i.materialize Plugin and Design Challenge

To promote the release of their new 3D printing plug-in for SketchUp, i.materialize is sponsoring a design challenge for SketchUp users.

You can submit any kind of house or building design, as long as you use Google SketchUp to create your 3D model. There are no limitations on your design ideas.

The winners will win a full color 3D printed scale model of their design - normally a $400 service.


[ Official Rules: Design Challenge ]

Update Protrude Plugin (now works on Mac)

My brother kindly gave me not one, but a pair of Mac G4 Cubes. They are a little aged, but work just fine and can run SketchUp 7, so are perfect for what I need them for - testing plug-ins. Thanks bro!

This update is re-written to work on both Windows and Mac operating systems, although nothing has changed for Windows users of the plugin so there's no need to re-install if you are using SketchUp on Windows.

I have tested this on 10.4, which I hope is "close enough" to the latest version.

See the protrude post for the download and information.

This plugin requires offset and progressbar from smuatard.com (both are free.)

Hobby Vacuum Forming

Phlayboyz has come out with an inexpensive vacuum forming system starting at $99.

I've mentioned the phlatboyz cnc foam cutter (called the phlatprinter) in the past. It is made specifically for designing in SketchUp - there is a SketchUp plugin that exports a flattened (2d) model and outputs g-code for the phlatprinter.

The phlatformer is a great compliment to the type of modeling possible using the phlatprinter. This video shows Mark making a airplane fairing for strength and support. I imagine the former would work well for creating door and window elements to add detail to a building model, or for curved glass, or anywhere where you need a skin structure.



Information about the phlatboys machines can be found on their forum.

[ phlatboyz machine forum ]

Flattery Papercraft Tools for SketchUp

Flattery is a new, free SketchUp plug-in that can unfold models, adds tabs, and then export the pattern to a .svg file.

One interesting feature is called Reunite Edges. It lets you reposition surfaces after unfolding without having to start over.

Flattery is available here: Flattery Papercraft Tools

Voodoo Camera Tracker SketchUp Importer

Chris Fullmer has written a cool SketchUp plugin that imports data from the VooDoo Camera Tracker, and allows you to integrate a SketchUp model into a video, or create a camera path based on a video.

SketchUp reads the data from VCT and creates a series of Scenes in SketchUp. Then you position your model, export the Scene animation, and finally combine the exported images with the video. Some third-party software will be required.

Have a look at the results:



[ SketchUp VooDoo Camera Tracker importer ]

Octane Render Commercial v1.02 beta2 Released

- New Platforms:
- x64 version for MS Windows
- Apple Mac OS X Native 32bit version
(x64 is not possible due to cuda toolkit constraints at this time)

- Daylight system with sunlight and physically based sky

- Material Channels:
- bump maps (also read from OBJ MTL file)
- normal maps
- opacity (alpha) maps (also read from OBJ MTL file)
- thin film coating maps

- OBJ and Mesh import:
- Option on mesh node to relink/reload a modified OBJ mesh, keeping materials by name.
- Use of smooth groups (option in OBJ prefs panel)
- Loading/Saving of OBJ import preferences

- Universal executable for all Geforce 8000 and up,
no more separate 8000 and 9000+ executables.

- Improved User Interface scheme

- Uses new Cuda 3.0 toolkit - with new drivers
- Better UI response while rendering on single GPU systems
- Linear and Logarithmic toggle buttons for easier control of many parameters
- HDR Images (OpenEXR and HDR) now take 50% space of video memory.
- Can Zoom the render viewport using CTRL + mousewheel.
- No more need for Visual Studio redistributable package installation.

Octane Render Commercial v1.02 beta2 Released

SketchUp Plugin: Sine Wave

Just a quick little plugin to draw a sine curve in SketchUp.

Draws a sine curve at the Origin and in a Group. User is asked for amplitude, length, and number of segments.

sine_wave.rb