Evansville, Indiana, United States | Evansville’s collection of models

Modeler: Randall Crane

Getaria, Gipuzkoa, Spain | Getaria’s collection of models

Modelers: Josetxo Perez Fernandez, Pedro Domecq Aguirre

Leominster, Herefordshire, United Kingdom | Leominster’s collection of models

Modeler: Tom Harvey

Lowell, Massachusetts, United States | Lowell’s collection of models

Modeler: Beryl Reid

Toruń, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Poland | Toruń’s collection of models

Modelers: Arkadiusz Pawlowski, Górniak Grzegorz

Zielona Góra, Lubuskie, Poland | Zielona Góra’s collection of models

Modeler: Tomasz Szular

This video provides an aerial, musical tour of each of the six finalists’ models in situ. Make some popcorn and enjoy.

It’s voting time!

It’s up to you (and the rest of the world) to pick an overall winner. We’ve created separate one-minute video tours for each town, as well as KML files that you can download to see the models in Google Earth. Peruse the entries, then vote for your favorite. You have until May 1st, 2012 to cast your ballot.

Congrats and thanks to everyone who entered—this year’s models were truly amazing.

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Google SketchUp Team

This video provides a nice overview of the new release:

The new version of Product Connect features thousands of product models and these three plugin-based tools:

Get Products

Get Products is a new tool that makes it dead simple to add pre-existing product models from the Google 3D Warehouse. Like the Get Models tool in SketchUp currently, Get Products launches the Google 3D Warehouse but directs you to a collection with nearly 300 sub-collections of branded and generic product models. You can choose products from a Product Connect enabled catalog and you'll find that product information has already been added for you. Or, choose other Building Product models and add the information yourself.

Product Editor

With the new Product Editor tool, you can now create your own Product Connect enabled models. Just take any SketchUp component (including materials), launch Product Editor, and add any information you need such as product type, name and description. Product Editor can also be used to add or edit info in pre-existing Product Connect enabled models such as project specific notes or price.

Report Maker

When you’ve finished your design, and filled it with Product Connect enabled components, the new and improved Report Maker tool allows you to save organized product schedules in .csv format. With just a few clicks, product lists can be included in construction document sets, edited to create pricing estimates, and even used to place and manage orders.

If you have an existing collection of SketchUp components that you’d like to enable for Product Connect, Igloo Studios offers a service for upgrading existing components. Or if you don’t already have product models created, Igloo Studios can help you with that too. Contact them for more information

Thanks again to Igloo Studios for another great launch that will help SketchUp users everywhere streamline the product selection and specification process.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

When I’m working on a big model in SketchUp, I like to save a new copy of my file every few hours. Doing so lets me easily go back to a previous version in case I’ve accidentally deleted something I need — this happens more often than I care to admit. It also provides a measure of protection against file corruption, which isn’t common, but can be devastating.

For the last eight years, I’ve been choosing File > Save As… and creating a numbered copy in the folder that contains my project. The result is a long, long list of sequentially numbered files. The most recent is the one with the highest number appended to the end, as you can see in the screenshot below. Simple, no?

Using File > Save As... to create a sequential archive of files is straightforward, but there's a more efficient way to work.

There are two problems with this system (as I’ve come to find out the hard way): First, when I come back to a project after a hiatus, I’m never 100% sure that I’m working on the latest version of my file. Maybe I saved a newer version somewhere else? Second, when I’m working on a set of drawings in LayOut, the linked SketchUp file always needs to be the most recent one. Every time I change the name of the SketchUp file (three or four times a day), I need to manually re-link the new model to my LayOut file. Yech.

If you periodically "Save As" your SketchUp model with a new version number, the workflow with LayOut is awkward. You'll spend a lot of time relinking your current model to your LayOut file.

Using the Save A Copy As… command (instead of Save As…) takes care of both these issues. It lets you save a version of your model as a new file without renaming the one you’re working on. The saved versions can be numbered and archived, but the “master” version is always called the same thing. There’s no confusion about which is the latest, and working with LayOut is twenty times easier. Presto.

Choosing Save A Copy As... allows you to save "snapshots" of your model while continuing to work on the same file. I like to keep an archive of old versions in a separate folder, just to keep things tidy.

I love it when answers to complicated problems are so simple. Thanks Mitchel!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

With SpaceClaim, engineers can convert conceptual designs in SketchUp’s native SKP format (which is optimized for fast performance) into precise solid models needed for mechanical design and manufacturing. As an example, SketchUp models usually convert to CAD programs as meshes, so holes end up being made of lots of little faces. SpaceClaim uses its feature recognition technology to convert these features into exact cylindrical surfaces.

Take the model below: SpaceClaim’s SketchUp import tools automatically convert facets to precise geometry when possible. On the left is the original SketchUp geometry. The middle model demonstrates the new import capability, with no manual cleanup. And the model on the right is further improved using SpaceClaim’s manual repair capabilities.

With this functionality, mechanical designers can directly re-use SKP files, rather than remodeling from scratch. This type of precision is important for rapid prototyping, laser cutting, CNC machining, detailed dimensioning, simulation, and photo-realistic rendering. And SpaceClaim’s process produces models that are completely compatible with other mechanical CAD systems. Another bonus: these import tools enable mechanical engineers to use the entire 3D Warehouse as a starting point for their designs.

If you'd like to try SpaceClaim, please visit their website.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

O’Reilly’s Where Conference is April 2-4. It’s going to be a great conference, with lots of really interesting talks on mapping and location technologies. And Google is going to have a big presence. We’ll have 5 workshops, 4 sessions, and one keynote by Google Vice President Brian McClendon. This is the biggest effort we’ve ever done. We’ll be talking about a variety of topics, including:

• Google Earth
• Getting Started with the Google Maps API
• Using HTML5 in your maps applications
• SketchUp and Street View
• Mapping with Google+
• and much more

So if you’re headed to Where, come and say hello at our sessions or at our booth in the exhibit hall.

If you haven’t registered for Where yet, you can get 25% off by using this discount code: GOOG25. So register today while there’s still space.

I started using SketchUp Pro about five years ago. At that time we considered it a tool to help produce quick 3D line drawings of small areas. Gradually, its value has become more apparent and with the recent addition of Shaderlight, it is now considered to be an invaluable tool by the whole design team.

At the earliest stages of the design concept, I import a CAD plan of the project into SketchUp from which I build a model. It gives us a three dimensional awareness and makes space planning both easier and more accurate.

The SketchUp model offers better awareness of space which aids in the design and in space planning.

I continue to use SketchUp Pro throughout the design process, periodically using a fast, low resolution Shaderlight render to check the progress of lighting levels, features, furniture, and finishes.

SketchUp model with entourage and Shaderlight lighting elements, when rendered, will help validate the design, look and feel.

When I am sure that no other changes are necessary I produce a high resolution rendering which is imported into Photoshop. I can then make any small changes to colours or light levels and add people or anything else that I feel would enhance the final visual.

Final Render: SketchUp Pro + Shaderlight + Photoshop

Before using SketchUp I produced hand-rendered visuals. The uncomplicated nature of the program has made the transition easy and very effective. SketchUp has become an invaluable tool for the whole design team.

A big thanks to Michael Reekie (michael@aji.co.uk) and the whole AJI team for providing this snapshot into their SketchUp workflow. Great work!

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Sales

A perspective view of 3D laser scan data (terrestrial LiDAR imagery) of Mission San Francisco de la Espada, San Antonio, Texas.

As part of the ongoing effort to educate the general public and disseminate information in an interactive environment, CyArk uses millimetrically precise data from heritage sites captured with 3D laser scanners to model the sites in SketchUp Pro. In order to do this, we use two methods:

Method 1: Orthorectified imagery

Our 3D laser scan processing software allows us to export orthorectified images of the data. We begin by exporting a plan of the structure to build a basic block model from. The plan is brought into SketchUp Pro, scaled, geo-located (all of our scan data is geo-located with GPS), and then the model is created from the accurate plan data.

Using orthorectified imagery created from laser scan data to trace out the model in SketchUp Pro.

After we create the block model, we import orthorectified elevation views of the structure. We then trace the outline of the building and “push out” the unwanted parts to create the unique architectural shape. The elevation view is also used to overlay the photo-real texture information.

Method 2: Direct modeling from 3D scan data

We are also able to use the Pointools plugin for SketchUp that allows us to load the 3D laser scan data point cloud directly into SketchUp. This allows even more precise modeling directly over the data. Again, orthorectified images of facades are used to overlay texture information.

A 3D laser scan data point cloud, brought into SketchUp Pro using the Pointools plugin. (Note: This image has been altered to improve visualization of the process.)

After modeling is complete, visitors to the CyArk website and projects interact with them in two ways: CyArk has an online, Java-based web app that allows users to view 3D point clouds directly, or view solid models such as those created in SketchUp Pro or other 3D meshing software.

3D model of Mission San Juan Capistrano, San Antonio, Texas created in SketchUp and viewed in CyArk’s free online 3D Viewer.

The other way that users can interact with 3D models on CyArk’s website is by using the Google Earth plugin, which we’ve integrated into a web page on the site. This provides a navigable 3D environment in which users can see geo-located SketchUp models while interacting and viewing geo-located multimedia items such as architectural CAD drawings, videos, 360-degree panoramic images, photographs, historic imagery and more.

A 3D model of Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, San Antonio, Texas created in SketchUp and viewed in Google Earth on the CyArk website. Multimedia items (architectural drawings, videos, panos, historic images, etc.) are geolocated on the Google Earth interface and represented as a variety of type-specific icons that surround the model.

In addition to modeling directly from accurate 3D survey information (as seen here in the San Antonio Missions project and associated iOS mobile app), CyArk and our partners have taken advantage of SketchUp Pro’s easy modeling platform to create historic reconstructions of sites and site features that no longer exist. For example, for a project with Fort Laramie National Historic Site, eight historic reconstructions were created in SketchUp. Users visiting the Google Earth map of the project can choose to see the Fort as it appeared in seven different time phases, as well as a detailed reconstruction of the Post Hospital. All were created from extensive research, historic photographs/sketches, consultation with park experts, and metrically accurate laser scan data of structures, standing ruins, and remaining foundations as the base for the models.

SketchUp Pro provides CyArk the tools to quickly and accurately model historic sites to create interactive 3D environments for members of the public, educators, students and researchers to access online. This aids us in fulfilling a significant part of our mission to share, disseminate and educate.

Thanks for sharing this story, Justin. If you’re interested in getting involved with CyArk, you can find out more about volunteering, becoming a partner or donating to CyArk on the Get Involved web page.

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Pro Sales Team

No, you’re not seeing things. By default, SketchUp downgrades higher resolution image textures to a maximum of 1024 x 1024 pixels because in the past graphics cards didn’t have the horsepower to render models with large textures on screen reliably.

If you want to turn off this feature, you can do so by going to Properties > OpenGL, and checking the “Use maximum texture size”. With this checked, SketchUp will no longer downgrade your image textures to 1024px. SketchUp will communicate with your video card and if everything is up to snuff, your image will display at a new maximum resolution of up to 4096 x 4096 pixels.

Important note! Your first inclination might be to activate the “Use maximum texture size” option and bring in the highest resolution textures possible.

But as anyone well-versed in the “science” of modeling with textures will tell you, the size of images DO matter. Large textures can bloat the size of your SketchUp model and tax your video card and system memory exponentially. If you are going to use the “maximum texture” option, you will need to be extra conscious about the size of your image textures and choose which ones need to be at a higher resolution.

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Guru

Making hospitals more energy efficient

Hospitals have unique energy consumption demands. Not only do a hospitals require lighting and heating 24 hours a day, but they also require ventilation, sterilization, laundry, food preparation and important medical equipment to be powered as well. Therefore, any improvements made to the building could drastically reduce the bills, freeing up money to be spent elsewhere.

The NHS Western Isles Trust are very proactive in trying to reduce their energy costs and carbon footprint. To determine their baseline energy consumption and carbon emissions and then to simulate a number of fabric and technology improvements to their largest building, they turned to GreenspaceLive. A hospital model and energy analysis workflow was created in Google SketchUp Pro with GreenspaceLive’s gTools suite.

Project Methodology

To start, existing 2D CAD models and scanned paper drawings were shared via gWorkspace. These floor plans were then imported into Google SketchUp Pro. Once the floor plans had been imported, each floor was extruded to the correct height and dimensions. A detailed model is not required for the gModeller plugin, so the model could be simplified to single faces for walls, floors and roofs.

Once completed, attributes were added to the model using the gModeller's customised materials, located within the Paint Bucket tool in SketchUp. Next, spaces were identified using the manual Space tool, which allowed the model to have zone specific information, such as heating, lighting and ventilation for different areas.

The gbXML building information model generated by gModeller was now ready to be exported to an energy analysis engine. In this case, gEnergy was used, however, exported models can also be imported into Green Building Studio, Ecotect, Trace, DesignBuilder and others. gEnergy was initially run using the Hospital’s existing fabric and technologies to establish a baseline Energy Performance rating, subsequent analysis runs were then carried out with simulated improvements to the building, including proposed refurbishment changes, to determine the impact they would have on performance of the building.

Once gEnergy runs were completed, the model was exported to Google Earth and presented to the clients, showing gDashboard energy results on screen while touring their model.

Using the gWorkspace cloud platform, the modeling team was able to share and collaborate with the client throughout the process. Team members and client representatives were able to view, download and share files from the project, as well as view all energy runs that were undertaken.

The Results

Armed with the tools and the data, NHS Western Isles Hospital were able to model different scenarios and view the impact these changes would have. The results were dramatic – making a number of changes to the heating system, the team was able to demonstrate that the most effective change would result in over 50% energy savings, while reducing the CO2 emissions by almost 80%.

Dave Tierney, part of the Energy Team at NHS Western Isles Hospital said, “Using gTools, senior executives and staff received an overview of our carbon emissions, energy consumption and the impact changes in technology and fabric will have on our building. We can clearly see the differences in low carbon technology investment options. The results will help shape our plans for tackling carbon emissions and energy consumption in the future."

To learn more about gModeller and the rest of the gTools suite, you can visit the GreenspaceLive website. You can also sign-up for a free trial. Thanks again to Donald and the rest of the gang at GreenspaceLive for sharing this case study with us.

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Sales

Allied Works can design anything, but in our history, we’ve mostly focused on museums, gallery spaces, creative work spaces, and creative educational spaces. We seek those out, but we’re also actively pursuing a lot of different programs as well.

My impression of Allied Works' design workflow has always gone something like this: Brad Cloepfil (the firm's Founding Principal) sits down with an enormous pad of paper and a lump of charcoal. He proceeds to make huge, gestural drawings that are equal parts light study, parti diagram and abstract rendering. A few years later, the building opens. What happens in between?

Let’s talk about the Clyfford Still Museum, given that it’s at the end of its cycle in terms of design and construction. It was a competition. Brad did have a stroke of insight, much like you were saying. Charcoal and pastel are his main generative tools. The project is really about the earth and about the light, so charcoal happened to be perfect. When he came into the office, he had a sketch which was about the intersection of those two things.

Then we have our design team, which sometimes includes people from outside of our office—collaborators like structural engineers and landscape architects. We spend time figuring out what all the parameters are, all the forces that are involved: cultural, civic, economic, experiential (which is huge) and structural. And then the form is derived from the mixture of all of these design elements. We do heavy investigations with material models; we do a lot of concept models to try to tease out the main essence.

Are those physical models or digital models?

In this case, they were physical models. We were trying to understand, through material manipulation and assembly, more about the experience and the form and the message of the project. "Message" is really the only word I can come up with. How is it “of the place"? How does the material itself communicate something about the experience?

Our design work strives towards a unity of space and form—the form itself trying to be a single body that’s understandable as a single body. With the Clyfford Still Museum, this was especially true. It’s kind of an unfolded plane that’s folding back on itself. It’s solid from the outside, but the space writhes and weaves together on the inside. It’s like a nine-square cube; some planes are subtracted, and some planes are moved around, with the goal of making a space that feels continuous.

The way we work on this kind of project is with physical models, which you can see in front of you and turn around, or to work in a digital 3D space that you can work on quickly. The Clyfford Still Museum was the first project where we explored the interior of the building through a digital 3D model study. We primarily used SketchUp Pro, probably because it's so FAST. And everyone participated—from the people who were actually modeling (I was one of those people), to Brad himself looking at the screen and saying Why don’t we just move this here? Let’s look at it from this other position. Let’s move this wall here, etc.

He learned how to navigate the 3D space, and by the end of the project, a lot of our design meetings were just moving through 3D models to make sure that the understanding of the space that we were going for was being supported by all the different orders that were happening in the building: the structural concrete wall order, the order of moveable art partitions, and others. We made sure that we could see through the building the way we wanted to, that everything was supporting the experience we were after.

Would you say that you typically design from the inside out, or is there an idea for an exterior form?

It’s a dialog between the two, but I think the idea for the structure, the idea for the landscape, and the idea for the experience all happen at the same time. In a lot of projects, that ends up feeling like it’s from the inside out. We’re less concerned about the facades than we are about the experience of moving through the building.

3D investigation, representation, and result; SketchUp (top), Maxwell Render (center), and photograph (photo credit: Jeremy Bitterman)

Can you talk a little more about SketchUp's role in Allied Works’ design process?

SketchUp is a tool that we use for design studies and for visualization purposes; also, for making models that end up becoming renderings, or even drawings. We export vector lines and make them into plans or elevations or sections. Sometimes we use it for making diagrams—actually, it’s pretty useful for making diagrams, especially in concept phases or competitions, where you need either a 3D axonometric, or a section cut perspective. I know we used SketchUp to make the model for the animation for the National Music Centre project, and for some extensive renderings that were done for marketing purposes.

ceiling construction diagram; SketchUp

You talk a lot about things like light and materials and the way spaces make people feel—I think I’ve even heard the word “phenomenology” used to refer to how your firm thinks about architecture. Is there anything about SketchUp in particular that makes it useful to you, given the way Allied Works operates?

We’d want any tool we use to help us realize our vision for what the space is going to be like, in terms of its experience. I’d say that materials are key, light is key and the order of the space is key. Of those three, the last one is where SketchUp helps us work. Iterative physical models just seem to take too long to build now that we have a tool that’s much faster.

Another way to think about spatial orders is to think about sculpting space. If you’re sitting inside a network of physical planes that end up making a space, and you can see from where you are to some kernel of space that’s three floors up—and you’re seeing it through an atrium, or a matrix of walls, or something—it can only be done by building a physical model or by using 3D software.

The reason we use SketchUp is because we can do so many iterations so quickly. Our design process is very iteration-heavy. On the CSM, we iterated through the configuration of the walls and floor planes and roof plane to make it feel, at the same time, like a complex spatial organism and a single body. Getting those two things to come together is quite difficult. We probably made a thousand models of basically the same thing.

Are you serious? A thousand?

Yeah, but not full-fledged models—study models. We also use the Scenes feature to orchestrate animations of moving through the space. Because it’s not actually about single points of perspective; it’s about the experience of actually moving through the space — people don’t just stand still. I’ll click from scene to scene and we’ll review how the space unfolds as you’re moving through it. It’s like having a small physical model and turning it around in your hands, but with SketchUp, you actually get to be inside the thing.

What other design tools do you use? How does SketchUp Pro interact with the rest of your toolkit, and how does that interaction support your design process?

Extensive hand drawing, hand sketching, just to get details out. A lot of photo collage, primarily in Photoshop. A lot of concept modeling, which is different from spatial modeling. Our concept models are not white foamcore models; they’re the kind of models that you can only make in a wood shop, or through metal casting, concrete casting, or glass casting. We had a guy make a model where he hammered spikes of glass into this huge chunk of wood. He actually figured out how to do it without breaking the glass, which was ridiculous. Those are the tools we use at the beginning of our process.

Then we use Vectorworks, our drafting software, and Illustrator, and Photoshop, and SketchUp Pro to do diagramming and planning work in our programming and planning phases. When we get into schematic design, it’s basically the same toolset, and even on into design development. We end up doing generative design all the way through the end of CDs.

In some cases, we build concept models even for details. We use SketchUp Pro and Maxwell to visualize how details will look in the space, and how lighting will work. We work extensively—especially on our museum projects—with lighting designers. We’ve worked a lot with Arup Lighting Design. In the past, we’ve built 1 inch = 1 foot physical models that Arup would use for lighting analysis. These days, we’re more likely to build 3D models in SketchUp Pro to give them. They give us back rainbow-colored model renderings that tells us where the light is going to be hot and where it’s not.

What’s your workflow from SketchUp to Vectorworks look like?

Depending on the project, we export vector graphics from SketchUp Pro and import them into VW to use as a baseline for the drawings. With the CSM, we had a model that was 100% accurate to the drawings. People on the team ended up using the model to design the details before they did the drawings.

So your SketchUp model reflects what was actually built?

Almost. I think that during the construction administration phase, they didn’t keep it up—as always, there were some slight modifications made during construction. We used the 100% CD model for coordination with the mechanical engineers. I don’t know if they used SketchUp themselves or converted the model into something else, but I know it was very helpful for them. Like in a lot of our projects, the mechanical space is really tight, so coordination was tough. Having a 3D model was key.

1st floor plan, gallery floor plan, section; Vectorworks

Is there a feature specific to the Pro version of SketchUp that you find particularly valuable?

Going through the list of Pro features, it’s obvious to me that we couldn’t make do with just the free version—primarily for the communication between different software packages. We’re always moving back and forth between SketchUp Pro and Vectorworks using DXFs or DWGs; going back and forth between SketchUp Pro and Rhino using 3DS, and sending MXS files to Maxwell Render Suite.

We also love the Solid modeling in SketchUp Pro 8. We’re doing a lot of furniture work now, and we use SketchUp Pro to do that modeling. For the current version of the furniture we’re working on, it has a lot to do with the idea of carving out of a solid body. So we model the solid body, we model the shape of the “carve”, and we subtract one from the other. Before the Solid tools in SketchUp Pro 8, we would have had to make both of those forms, intersect the two to generate the necessary edges, and delete the extraneous faces. Now I don’t have to do all that. Solid tools are definitely a big thumbs-up for me.

Clyfford Still Museum furniture studies; SketchUp, Maxwell Render

If we told you tomorrow that you couldn’t use SketchUp, what would happen to your design process? How would you work?

I guess someone would just have to get a lot faster on some other kind of software. None of the other programs we use are as fast; we’d be taking a step backward in terms of the speed at which we can produce design iterations and models for visualizations. It would be tough. Please don’t do that.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

In our third and final installment in our blog series profiling Turner Construction, Jim Barrett, Director of Integrated Building Solutions explains how Turner uses SketchUp Pro as an innovative training tool:

Turner takes advantage of SketchUp Pro’s ease-of-use, friendly environment and the 3D Warehouse as a fundamental tool for introducing Turner engineers, superintendents, and safety managers to Virtual Design and Construction (VDC).

Turner training courses begin with teaching SketchUp Pro. Many VDC concepts are taught through SketchUp. SketchUp Pro is also a core tool and foundational step towards Turner’s advanced VDC tools and processes.

Jim explains, "We find that SketchUp Pro is a great tool for introducing fundamental modeling and analysis skills to all construction families. At Turner, we include SketchUp Pro as part of the standard program installation package on all computers. This makes SketchUp just a click away for all users."

We'd like to thank Jim and all the folks at Turner for giving us a detailed peek into how they use SketchUp Pro in their operations. We look forward to hearing more.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing

As part of our commitment to providing low to no cost software to schools, the Google SketchUp Pro K-12 Statewide License Grant has been issued to 50 recipients worldwide. These include 39 U.S. states, 6 Canadian provinces, 2 Australian states, and all of New Zealand.

We’re proud to announce the most recent recipient: Ireland. All Irish primary and secondary schools will now have access to SketchUp Pro at no charge. Joining Ireland in this latest batch of new Pro recipients are:

• Nevada
• Montana
• Florida,
• Wyoming
• Hawaii
• Arizona
• Alaska
• North Dakota
• Tennesee
• British Columbia
• Nova Scotia
• Alberta
• Saskatchewan
• New South Wales
• Tasmania

If you're a primary or secondary educator, you can check out details on our Google SketchUp Pro K-12 License Grant program site. It includes links to valuable training resources, technical support information, a group forum, case studies, and a map of states, provinces and counties which have already enrolled. If your locality isn't one of them, ask your state technology director (or international equivalent) to apply. License grant recipients don't pay a cent for SketchUp Pro.

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Google SketchUp for Education Program Manager

The National Turner Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) team has developed several SketchUp plugins in Ruby to bring existing and evolving VDC processes into the simple, efficient and visual environment of SketchUp Pro.

A proprietary plugin for steel modeling and tracking was created to accelerate the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) at the World Trade Center Transportation Hub. The tool was written to batch convert single line framing plans into 3D steel sizes, using a standard library of parts. This tool was expanded to report steel takeoffs and is now used throughout Turner to support estimating and pre-construction services.

By developing our own tools on top of the intuitive interface of SketchUp Pro, we continue to increase operational efficiencies. The place steel plugin is a great example of how streamlining the modeling process by reviewing the process of modeling steel, standardizing the modeling of stock pieces, and integrating that database information into SketchUp Pro reduces redundancy as well as dimensional errors in steel sizing.

Working with several Turner offices including, New York City and Seattle, a takeoff plugin was developed to support Turner’s current approach to “Control Quantity Models” and “Gross Square Foot” takeoffs. This tool allows SketchUp models to be built for different purposes. For example, using client or business unit standards, we still achieve consistent and accurate takeoffs of square footage, count, length and volumes (using SketchUp Pro’s Solid Tools).

Design information is still in its infancy and rapidly changing. Supporting Turner’s evolving estimating expertise, a plugin was developed to accelerate the takeoff process for conceptual estimates. This plugin allows for rapid creation of space and room plans, as well as the detailed takeoff information that is required for estimates.

These two takeoff plugins work together to seamlessly streamline the quantity takeoff process developed by estimators in SketchUp Pro. At Turner, we look at opportunities to develop existing processes & workflows using new tools.

In this way, we aren’t teaching new workflows based on new tools as they come along (a very disruptive process for any business). Rather, we’re able to leverage the skill sets and broad knowledge bases of our VDC team to build streamlined versions of existing workflows into new tools.

In the third (and last) installment of the series, we’ll explore how Turner is using SketchUp Pro in a unique and innovative way: for safety training.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing

Licensed Category:

Free Category:

We sat down with Jim Barrett, Director of Integrated Building Solutions, to discuss how Turner is using new technologies and processes to solve everyday problems. In this first installment, Jim tells us about SketchUp Pro’s role in Turner’s World Trade Center Transportation Hub Project.

To meet the accelerated schedule and high number of deliverables for the World Trade Center Transportation Hub Project, Turner turned to SketchUp Pro. This project is not only a complex matrix of building system and structural elements; it also requires detailed phasing of demolition and construction to avoid disturbance to the six major subway lines that run within the project extents. Coordination models are essential for planning phasing and coordinating the location of not only the permanent structures, but also the temporary construction items such as formwork, shoring, and bracing.

Weekly work-in-place presentation updates are automated through a custom Turner plugin (which we’ll discuss in Part 2 of this post) for exporting images to slide presentation software. The ability to customize workflows provides Turner with the opportunity to combine constructibility studies with graphic information about the schedule and clearly represent this information to the project team.

Interoperability is key for Engineers at Turner. SketchUp Pro’s ability to import and save to exchange file formats allows the team to compile models from multiple disciplines, regardless of the model’s software origin. In this way, the team can quickly study complex details and integrate additional information to an existing model.

We’d like to thank Jim and Turner Construction for chatting with us. In part 2, we’ll explore a couple of Turner’s custom plugins used to bring existing processes into the simple, efficient and visual environment of SketchUp Pro.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing

Curviloft lets you do three basic operations; which one you use depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. For the sake of brevity (and simplicity), I’m going to focus on only the first operation in this post: Loft By Spline.

The Basics

Let’s say you have two profiles that you want to connect together. The example below is super-simple: It’s a circle directly above a square. Here, I want to connect the two with a shape that goes directly between them. Curviloft’s Loft By Spline tool was made for just this kind of thing.

I start with two flat profiles (shapes) positioned one above the other.

With nothing selected, I activate Loft By Spline and click once on each shape. Because there are only two, it doesn’t matter which shape I click first. If there were more than two, I’d click in the order that I want to connect them, starting at either end. When both profiles are numbered, I click the green checkmark in the Curviloft toolbar (see below). This brings me into Preview mode, where I can see what I’m about to end up with.

The Curviloft toolbar is complicated; there’s no getting around it. The good news is that you don’t have to understand what all the controls do in order to use the tool. In Preview mode, you can just click things to see what happens. There's no shame in experimentation.

The Curviloft toolbar is a doozy, but you can (and should) click buttons to see what happens. Every case is different, and some settings look better than others.

When you perform a Loft by Spline operation with Curviloft, the tool is generating two different kinds of geometry which it later combines. Intermediate profiles (left) are "in-between" 2D shapes spaced between the profiles you start out with. Splines (right) are lines that connect adjacent profiles together. They can be straight or curvy, depending on the settings you choose.

I like to fiddle with the Spline Method settings first (see below). This is where you control the shape of the vertical lines (splines) that connect the two profiles—in this case, the circle and the square. The three options that I find give the most interesting results are “Junction by connected lines”, “Bezier curves – Respect tangency (Method 2)” and “Junction by Orthogonal Bezier Curves”. By all means, try the other buttons, too; there’s gold in them thar hills.

Playing with the Vertex Matching controls also yields some useful options (see below). Here, you’re telling Curviloft how to decide which points on the perimeter of each profile should connect to one another. In this case, the circle has 24 endpoints and the circle only has four. The tool does its best to figure out the intermediate geometry, but the Vertex Matching settings let you provide guidance. For me, the most interesting button is the one on the far right; often, deselecting “Orientate contours to their best-fit box” seems to produce better results. Click it a few times to see what happens.

When you’re satisfied, hit Enter on your keyboard (or click the green checkmark on the toolbar) to finish generating the result.

While you’re still in Preview mode, clicking on black part of your preview object opens yet another set of controls. The Properties of the Edited Junction window shows you more information about the connections in the operation you’re doing. My favorite widgets here have to do with twisting; they let you rotate either of your profiles (in this case, the circle and the square) by 15 or 90 degree increments. The result is an insanely cool twisting effect. Click the little right and left arrows and you’ll see what I mean. Addictive, no?

Loft by Spline works great on profiles that aren’t lined up perfectly, too. Below, I’ve moved and rotated the circle.

Again, trying different Spline Method settings produces pretty wildly different results.

I've written about a couple of Fredo6's other terrific plugins in the past. RoundCorner gives you the ability to quickly and easily create rounds and fillets on almost any shape. FredoScale is a toolkit for stretching, bending, twisting and otherwise deforming your models in incredibly useful ways.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

We're taking bird's eye view to a whole new level with the latest version of Google Earth, released today. With Google Earth 6.2, we’re bringing you the most beautiful Google Earth yet, with more seamless imagery and a new search interface. Additionally, we’ve introduced a feature that enables you to share an image from within Google Earth, so you can now simply and easily share your virtual adventures with family and friends on Google+.

A seamless globe
The Google Earth globe is made from a mosaic of satellite and aerial photographs taken on different dates and under different lighting and weather conditions. Because of this variance, views of the Earth from high altitude can sometimes appear patchy.

Today, we’re introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smoothes out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves the unique textures of the world’s most defining geographic landscapes—without the quilt effect. This change is being made on both mobile and desktop versions of Google Earth. While this change will appear on all versions of Google Earth, the 6.2 release provides the best viewing experience for this new data.

Google Earth is a great way to virtually explore the globe, whether revisiting old haunts or checking out a future vacation spot. With the Google Earth 6.2 update, we’ve added the option to share a screenshot of your current view in Google Earth through Google+. If you’ve already upgraded to Google+, you can share images of the places you’ve virtually traveled to with your Circles, such as family, friends or your local hiking club. To try this new feature, simply sign in to your Google Account in the upper right hand corner of Google Earth and click “Share.” Images of mountains, oceans, deserts, 3D cities, your favorite pizza shop on Street View—you can now experience all these amazing places around the world with people on Google+.
Search improvements

We’ve also made some updates to the search feature in Google Earth. Aside from streamlining the visual design of the search panel, we’ve enabled the same Autocomplete feature that’s available on Google Maps. We’ve also introduced search layers, which will show all the relevant search results (not just the top ten), so now, when looking for gelato in Milano, you can see all the tasty possibilities. Finally, we’ve added biking, transit and walking directions, so if you’re itching for a change of scenery or looking for a new route for your regular commute, you can now use Google Earth to generate and visualize all your options.

Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager, Google Earth

Of course, if you’re one of those designers and you find yourself competing with 2,999 others, affordable and efficient design software is a pretty key resource. Enter SketchUp. CustomMade’s CEO Mike Salguero recently shared a few compelling projects that were brought to life using SketchUp:

Sure enough, SketchUp plays a critical role in not just the design of CustomMade projects, but in the collaborative conversations between clients and artisans. Jason Hernandez, of Jason Andrew Designs, uses SketchUp to fuel the ideation and iteration process between clients and contractors: the end result, a project that both parties can buy into.

Posted by Mark Harrison, Community Manager

Message from CustomMade.com
Have you started designing your dream project with SketchUp? Post a project description on CustomMade’s “Get it Made” job board and upload .skp files as attachments. Artisans interested in building your custom project will have the chance to experience your inspiration in 3D and contact you. Let the collaboration begin!

But how to turn your SketchUp habit (and job cranking out toilet stall details) into days full of armor design and wandering through bad neighborhoods looking for interesting photo-textures to shoot?

Google SketchUp for Game Design is Robin de Jongh’s newest book; he also wrote SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization. It presumes that you’re a SketchUp beginner, but then quickly gets on to the good stuff:

• Finding good resources for photo-textures
• Using Meshlab to convert your models in useable 3D game assets
• Working with the Unity 3D game engine (which is widespread, free-or-low-cost middleware for designing game levels)
• Creating high-quality textures for games
• Adapting your models for use in video games
• Authoring custom levels
• Modeling low-poly game assets (including cars) and selling them online

Robin’s writing is accessible and easy to follow. He packs a lot of information into each page, but manages to keep the tone friendly and even funny at times. While the book’s in black and white, color versions of the images are available from the publisher’s website.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

We’re curious to learn more about what SketchUp users want out of 3D printing: if you were going to (or already have!) print a SketchUp model, what would it be? Take a couple minutes to let us know.

Posted by Mark Harrison, Community Manager

For some children on the spectrum, especially those who are nonverbal, SketchUp serves as a way to communicate allowing them to share their thoughts through images. Other kids learn life skills that help them to achieve educational and career goals they might not have even aspired to before SketchUp. It seems SketchUp builds self-esteem since these children are able to model circles (and squares) around their neurotypical peers.

It was these anecdotes that inspired Cheryl Wright, Associate Professor in Family & Consumer Studies, at the University of Utah, to study the SketchUp/autism connection in detail. Cheryl and her team have hosted several SketchUp camps, called project iSTAR, for dozens of children with autism. Here's a short video intro to the program:

Cheryl’s team studied hundreds of hours of video of campers, and last month they published a paper in the Family & Consumer Sciences Research Journal outlining their findings. While the camp set out to develop a skill set that could lead to potential employment, Utah researchers found several added benefits, such as stronger interpersonal relationships and greater confidence due, in large part, to a focus on the kids’ talents instead of their disorder. Cheryl explains, “[The campers] talents are often invisible. In our program, we provided a platform for their talents to shine.”

This, of course, is only a taste of the study’s findings, and we encourage you to read the team’s article to learn more. Lastly, we’d like to thank the University of Utah for helping us, and the world, understand how we can better prepare children on the autism spectrum for success. We look forward to continuing to forge new learnings that will enable us to touch more lives.

Post by Tom Wyman, Project Spectrum

For some folks, “useful” means a project they’ve designed and built for their personal use. For instance, these two submissions are great examples of (small and big) personal projects modeled on SketchUp:

“Useful” also means creating something of value for other people, and then actually selling it! Consider the Kapsule Lightstand, a lighting accessory for the Amazon Kindle, designed by Jonathan Hirschman of the NYC SketchUp User Group. (PS You can actually help fund this project through Kickstarter!).

We were also impressed by this Apple cord holder from Dean Heckler of Heckler Design:
another Kickstart project with great design, and also a great design story:

Whether you design projects for yourself or for the rest of the world, we want to see what you’ve created. If you have a SketchUp model that has become reality, add it to our Make Ideas Real collection!

Posted by Mark Harrison, Community Manager

It’s that time of year again! The stockings are hung by the chimney with care and Google and NORAD are ready to answer the question of “where?”

NORAD’s tradition of tracking Santa on Christmas Eve started in 1955, when a Sears and Roebuck ad promoting the Talk-to-Santa hotline inadvertently sent callers to CONAD (NORAD’s predecessor) commander-in-chief’s operations hotline. After recovering from the surprise that the call was not from the Pentagon or the White House but instead a little boy inquiring if the commander was Santa Claus, Colonel Harry Shoup asked his team to check their radar for signs of Santa’s sleigh and a tradition was born.

The Santa tracking tradition has grown over the years and today it’s also possible to track Santa using Google Earth and Google Maps on the NORAD Santa site, and on your mobile phone as well. Starting tomorrow (Saturday, December 24) at 2:00 a.m. EST, visit www.noradsanta.org to follow Santa’s journey from the North Pole to homes all over the globe. This year there are many ways to keep tabs on Santa’s sleigh, no matter how quickly it moves:

• Follow Santa on Google Maps: Visit www.noradsanta.org to see where Santa is currently flying and where he’s headed next on Google Maps. Click on the video icons to watch “Santa cam” videos from all over the world, and the gift icons will display information about each city along the route.
• Watch Santa fly in 3D with the Google Earth plug-in: If you have the Google Earth plug-in installed on your computer, you can track Santa’s location in 3D and see him deliver presents everywhere from the mountain villages of the Swiss Alps to the white sand beaches of Hawaii.
• Track Santa from your mobile phone: Follow Santa on the go by searching for [santa] on the Google Maps for mobile app.
• Get updates via social media: The NORAD team will be posting updates about Santa’s flight throughout the day on December 24. Follow them on Google+, Twitter or Facebook for live updates.
• Subscribe to the NORAD Tracks Santa YouTube channel: All “Santa cam” videos will be posted on the NORAD Tracks Santa YouTube channel as they’re captured. You can also watch a recap of Santa’s 2010 trip. Check back often for updates!

Santa flying over London in Google Earth

NORAD Tracks Santa is a special project near and dear to all of us involved. I started working on the program seven years ago and it’s been a thrill to watch it grow over the years. Recently, I was given the opportunity to speak at TEDActive about the origins of NORAD Tracks Santa and how Google has brought this to life in Google Earth.

I’d like to thank all of Santa’s “elves” that helped out across Google and NORAD far and wide. Happy Holidays!

Posted by Bruno Bowden, Lead Google Engineering Elf

3DOn ARchitecture is an augmented reality app for architects. It allows you to upload your SketchUp models and view them on an iPhone or an iPad in three different modes. Preview mode lets you overlay your model onto a photograph of your site. Walk mode lets you explore your model inside and out, and On-site mode lets you view your model in situ—in real time.

3DOn ARchitecture can be downloaded for iPhone (3GS or later) or iPad. For more information, you can visit the 3DOn website or follow the 3DOn team on Twitter.



Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Sales Team

With SU Walk, you can create beautiful, photorealistic animations from your SketchUp models. Key features include:

• Photorealism. Apply reflections and lights directly inside SketchUp.
• Keyframe animations. Export a variety of formats including .mp4 and .avi.
• Weather environments. Choose from clear sky, moving clouds, rain, fog, even moonlight to add realism to your animation.
• Speed. Polygon reduction makes camera movement in the scene very fast.

Here is a video of SU Walk in action:

SU Walk costs $129 for a single license, but discounts are available for bulk purchases, educators and owners of SU Podium V2. SU Walk works with Google SketchUp 7 or 8 and is currently Windows only, but a Mac version is upcoming. Learn more: suwalk.com.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

To refresh your memory, this year's competition is focused on drawing attention to the employment needs of individuals with autism. The idea is simple: use SketchUp to design a space that represents your dream job, career interests or plans for future employment.

The contest is open to all, so submit your entry soon for a chance to win up to $3,000.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I am Sam Jankis, industrial engineer and co-developer of Skelion, although my partner is the real code developer of the plugin: Juan Pons is a Spanish engineer and programmer. Skelion was born in July 2011 after two years of development. It is a plugin for Google SketchUp that allows you to, among other things, insert solar panels on surfaces automatically.

Why did you build Skelion?

Skelion was developed to automate the design of solar systems using Google SketchUp. The goal was to do all the design work we were doing, but automatically. Now we can do with four clicks what we were doing in four hours. Skelion reduced considerably our average time expended on doing layouts and energy production reports of solar systems, and allowed us to multiply by four the preliminary studies we could do.

How does it work?

Basically, you select a surface where you want to insert solar panels and click on the solar cell logo. A menu appears that asks you about tilt and orientation for the panels, the type of panel, and a shading range for a given day. Photovoltaic panels can be selected from our database or you can create your own, and they can be placed in portrait or landscape orientation. After that, the plugin automatically inserts the solar panels on your selected surface. It also works with irregular surfaces. For more information, take a look at our video tutorials.


What are your goals for the plugin?

The goal for Skelion is to become a standard design tool in the solar industry. We believe that as soon as solar designers get familiar with the plugin they are going to love it—as we do.


How can SketchUp modelers try Skelion?

They can download the plugin from our download page. The Free version includes the most powerful feature: the automatic insertion of solar panels. With the Pro version, you get some interesting and useful features such as energy reports.



Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Sales Team

SITEOPS is conceptual land development software for folks like architects, civil engineers, landscape architects and land developers. After you’ve brought in a site, you can combine building footprints with critical elements like parking, islands and driveways. These elements are parametric, meaning that they re-draw themselves on the fly as you change aspects of your conceptual design. SITEOPS even provides budget tools for estimating the cost of a project.

Want to see what a parking layout might look like if your building were on the other side of the site? As you slide it over, the parking lot automatically reconfigures to maintain the proper number of spaces. Too cool. This short video shows SITEOPS it in action:

Realizing that lots of their users are also SketchUp devotees, the good people at BLUERIDGE have added an Export to SketchUp button to their product. It lets you figure out the complicated stuff in SITEOPS, then visualize your project in SketchUp. It’s available to SITEOPS customers who have also purchased the Grading and Piping Module. These pictures tell the story better than words can:

This is a view of a 2D site layout in SITEOPS.

A 3D image of the same site in SITEOPS' Grading and Piping Module.

The site after it's been exported to SketchUp. The model includes all of the 3D topographical information from SITEOPS.

Here’s a video that features a couple of SketchUp users talking about their impressions of SITEOPS’ new SketchUp integration:

Update: The folks at BLUERIDGE Analytics are offering a free webinar about using SITEOPS with SketchUp Pro. It's scheduled for 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012. Sign up if you're interested—the webinar also carries 1 PDH or 1 LU.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Looking at a small interior space from the outside isn't very rewarding.

Deleting the ceiling and switching to a top view is useful, but fiddly.

Standing in the corner and making your Field of View really wide is just weird. What are you—a housefly?

Both of the above techniques work—to a point. Personally, I think it’s like trying to read a book through a keyhole. By far my favorite method for working on small interiors is to make use of SketchUp’s ability to have faces with different materials on each side:

The face separating Susan and Sang is yellow on one side and green on the other.

Creating a completely transparent material and painting the green side makes it see-through.

The Entity Info dialog box shows that the selected face is yellow on the front and see-through on the back.

By painting the outward-facing surfaces with a see-through material—one whose opacity is set to 0%—I can see in from the outside. Super useful, super simple.

Here, I painted all of the outward-facing surfaces with a transparent material. Notice that the interior surfaces still look opaque?

Orbiting around my model, I can see through all of the walls. I can even see through the floor.

The Model Your Town Competition is open to just about everyone, just about everywhere in the world. Form a team, model buildings (using SketchUp or Building Maker) and upload them by the end of February 2012.

You can model as many structures as you like – which types of buildings you choose to include is entirely up to you. The important thing is that your choices say something about the character and history of your town.

If your town wins, a bunch of us from the SketchUp team will visit, throw you a dinner party and do our best to make you feel like the local hero that you truly are. Check out the competition website for details, and start rounding up teammates!

Here's some inspiration by way of the 2010 winner, Jorge De Albertis, from Lima, Peru (just to get your creative juices flowing):

New to geo-modeling? Learn more at Your World in 3D, then get started modeling your town!

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Google Geo team

To accommodate more people, the folks behind Maxwell have just released something they’re calling Maxwell for Google SketchUp. It’s a dedicated photo-renderer, based on the venerable Maxwell rendering engine, that operates entirely inside of SketchUp. Best of all, it has the Big Three qualities going for it:

• Cross-platform. It works on both Windows and Mac systems.
• For both free and Pro. It works on both SketchUp and SketchUp Pro.
• Two entry points. There are free and licensed versions available.

As you can see in this straightforward feature matrix, the free version allows you to render in Draft mode and limits your resulting image to a resolution of 800 pixels. The Licensed version adds Production mode (faster rendering of complex lighting) and increases your maximum output resolution to 1920 pixels. At only $95/75€, the paid version is a bit of a bargain.

If you’re looking for all the bells and whistles and extra pixels that Render Suite offers, the “bridge” plugin for sending your SketchUp model to R.S is still available. So really, SketchUp modelers who want Maxwell’s delicious, unbiased results have three options. And they’re all good ones.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

As popular as they were, our old videos were getting a little long in the tooth; they showed SketchUp 6. We decided that they should be remade, so we locked Tyson in a closet with a computer and a pile of army rations. It worked—our new training videos are not only current, they’re gorgeous. With Tyson’s scripts and visuals (and Alex’s melodious narration), getting started with SketchUp has never been easier. Here they are, in order:

One more thing: We didn’t stop at the videos. We gave the whole SketchUpVideo YouTube Channel a facelift. With helpful navigation menus in the upper-left corner, a new masthead and a big, blue Download button right at the top, SketchUp’s home on the world’s biggest video sharing site is now a whole lot lovelier. Pop on over when you get a chance.


Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Well, it’s time for all you unsung SketchUp heroes to stand up and take a bow, so today, we’re kicking off the Make Ideas Real project. The result of this initiative will be an innovative, online showcase that does justice to the impact SketchUp users are having on the physical world.

But we need your help to pull this off.

Here’s how you can pitch in: Use this form to tell us your SketchUp story. Send us an image of a SketchUp model with an accompanying photograph that shows your completed project. Anything goes for subject matter; architecture, archeology, industrial design, construction, woodworking, personal fabrication, model railroading, mousetrap design — as long as SketchUp helped you make it, we want to see it. Professionals, semi-professionals and proud amateurs are all welcome.

Here are three examples of what we mean:

Over the next few months, we’ll curate the submissions we receive, and in 2012, we’ll launch a special showcase of SketchUp users who are reimagining the spaces we inhabit. Please share your story with us, so we can share it with the world.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp team

Follow Me: The Hard Way
In most cases, the wrong way to use Follow Me is to activate the tool, click the face you want to extrude, and attempt to drag it along a set of edges. For complicated extrusion paths, this can be painfully inefficient.

Follow Me: The Right Way
Next time you need to extrude a face along a path, use Follow Me this way:

1. Make sure your extrusion profile (a face) and your extrusion path (one or more edges) are set up the way you want them to be.
   
2. Select (with the Select Tool) the edges that make up the extrusion path you want to use.
3. Activate the Follow Me Tool by clicking its icon or choosing Tools > Follow Me. When you active Follow Me, the edges you selected in Step 2 will appear to deselect; they won't be highlighted anymore. Don't worry, though -- they're still selected.
   
4. Click (with the Follow Me Tool) the face you want to extrude.
5. Everything happens in a flash. Voilà!
   

That’s all there is to it. You can take your time selecting exactly the edges you want. You can orbit, zoom and pan in order to select a complex three-dimensional path. No more cussing and sweating while you try to get the extrusion to go exactly where you want it to. Sometimes a little knowledge can save a lot of headache.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

This month’s update to 45° imagery in Google Maps includes U.S. and international imagery.

Let’s just begin with Graz. It’s the second largest city of Austria (behind Vienna), located in Steiermark. It is a typical Austrian town with a vivid university life, a charming historic center mostly of the Gothic period and is significantly influenced by mediterranean climate which manifests being among the sunniest places in Austria due to its location at the southeastern rim of the Alps. Arnold Schwarzenegger - bodybuilding world champion, movie star and former governor of California - was born and raised nearby.

Canton OH is home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame which opened in 1963 and where the busts of America’s greatest professional football players are enshrined.

So you can imagine our delight when our friends at Filter Foundry told us that Harald was using SketchUp extensively on his latest project, PULSE: the complete guide to the future of racing. We immediately reached out to Harald who happily agreed to tell us more.

“I can somehow just create in SketchUp,” Harald explains. “It allows me to visualize my ideas very quickly, giving me free range to explore. I literally use SketchUp the way I used to sketch with a pencil.”

Harald starts with a SketchUp model and uses Photoshop to bring it to life.

He continues, “SketchUp allows me to very easily create an environment for any vehicle I have designed. The typical application for SketchUp is to model something in 3D, set up the perspective, export the image and use that as an underlay for an illustration in Photoshop.”

This evolution of a space through SketchUp and Photoshop.

Speaking more broadly about SketchUp’s role in the movie industry, Harald tell us that “once it caught on, it spread like wildfire. Now everybody I know is using it.”

He continues, “Since a lot of people I work with are using SketchUp, it’s a great crossover platform, too. I can model something in SketchUp and I can send that file to somebody who adds something else to it, and it sort of becomes this thing that everybody adds to.”

An electric race from the pages of PULSE.

Thankfully, Harald believes it’s the “natural obligation” of an industry vet to share acquired knowledge, and to make good, he’s posting a series of SketchUp quick tips on Filter Foundry. His first tip shows “how easy it is to create good tires in SketchUp.” Stay tuned for more.

Harald is offering SketchUp tips on Filter Foundry.

As a final note, it’s worth mentioning that Harald got into SketchUp the way most of us did: by modeling (or at least attempting to model) his own house.

Like most, Harald first used SketchUp to design his house.

“The way I learned SketchUp was on a tip from a friend, who said to just make your own house in SketchUp.” With a big grin, Harald continues, “Before I was even close to finishing my own house, I started designing my dream house. It ended up being 15,000 square feet. It’s a little big, but there’s nothing wrong with dreaming big.”

We’d like to thank Harald for taking the time to chat with us; thanks also to our friends at Filter Foundry for making this story possible. To see even more of his work, check out Harald’s pad on Filter Foundry or visit his personal site, haraldbelker.com.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing

]]> https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/pulse-pounding-visuals-from-hollywood-artist-harald-belker/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/google-geo-teachers-institutes-bring-innovative-educators-together-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=google-geo-teachers-institutes-bring-innovative-educators-together-2 https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/google-geo-teachers-institutes-bring-innovative-educators-together-2/#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:44:00 +0000 Gopal Shah https://googledata.org/?guid=56deaba86aaaafa10ac2ff557bf43bcb [Cross-posted from the Lat Long blog]

Educators have created many exciting lessons with Google’s tools. These tools help students learn about the world in fun ways. Recently they had the opportunity to share this work with peers from all over the US at two Google Geo Teachers Institute events, first in Washington DC at National Geographic Headquarters and then at the University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College in Lewiston, Maine.

The Institute was an intensive, two-day event where participants got hands-on experience using Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google SketchUp. Participants also learned about Google Fusion Tables and Chromebooks, and heard from a variety of guest educators. Juan Jose Valdez, head geographer at National Geographic Society, and Angus King, former governor of Maine, gave keynote addresses on the importance of geographic literacy and the state of technology in education today.

Educators had the opportunity to see and hear how Google’s tools can be integrated easily into all subjects to create a more meaningful learning experience for their students. For example, Jerome Burg of Google Lit Trips demonstrated how Google Earth can be used to teach all levels of literature. Mike Hathorn of Hartford High School and Beryl Reid of Billerica School District discussed how students are using SketchUp for historical architecture projects. Margaret Chernosky of Bangor High School showed attendees how she helps students visualize geographic data into Google Earth. Jim Sill of El Diamante High School shared his Google Maps educational tips and tricks as well.

Google Earth and SketchUp bring the world's geographic information to teachers and students in a new and unique way. Google Earth's satellite imagery and Google SketchUp models create a 3D experience of the entire planet, giving students an opportunity to explore in ways never before possible. The many layers provided in Google Earth include a plethora of information and resources for both teachers and students. From literature to science and from math to history, Google Earth, Maps, and SketchUp provide a compelling and fresh way to teach, learn, and explore.

Visit the Google for Educators website for more ideas on how to bring geographic technology into the classroom.

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, Geo Education Team

]]> https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/google-geo-teachers-institutes-bring-innovative-educators-together-2/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/in-the-zome-with-rob-bell/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-the-zome-with-rob-bell https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/in-the-zome-with-rob-bell/#comments Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:48:00 +0000 Gopal Shah https://googledata.org/?guid=567c34184703e7ce8a9d69b8f9c60782 Rob Bell first introduced us to the Zome during BaseCamp 2008 at the appropriately named Cool SketchUp Stuff session. Last spring, we ran into Rob again at Maker Faire Bay Area. Being fascinated with the evolution of these geometrically hypnotic structures, we thought it would be worthwhile to share Rob’s story and learn more about his new Zome Builder plugin for SketchUp and SketchUp Pro.

About Rob
Rob has had an impressive professional career working as a Software Engineer on projects such as Living Books and Lego Mindstorms. More recently he has also done commercial design and fabrication work for companies such as Tesla Motors, Google, The LongNow Foundation and the Stanford Design School. As Rob explained to us, “the type of skills and thinking that make someone a good software engineer are the same skills that make a solid craftsman, designer and builder.”

The Zomadic Shop on a typical day

In 2006, Rob used these skills to start Zomadic, a design/fabrication studio in San Francisco’s Mission District. In his studio, Rob uses SketchUp Pro and his Shopbot CNC router for 95% of his projects. “For me, Sketchup and the Shopbot go hand in hand,” says Rob.

What are Zomes
Zomes are polar zonohedral domes. Rob’s Zomes are beautiful, organic spaces designed in SketchUp, fabricated with a CNC router and assembled with just mallets and bare hands.

A Zome at Burning Man [photo credit: Dark Sevier]

Properly, Zomes are composed of rhombic faces rather than triangulated struts and nodes.

Looking up the polar axis of a twelve frequency zome

As Rob tells it, “Zomes are about thinking of space and structure in terms of volumes - not points, nor lines, nor planes - because volumes are real and those other things are only abstractions. As Buckminster Fuller said, ‘All systems are polyhedra.’”

Designing Zomes with SketchUp Pro
For Rob, the first step in creating a Zome is designing the structure in SketchUp Pro.

The Miracula Mirabilis: A twelve frequency helical zome spire designed in Sketchup.

“SketchUp Pro has been the perfect design tool for me.” Rob continues, “I make strong use of components, layers and component instance transformations. The recent addition of the Solid Modeling Tools to SketchUp Pro has cut down my design time tremendously."

To make the design process easier, Rob also wrote a Ruby Script to generate basic polar zonohedral forms, which he subsequently released freely for anyone who’d also like to create these unique shapes.

Creating polar zonohedra and helical shells in Sketchup

And now Rob has released a new plugin for Sketchup and SketchUp Pro called Zome Builder. Zome Builder generates not just the primitive geometry of a Zome, but it also generates the part geometry that one needs in order to be able to actually build one. It’s a neat tool, which Rob continues to develop.

The vertex connectors cut on the Shopbot CNC Router

Fresh panels being test fit at Zomadic

Once Rob lands on a design, he uses Zome Builder to generate the part geometry for the panels and connectors. The parts are then ready for export to CAD for toolpathing and fabrication using a Shopbot.

After the parts are cut there’s still plenty of hand work to be done; subassemblies, edge round over, sanding and painting. Rob’s Zomes are large works of art and the attention to detail is evident to everyone who encounters them. “For this year’s project I had a core team of ten people. Everyone participated in the shop and on the playa to help me make it happen.”

The Zonotopia crew

The final step is assembly. The joinery of Zomes require no glue, nails, or staples. “I wanted to design a system where everyone could participate and have fun during the construction process,” says Rob.

Zomes, Zomes everywhere

Rob’s Zomes have been featured at Maker Faire, Lightning in a Bottle, Day of the Dead Festival, Prepare for the Playa, Decompression and of course, Burning Man where each year, he shares a new version of his ever-evolving art piece, Zonotopia.

In his words, “I think of Zonotopia as an archaeological wonder of ancient origin built by a people whose skill in art, craft and design was more sophisticated than our own. Each year I’m able to unearth a little more of what’s down there a new and amazing property of this Zonotopal architectural space is revealed and manifested. The Miracula Mirabilis is the third Zome of Zonotopia and it is the most sophisticated so far.”

The Miracula Mirabilis

“What I find so compelling is that this Zonotopal Architectural space I’m working in has just barely been explored in the computer much less actually built. There are but a handful of people around the world working in this domain -- and a rich domain it is, and that’s exciting.”

We’d like to the thank Rob for sharing his one-of-a-kind SketchUp Story story with us. We hope this post inspires you to try Rob’s Zome Builder plugin to make your own Zome. To find more pictures, models and information about Zomes, visit Rob’s website www.zomadic.com and Zomad’s 3D Warehouse page.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

]]> https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/in-the-zome-with-rob-bell/feed/ 0 https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/enter-the-sketch-a-space-design-competition-2011/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=enter-the-sketch-a-space-design-competition-2011 https://googledata.org/google-sketchup/enter-the-sketch-a-space-design-competition-2011/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:07:00 +0000 Gopal Shah https://googledata.org/?guid=664890dbeb6e0e45f7d19c62ce801182

To highlight this October’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month, our Project Spectrum team joined up again with our friends at Easter Seals to host the second annual Sketch-a-Space competition. This year’s competition is meant to draw attention to the employment needs of individuals with autism.

The contest is easy to enter: use SketchUp to design a space that represents your dream job, career interests or plans for future employment. First prize is $3,000. Sketch-a-Space is open to anyone and split into 4 categories:

• Youth with Autism: individuals with autism age 13-17 
• Adult with Autism: individuals with autism age 18 and over 
• Youth: individuals without autism age 13-17 
• Adult: individuals without autism age 18 and over 

Why are we focused on employment? When individuals with autism have access to the supports they need and engage in work that capitalizes on their strengths, the result is meaningful employment.

Last year’s Sketch-A-Space winner, JP Saikali, is the perfect example. JP started using SketchUp when he was in middle school. Now, he knows he wants his future career to be related to Computer Systems and Network Administration – a degree he’s working toward at Wentworth Institute of Technology.

JP's Ultimate Game Room

Not only that, JP made good on his winning design, The Ultimate Game Room. He used his prize money to make his design a reality creating a game room in his basement, complete with a new flat screen TV and sound system.

Now, it’s your turn. Enter today; you could be our next winner and one step closer to realizing your employment dreams.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

A haunted house I modeled years ago, with two pumpkins by IDW. He modeled them for SketchUp Island's Pumpkin Patch collection on the 3D Warehouse.

This year, we thought it might be fun to host a SketchUp Halloween Challenge for folks who are looking for something to do in their spare time. The nitty gritty:

Categories

There are two: Use SketchUp to model either a jack-o’-lantern or a haunted house. Or both.

How to submit an entry

1. Upload your model to the 3D Warehouse and make sure it’s publicly-downloadable.
2. Upload between two and ten images of your model to a public photo sharing site like Picasaweb. You can use any photo sharing site you like, but make sure your images are grouped into an album by themselves. Images should be at least 1000 pixels wide or tall, depending on their orientation.
3. Fill out the Challenge Submission Form, including links to both your model on the 3D Warehouse and your album of online images.

Judging

On Friday, October 28th, a group of us from the SketchUp team will get together to review the entries. We’ll be looking mostly at the images you submit; models will be examined when we’re picking the top three entries in each category. For an idea of what we’ll be looking for, consider these points:

• Displays of SketchUp expertise are always impressive.
• Anything that makes us say (out loud) “How’d he/she DO that?!!” is worth extra points.
• We don’t want to see anything you wouldn’t show your grandma or your kids.
• Beverages will almost certainly be involved in the judging process.

Submit as many models as you like, but fill out a separate entry form for each one. The more the ghastlier!

You can (if you like) include photo-rendered images of your model with the images you submit. You have to have at least one unrendered image, though; we’d like to see your work in its purest, SketchUp-only state.

The deadline for submissions is 11:59 PM PST on Thursday, October 27th 2011.

For fun little modeling challenges like this one, we prefer to keep things simple. Instead of prizes, we’ll publish our favorite entries right here on this blog, on October 31st. The best three models from each of the two categories (pumpkins and houses) will be featured in the November edition of the SketchUpdate newsletter, which goes to millions of people around the world.

Why no fancier prizes? When companies host big, international competitions, it takes months for their lawyers to figure everything out. On top of that, people from certain places (like Quebec and Brazil) end up being excluded because of specific laws that apply only to them. Ugh.

If you’d like a blank pumpkin to start with, this collection contains a few. Other questions about the Challenge? Please ask ‘em in the Comments for this post. Good luck!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Join in the birthday celebrations by modeling some buildings in Building Maker’s newest cities. Feliz aniversário, Building Maker!

Posted by Nicole Drobeck, Geo Community Program Manager

When you’re working on a big model, you want to make sure that you’re using a style whose Edge Settings panel looks like the one in the image below. Everything but "Edges" should be turned off.

The Face Settings panel is where you can choose not to display Transparency. When Transparency is turned on, SketchUp has to redraw your model on the screen several times—each time you change your viewpoint. If you don’t need to see through your windows just now, opt to temporarily view these faces without transparency.

The Background Settings panel is handy for turning off Sky and Ground, both of which cause your computer to do extra thinking while you’re working.

Unless you absolutely need them, you should use the checkbox in the Watermark Settings panel to turn off Watermarks.

The only toggles in the Modeling Settings panel you really need to worry about are the ones for Hidden Geometry and Section Planes. Obviously, you shouldn’t have wither of these displayed if speed is what you’re aiming for.

Once you’ve configured your own fast style, you should save it. Just give it a new name (I suggest “Fast Style”), hit Enter, and click the Create New Style button in the Styles Browser. You new style is saved in the "In Model" collection of styles, which is only associated with the model you’re currently working on.

Incidentally, almost all of the choices in SketchUp’s Default Styles collection are so-called “Fast styles” — their Edge Display settings are already configured for speed. Choosing any one of these styles will switch off extraneous effects.

Make a Fast Scene

True SketchUp whizzes invariably go one step further and add a special “Fast” scene that they can activate whenever they need to. Rather than having to mess with the Styles Browser every time they want to activate their Fast Style, they just click a scene tab at the top of the modeling window. This Fast scene is usually set up to do three things: Switch to a Fast style, turn off Shadows, and turn off Fog.

Follow these steps to add a Fast scene to your model:

1. Apply a Fast style to your model by choosing it from the Style Browser’s Select tab.
2. Make sure Shadows and Fog are both turned off. These toggles are in the View menu.
3. Choose Window > Scenes to open the Scenes Manager.
4. Expand the Scenes Manager by clicking the Show Details button in the upper right corner.
5. Click the Add Scene button to add a new scene to your model.
6. Rename your new scene “Fast” (or something similarly descriptive) and hit Enter on your keyboard.
7. Make sure that only the “Style and Fog” and “Shadow Settings” checkboxes are selected in the Properties to Save section of the Scenes Manager.

From now on, all you have to do is click the "Fast" scene tab when you want to improve SketchUp's performance. Instant productivity boost!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

I was first introduced to SketchUp about three years ago, while I was searching for simple software to model mechanical devices in 3D. My first contact with it was not very promising and I felt a bit skeptical about its real possibilities to build good mechanical models -- mainly because it seemed to be a software intended to build models for Google Earth.

However, after some days of training, I became really surprised with how easy and fast someone can model almost anything with this software. As an example of simplicity, a chain link which took me about 4 hours to model with "Mechanical Desktop" (an Autodesk application that I was using then), was done only in 50 minutes with SketchUp.

Of course, there are important differences between these softwares: SketchUp is not a CAD software, but I believe that when the problems you have to solve are simple you must always look for a simple solution and for what I need to produce in my work, SketchUp is without a doubt, the best solution.

Since those days, I'm modeling with SketchUp on a daily basis, not only to produce schemes and 3D model views for technical documents (usually for parts lists and exploded views) but also as an important helper in the development of small mechanical projects. Basic analysis about interference between machine parts or assembly sequence studies are easy with SketchUp.

A good and recent example of how SketchUp helps me in my work is the set of studies and schemes I made for a simple lifting adaptor for copper cylinders. This was a simple project entirely developed with SketchUp since the first sketch, up to the final product. All presentation and assembly schemes, and even a presentation video, were made easily and rapidly with SketchUp.

Some time ago I also started to use SketchUp in another way: as a pre-modeling tool for some architectural or "inorganic" models in Blender. Working this way dramatically simplifies the modeling work with Blender and I think is a technique that I will keep exploring.

In my humble opinion and to conclude this note, I only find one "problem" with SketchUp: the non-existence of a dedicated version for Linux. But what can we do? We all know that the world is not a perfect place.

Editor’s Note: Some Linux users have had success running the Windows version of SketchUp on Wine. The Wine Wiki provides more information.

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Team

Dave Richards is fine woodworker living in Rochester, Minnesota. By day, he maintains critical life support equipment in the Anesthesia Department at the Mayo Clinic. By night, he’s a an authorized SketchUp trainer/rockstar, contributing and teaching on the popular blog Design. Click. Build. on finewoodworking.com and the SketchUcation forums. His work has been published in Fine Woodworking magazine, and Dave is considered by many as a foremost expert on using SketchUp for woodworking. He sat down to chat with us recently. Here’s what he had to say:

How do you use SketchUp?
SketchUp is my “go to” application for woodworking. I draw all of my projects using SketchUp Pro. In fact, I really have no need for any other design application. I can work at higher precision than is needed in woodworking and I can draw everything I need with it.

Typically, I draw plans for projects so that other woodworkers can build them. Some of these projects also involve some design work and collaboration with clients while other projects involve creating plans for existing pieces of furniture. I’ve also found SketchUp useful for making detailed drawings of machines for exploded views and instructional manuals.

Have you worked on any projects that folks might have heard about?
Woodworkers who are familiar with Fine Woodworking Magazine might recognize a number of the projects I’ve worked on because they are almost always tied to articles that run in the magazine. Examples of these are an Arts and Crafts Display Case designed by Michael Pekovich and several Shaker style pieces by Christian Becksvoort.

Two Shaker Tables designed and built by Christian Becksvoort [Credit: Fine Woodworking Magazine] 

Which of your projects are you most proud of?
I’m probably most proud of the Arts and Crafts Display Case drawings as well as drawings for a work bench designed by Garrett Hack. In both cases, my SketchUp drawings were used as renders accompanying the magazine articles as well as for complete plan documentation.

Display Case documentation 

Display Case designed and built by Michael Pekovich [Credit: Fine Woodworking Magazine] 

What was your reaction the first time you used it?
I first heard about SketchUp on a woodworking forum back in the days of @Last Software. Before I downloaded the trial version of SketchUp Pro, I spent a long time looking at the videos that were available on the @Last website. I read the old forum looking at what others were doing. Finally I decided to give it a try. I was very pleased that I could quickly create a 3D perspective view of a real object with accurate dimensions. It was much easier than the CAD programs I tried and I was hooked. It didn’t take the full eight-hour trial period to decide I would buy it.

Shaker Wall Cabinet designed by Chirs Gochnour [Credit: Fine Woodworking Magazine] 

The biggest hurdle was convincing my wife that the $495 would be well-spent! I spent about that much for my tablesaw. I realized that SketchUp Pro would qualify as another big tool for my shop. At that time I had no idea I would be using it the way I do now.

Do you use any other tools in cooperation with SketchUp?
I use LayOut to create the plan documentation from the SketchUp model. This is a key part of the process for me. I also use Microsoft Excel and Word to deal with CSV files that are created for cut lists generated by the Cut List plugin. Some of the images I create need a little post processing and for that work I use PhotoShop and a freeware application called Paint.NET.

I’ve also gotten a lot of use out of Style Builder to make my own sketchy line styles. It seems like Style Builder is an under-utilized tool but I find it is very simple to create and edit line styles with it.

Stand Up Desk designed by Dave Richards and George LaRue Downing, Built by George LaRue Downing 

Any final words?

That old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words is definitely true and I frequently find times when it is easier to make a point or communicate an idea with a quick sketch done in SketchUp than to type out paragraphs of description.

We'd like to thank Dave for taking the time to talk with us. You can see even more of his SketchUp work here.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp marketing

Two of the 3D printing presentations focus on using SketchUp; they're free, but you need to register beforehand. They're currently scheduled for:

• Tuesday, September 20th at 3pm Pacific Time | Register
  
• Tuesday, October 4th at 3pm Pacific Time | Register

The sessions on laser cutting and CNC routing both use Adobe Illustrator, but that's alright -- SketchUp Pro can export to DXF and DWG, both of which open beautifully in Illustrator. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see all the sessions.

Just in case you missed it, here's a SketchUp & Personal Fabrication overview we put together a few months ago.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Step 1
Choose File > Insert... to insert a raster image into your LayOut document. Find a known measurement somewhere on your image. This known measurement can be anything: a scale bar (if you’re lucky); the length of a fence or sidewalk; or even the roofline of a building. It’s important that you find something that’s relatively large and that whose length you already know. You’ll use this portion of the image as a “benchmark” to size the entire image to a specific scale.

In my example, a scale bar was included in my image; this makes it pretty easy to use as a benchmark.

Step 2
Figure out what scale you’d like to give your inserted image. Keep in mind how the scale will impact the size of the image and how that image will fit on your page.

For this image, I’m going to use 1” = 400’ (1:48) scale. This should fit nicely on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

Step 3
Create a rectangle around the “benchmark” portion of your image. Use the Rectangle tool to do this, and make sure it has no fill (so that you can see through it.)

This scale bar only goes to 300’, so I’m going to use the 0’ - 200’ as my benchmark. 200 is half of 400, which makes the mental math easier to do.

Step 4
Select both your rectangle and your image and choose Edit > Create Clipping Mask. Select the resulting crop and give it a visible stroke so you can see its boundary.

I color the clipping mask to make its border easier to see.

Step 5
Somewhere on your page, use the Line tool to draw a line whose length corresponds to the scale of the image you’re working on.

To draw a line, click to start drawing, move your cursor in the direction you want the line to go, type the length you want and hit Enter.

Since I want a scale of 1” = 400’, and my “benchmark” is 200’ feet long, I draw a horizontal line which is one-half inch long (1 inch divided by 2).

Step 6
Move your benchmark, snapping its lower-left corner to the left endpoint of your line. Be sure that Object Snap (Arrange > Object Snap) is turned on, or snapping won’t work properly.

I snap my benchmark to the left endpoint of my line.

Step 7
Scale your benchmark so that it’s the same length as the line. With your benchmark selected, hold down the Shift key and scale it until it snaps to the right endpoint of your line. As long as you hold down Shift, your selection should scale proportionately.

I scale my benchmark to the right until it aligns and snaps to the end of my line.

Step 8
Select the benchmark and choose Edit > Release Clipping Mask. Delete the rectangle from Step 3, and the line you drew in Step 5, and you’re done. Voilà! You’ve set your image to a specific scale.

Image set at 1” = 400’ (1:48) scale and positioned on a letter-sized landscape sheet.

This may seem like a lot of steps but it’s actually pretty simple. Have a look at the following silent movie to see how it’s done.



Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Sales