Official - Save $100 on Google SketchUp Pro

Helen put together a promo code that knocks $100 US off the price of a new single-user Pro license (it's normally $495). European and UK customers save 20%, which works out to about the same thing.

Good until June 19th.

via Official Google SketchUp Blog

SketchUp to Blender Armature Creator

But I had a brilliant idea the other day:

Make it easier to add the armature to Blender and to assign groups to bones in the armature.

[WIP/Experiment] X's - SketchUp to Blender Armature Creator

LightUp v1.5 available

Some hilights are:
- Color & UV animation
- Metal shader mode
- GUI improvements
- Better Proxy support
- Cubic image generation
- IES improvements

via LightUp

The House That Jeff Built

Jeff Lummis recently finished a great little Lego house (set #4956) with his daughter - he sent pictures.

He thought some readers might like to build it, and I thought that was a cool idea too. So, trying out my plugin, I was able to load SketchUp with all the parts needed to build this set (except this one part.) The plugin fetches the Peeron page for the set, parses out the part #, quantity and color, and then populates the model with Components.

The plugin needs a SketchUp library of components whose names match the part number in the inventory. I have about 100 parts of the library finished, and will be making it available with the plugin.

This is a publicly-editable model, so download it, work on it, and upload your changes. (I reserved the right to approve changes.)

When it's finished, I would like to test another part of the Lego plugin - creating build instructions from the model. At first I thought printed instructions were what I wanted, but why not just use SketchUp - the SketchUp model IS the instructions.

By using Scenes, you can step through each step of the build. In a model like this (bottom-up), the steps can be mostly automated because each vertical layer of bricks can be assumed to be a step. And that is exactly how this image was created.

Deck

Image of a deck I drew up some time ago now.

New Cadyou.com Model & Texture Search

Tom of cadyou.com has created a new 3d model and texture search application that searches 13 sites for models and textures.

The search returns thumbnail links of the models and textures, and has some great sorting and filtering options.

Give it a try - it works well, looks nice, and is a real time-saver if your searching assets.

Modelur - a SketchUp tool for parametric urban design

Besides being available for Microsoft Windows, the updated version now installs on Apple Mac OS X also and can be downloaded as a part of our Pre-beta Partner Program free of charge. Due to a great response to our initial release and thanks to help of our prebeta-testers, we can now provide three additional (Portuguese, German and French) translations of the Modelur user interface.

http://www.modelur.com/

Kitchen Images

Old and new images of a kitchen exercise made for learning. Large and small variations of similar views. Images created using SketchUp, Podium, Kerkythea, and Picasa.

Small Lego Gallery

I created these images while writing the ldraw importer - sort of as a "screen test" for Lego parts in SketchUp. Nothing terribly interesting, but there they are.

I was going to post the model also, but I seem to have lost it. Oh well, here's Obi Wan and Luke's Landspeeder:

Sketchup Sun Position Plugin Version 1.0

Gabriel wrote in to announce his new Sun Position plugin:

Here is a Sketchup plugin which will draw the path that the sun travels for one day. It does this by first calculating the sun's position at the moment the plugin is run and then adding one half hour and redrawing it repeatedly until 24 hours have passed.

Nice plugin and thoroughly documented.




Thanks, Gabriel.

Sketchup Loop Subdivision Smooth Plugin @guitar-list

"This is a free opensource Loop subdivision plugin for Google Sketchup. Loop subdivision smooths hard edges to give a more rounded organic looking shape. This plugin has not been tested extensively, so please save any important Sketchup models before using this plugin on them."

The author adds "The exisiting Catmull-Clark plugins are probably better, but this one is opensource and free, so I am hoping that it will be improved by feedback and suggestions from users and other plugin writers."


Sketchup Loop Subdivision Smooth Plugin | guitar-list:

Valve SketchUp Source Tools

This just in thanks to an anonymous commenter:

The SketchUp Source Tools allow you to create 3D content for the Source game engine using Google SketchUp. There are two main file format exporters: one for .VMF and one for .SMD.

The .VMF export plugin allows you to export SketchUp models to Hammer, the environment editor for the Source game engine. Hammer is used to create game levels for titles such as Half Life, Portal, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, and Left 4 Dead.

he .SMD export plugin is useful for creating models for props or for making static models that can be placed in your levels.

Visit the Valve Developer Community for information.

[ via Anonymous Commenter ]

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Importing Lego Sets in SketchUp

I'm testing a new feature for the LDraw/SketchUp system. Just enter a set # and the plugin downloads the parts list and imports all the parts from the Peeron inventory. Here's set 208-1, for example.

Models by ArqDirk - Google 3D Warehouse

Here's a great collection of models by a talented modeller. 3d People and cartoon characters.

Models by ArqDirk - Google 3D Warehouse

Waybe 2.0 Released

The commercial SketchUp unfolding plugin Waybe version 2.0 is released.

We've released Waybe 2.0, with all the neat features we mentioned below. Better tabbing, better unfolding, and new, user-controllable unfolding.

You can select an edge to be "fixed" or "broken", and Waybe will keep the edge together or take it apart as you like. There's also the ability to select a face as the "base" of a part, which means Waybe unfolds around it. These two features let you make more complex models and have them unfold exactly the way you want.

via Waybe

Little House, Dormer Build Sheet

This is a contact sheet built from images exported from A SketchUp model. The model is not mine and was importer using my SketchUp LDraw importer plugin. The plugin uses the STEP command in the LDraw file to create a new SketchUp::Layer for each Step.

With all the Layers in place, Scenes can be automatically added, and animations created using SketchUp's built-in animation features.

Model: Little House, Dormer

 

Lego (LDraw) Build Instructions in SketchUp

I've been playing around with Legos in SketchUp (again). I've added some cool features to the importer - like creating build steps on import, and color coding each step. Each step also gets its own Layer, so you can toggle them on/off as you like. I hope soon it will be possible to create high-quality build instructions right from SketchUp.



The exporter works alright the way it is, but I'm working on incorporating the same build-step system into that. The user would need to create a Layer for each Step in the build.

Once that is done, you should be able to use SketchUp for the entire lego design and build process. The exporter is LDraw compatable, so you can load the output into any other LDraw software you use.

I have some ideas about lego-specific tools for placing and rotating parts, but we'll see how that goes...

The updates are not ready yet, but hopefully soon (a week?)

MAC Version of Augmented Reality Plug-in for Google Sketch-Up

The Development Lab of Inglobe Technologies released today the MAC version of ARmedia Plugin for Google SketchUp. AR-media™ Plugin technology allows users to bring their models from the world famous 3D modelling tool by Google straight into “reality” just in a click.

A free trial can be downloaded from this link.

Kerkythea Renders

I recently posted these 3 renders done using Podium. Here are the same models rendered in Kerkythea for comparison. Ok, 2 are the same.

 

 

 

$100 off Google SketchUp Pro

Although I can't find any mention of this on the SketchUp website, the blog archdaily is saying you can get $100 off the $495 cost of SketchUp 7 Pro until May 15 by using the code SUAIA9.

If you were planning on purchasing Google SketchUp 7 Pro, now would be a great time to do it.

via archdaily

arqpadao sketchup blog

Architect and Urbanista Fernando Padão maintains an excellent Brazilian-language architecture, design and SketchUp blog called arqpadao.

The blog features information, tutorials, and document translations - notably many documents on SketchUp and several rendering engines. Not to mention beautiful SketchUp models and renders.

Lego Minifig Image

Nathan got me started on my old LDraw lego importer, which got me looking at the plugin again. It's not bad, but there's always room for improvement.

 

Part No. 979 Rendered in Podium

Here are some great .ldr files to import.