Hout'crea-tor - vormgever aan hout

I used Styles to make a blue sky, set my Field of View to something wider than the default, dragged my modeling window into a long, wide rectangle, and aimed my camera up:

The green light should be lit up, so I colored it bright, light green. The red and amber lights got painted darker to increase the contrast between them and the green one:

To give it some definition and make it "pop" a little, I switched on shadows. There's a problem, though: lit-up faces shouldn't be able to receive shadows.

Uncheck Receive Shadows to tell faces not to let shadows fall on them.

No worries; I selected the green light, opened and expanded the Entity Info dialog box, and unchecked "Receive Shadows":

I also made sure the underside of the "eyebrow" over the lamp didn't receive a shadow. To make it look like it might be receiving greenish light, I painted it a green-tinted dark gray.

It's not a photo-rendering, but it works.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

SketchUp 7.1 for Architectural Visualization is a treasure trove of information about making your SketchUp models look their best. Robin emphasizes a workflow that uses powerful but affordable tools (like Kerkythea and GIMP) for photo-rendering, but he also talks about creating better animations, using other Google tools for context modeling, adding entourage, matching photos and plenty more. Every time I open the book, I get sucked into reading another incredibly useful tip. It's definitely the most productive time-passer within arm's reach of my computer.

If you're an experienced SketchUp modeler, you owe it to yourself to pick up Robin's book. Your models will thank you.

The above is to the book on Amazon; here it is on the publisher's website.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

This official partnership is in recognition of work that IES has done to their VE plugin; it links four levels of VE analysis software to SketchUp (both free and Pro).) We believe that this integration allows SketchUp modelers to more easily take sustainable building decisions into account early in the design phase. It provides options for design iterations in the areas of energy, carbon, water, climate impact, solar and daylight analysis early on. This partnership, which continues to grow and strengthen, will benefit architects and engineers by providing a low-cost, high quality solution for sustainable building.

You can visit the IES SketchUp page to learn more about (and download) the free plugin. The team at IES are now also running a special 60% discount offer on their early-stage analysis tools; the VE-Toolkits were specially designed to be accessed via the free plugin.

Take a look at the great videos the folks at IES have put together to show how their plugin works. Here’s a sample:



Posted by Steve Dapkus, Business Development Guy

• Original 3D Basecamp blog post | FAQ
• Invitation Request Form

SketchUp aficionados only, please

As I mentioned earlier this week, 3D Basecamp 2010 is for accomplished SketchUp modelers. As part of the invitation-requesting process, we’d like you to submit a link to a single image that demonstrates your SketchUp modeling prowess. Model anything and render it -- or don’t render it -- however you like. The important thing is to show us you know your way around the app.

Please take a look at the previous post and the FAQ for more info, but don’t delay; these invitations are going to go quickly. Good luck!

Go to the Invitation Request Form »

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

In keeping with the times (and the crowd), we've decided to make this an unconference. Apart from a few "we'd like to show you a couple of things" presentations, the content of Basecamp 2010 will be decided by you. Less slide show, more discussions; that's what we're aiming for.

To recap:

3D Basecamp 2010
September 1, 2 and 3
Boulder, Colorado, USA

Who gets to come?

We're not charging a fee, but space is definitely limited. We've already stacked the deck by inviting a select group of the SketchUp faithful -- they've already heard from us. Now we're opening up the remaining slots to anyone who'd like to come. Anyone who's a SketchUp wizard who'd like to come, that is.

Here's what we've decided to do: On Friday, July 23rd at 09:00 MDT (15:00 GMT), we'll switch on the Invitation Request form. All you have to do is fill out the form. We'll ask for your name, your email address and a single link. That link is very, very important.

Your link should lead to a single image. That image should portray an example of your SketchUp mastery. Show us your best model. It doesn't matter what you've modeled; it only matters that your work clearly demonstrates your level of skill. Blow our socks off, please.

On Monday, July 26th at 09:00 MDT (15:00 GMT), we'll switch off the form and start looking at submissions, beginning with the first one we receive and working our way down the list. Once we've reached our quota of first-class modelers (probably around 150), we'll stop looking.

If you're selected, you'll receive a confirmation email on Friday, July 30th 2010. That email will contain details about what to do next.

One more thing: I'll add a "ready, set, go!" post to this blog on Friday when the form's live. That post will include a link to the form.

See you in Boulder!

Questions? Check out this FAQ.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Large-scale projects can range from 50 to 1000 buildings.

In the design of these training environments, the use of SketchUp Pro is used as a critical collaborative design tool throughout ACS’s project work flow. SketchUp allows the designers to collaborate with training specialists to produce an accurate and functional environment specific to the needs of the trainers.

How is SketchUp Pro used?

Matt Smith, a Senior Sales Designer for ACS, explains how SketchUp is used in their design process:

“We will sit with the training specialists and virtually move through the city building by building to make adjustments specific to their training needs. From setting up the logistics and site configurations for maneuvers with Humvee vehicles to standing on buildings to determine lines of site, SketchUp allows our clients to customize and set up their training facilities in a way to be most effective and visually see how the training site will look once built. They provide immediate feedback to us so we can design with their needs in mind and we can make adjustments in the model. This is all done together live.”

Line-of-sight during the design process leads to better customization and more effective facilities.

ACS has also created specialized SketchUp component libraries and taken advantage of SketchUp’s Ruby API to allow for the production of smarter models that take less time to create:

“Having our custom SketchUp library of modular pieces allows us to take the container systems and quickly stack them like Legos -- combining them into multiple configurations to produce anything from bridges, overpasses or whatever the client wants us to design.”

“Our custom Ruby scripts allow us to apply different textures and costing attributes to our models. This customization allows us to not only create our projects rapidly and visually see the them as they will exist; it also helps us produce the costs associated with the each project.”

Custom Ruby scripts let us try out different options and see the impact on the project cost.

“To utilize our project models further, we export various elements as CAD files from SketchUp and pass them on to our production department. This allows them to produce formal construction documentation that is based on the approved SketchUp model.”

Why SketchUp Pro?

“SketchUp’s speed and flexibility is what makes it so powerful. I can make SketchUp function as most any tool I need it to be. Yes, rule-based parametric modeling systems have their role in engineering work, but they have a lot of overhead that makes them very complex. It is their complexity and rule-based environment that doesn’t allow them to keep up with our iterative design process. What could take up to a week to do in a complex modeling system may only take a day with SketchUp.”

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Sales Team

Enter the RoundCorner Ruby script by Fredo6. You activate the tool, pick the edges you want to round (or fillet), specify a couple of parameters, and hit Enter. Really great tools are ones that save hours of nitpicky, repetitive work; by this definition, RoundCorner is an all-star.

How it works

RoundCorner is a simple tool with a few (sort of) complicated settings. At its simplest, here’s what it does:

Click on an icon in the Round Corner toolbar to activate one of the “modes”: Round, Sharp or Bevel.

RoundCorner can make rounded edges with round or sharp corners. It can also make bevels (far right).

Pick edges, faces or vertices.

Use the Parameters dialog box to specify an offset and a number of sides. Using a small number of sides yields more usable models.

Increasing the number of sides on your rounded corners increases your face count exponentially.

• You can download RoundCorner (as well as all of Fredo6's other plugins) from the Ruby Library Depot.
• Fredo6 makes his plug-ins available as donationware, meaning that they're free to download and use, but that payment is always gladly accepted. I highly encourage you to support his efforts.
• This SketchUcation thread provides good discussion and examples.
• This Pushpull Bar post is helpful, too.
• So is this video that Fredo6 made.
• RoundCorner works on both Macs and PCs.

1. Unzip the folder you downloaded.
2. Move both things inside that folder (another folder called ROUNDCORNER_Dir_xx and a file called ZLoader_Roundcorner.rb) into your Plugins folder.
3. Make sure you have the latest version of LibFredo6 installed, too (there should be a link to it on the same download page.) It contains things that all of Fredo6’s scripts need to work. Download and unzip it, then move its contents (a folder called LIBFREDO6_Dir_xx and a file called LibFredo6.rb) into your Plugins folder.
4. Restart SketchUp.
5. Choose View > Tool Palettes > Round Corner to activate the tool.

I started with a boxy sofa I made awhile ago, then used RoundCorner to soften it up.

RoundCorner can handle fillets, too -- even round, uneven ones.

Rounding off the upper edges of 3D text makes it look at lot better.

I used RoundCorner an awful lot for this ship. It shoots flowers, in case you're wondering.