October 21st, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp
When it comes to using the Follow Me tool, most folks have it wrong. There are actually two different ways to use Follow Me, and for complex extrusions, one works way better than the other.Follow Me: The Hard WayIn most cases, the wrong way to use Foll…
October 21st, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
[Cross-posted from the Google LatLong blog]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 i…
October 19th, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
Odds are, you’ve encountered Harald Belker’s work before. As a leading Hollywood concept artist, Harald is the man behind several iconic movie vehicles. His vehicular creds include:The Batmobile from Batman & RobinThe Lightcycle from TRON: LegacyTh…
October 18th, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
[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 a…
October 13th, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
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 struc…
October 12th, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
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 a…
October 7th, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp
With Halloween just a few weeks away, nerds here in the Google Boulder office are in a tizzy about their costumes. We take this particular holiday very seriously.A haunted house I modeled years ago, with two pumpkins by IDW. He modeled them for SketchU…
October 5th, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp, Uncategorized
Two years ago we launched a web-based tool that creates 3D models from a 2D workspace: Google Building Maker. At the time of the launch, users could only make models in 50 cities. Today we’re adding two more cities, just in time for the anniversary o…
October 5th, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
[Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog]How large is one billion? One billion hours ago modern humans were living in the Stone Age. One billion minutes ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing. If you traveled from Earth to the Moon three times, your …
October 4th, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp
You might not realize that the display settings you choose to apply to your models can affect SketchUp’s speed and general responsiveness. Turning on fancy edge effects and other doodads will slow you down when your model gets big.When you’re worki…
September 27th, 2011 | by A Googler | published in Google SketchUp
As you may have noticed, the Google SketchUp blog looks a lot different today. That’s because we—along with a few other Google blogs—are trying out a new set of Blogger templates called Dynamic Views.Launched today, Dynamic Views is a unique brow…
September 23rd, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp
This case study comes to us from André Silva. André is a freelancer in Lisbon, Portugal who mainly works on industrial projects and technical illustrations. He’s also currently working on some architecture and archaeology projects.I was first intro…
September 19th, 2011 | by Gopal Shah | published in Google SketchUp
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…
September 19th, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp
Just a heads up: The good people over at Ponoko are planning to hold an Online Training Extravaganza to get newbies up and running with their “personal factory” workflow. If you’re interested in 3D printing, laser cutting or CNC routing, this is for yo…
September 14th, 2011 | by aidanchopra | published in Google SketchUp
If you’ve ever inserted an aerial photo or an old scanned site plan into LayOut, you might have wanted to give it a specific scale on the page. My favorite technique for doing this uses the Clipping Mask feature.Step 1Choose File > Insert… to in…