Shells and tension structures

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..

Interactive 3D Visualization of Building Envelope Systems Using Infrared Thermography and SketchUp

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).

Twisted SketchUp

A few days ago, a new tool for SketchUp was released. It’s called FreeScale 2.0 and it allows to do a lot of geometry manipulations that SketchUp by itself wasn’t able to do. It should be a default plugin for any serious SU-user. The links below lead to this and other great geometry deformation tools. […] Read more..

Weekly (or so) CAD roundup

Some CAD news that landed in my inbox recently: SketchUp: This year’s SketchUp modeling competition for students has nothing to do with campuses. Google wants you to model a bridge over your favourite crossing instead. Deadline is June 15, 2009. Another competition has been announced by Dwell Magazine together with Volkswagen. For this one, you […] Read more..

Typical Types and Others

A recent post by Smashing Magazine on free fonts made me look again at the list of fonts installed on my (Windows) machine. In particular, I was looking for fonts that would work well for CAD annotation. After all, AutoCAD’s TXT-font, Revit’s Arial and SketchUp’s Verdana can appear a bit “default” for good-looking plans. And […] Read more..

New SketchUp Plugin: Plugin Loader

I just released a new SketchUp plugin. Its main function is to load other plugins. Here’s a screenshot of the main menu options: You can find a detailed description (and the download link) on the project page. Here are the feature highlights: Browse the main web plugin repositories and then load any plugin into SketchUp. […] Read more..