green Building Studio and Ecotect together. FYI, here is a description of ECOTECT from the Square 1 website: Ecotect is a comprehensive environmental design tool that covers a […] Read more..
Okay, okay, this one is a bit geeky, but it’s fun so I had to try it. I don’t remember how I found this, but I saw somewhere that you can easily turn your $10 webcam into an infrared camera. Since I never ventured into the infrared spectrum with my film-based camera, this sounded like […] Read more..