'Digital Job Site' Blog - Fine Homebuilding SketchUp Blog

FineHomebuilding has recently entered the Sketch-U-verse with a blog they call the "Digital Job Site" about...

how builders, remodelers, and architects use the free 3-D modeling software Google SketchUp to design projects and present them to clients.

'Digital Job Site' Blog - Fine Homebuilding

Stand-Alone FBX Converter

If you need to work with FBX files and don't have an Autodesk product, then this stand-alone converter may be useful. It doesn't directly support SketchUp files, so an intermediate format will be needed.

Transfer project data from one application to another quickly and easily with the FBX Converter. This utility lets you convert OBJ, DXF™, and 3DS files to and from the FBX format.

The converter supports COLLADA, although it is not mentioned in Autodesk's description.

Downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

[ FBX Converter ]

SketchUp Graphing Plugin

Update: 2010 December 05, a cold and snowy Sunday morning.

• Add function to Layer (allows Color By Layer)
• Add Function to Group
• Users can enter X range and X step values

Equation Grapher is a free plugin for Google SketchUp.

Activate the plugin in the menu: Plugins/JF Graph Eq

A dialog will ask for the X Range and X step value to plot the function through.

The Function dialog will prompt you to enter the function to graph. The function must be valid Ruby language statement. (see also: Ruby Math module.) Use paranthesis to force order of operations, or whenever there is doubt in the order in which operations might occur.

Colors

To display the plots in color, open the Layers dialog and select Color By Layer in the fly-out menu. Then, select Edge color by material in the Styles/Edge Settings dialog.

Installation

Download the file attachment below. Move the file to your SketchUp Plugin folder, and restart SketchUp. The file is meant to replace the file named eq_grapher.rb (if you have it also.)

Download: jf_eq_grapher.rb.

Pointools Plugin for SketchUp

Pointools has unveiled a Plug-in for Google SketchUp in time for the European LiDAR Mapping Forum, Autodesk University and SPAR Europe. The new Pointools Plug-in for SketchUp streamlines scan-to-model workflows for all SketchUp and SketchUp Pro users by enabling reuse of the largest point cloud models, and by providing a first-of-a-kind solution to create 3D city models from mobile scan data.

[ via Pointools ]

Plugin Links on delicious.com

So my latest idea is to use the social bookmarking site delicious.com to organize all the sketchup plugins. I created a new account and plan on using it only for SketchUp plugins (or very closely related) links.

Delicious has some features that I hope will make it easier to discover the best, most useful, and interesting SketchUp plugins available. By using a few well-chosen tags and tag bundles, it should be possible to build a quality SketchUp plugins link database.

I'm just getting started adding links, but my best estimate is there are now over 1,000 individual plugins available for SketchUp.  I want to encourage community participation in order to make the list as useful and complete as possible. If you have a delicious account and would like to help please send your plugins links to my account, or add me to your network. If not, you can still browse the bookmarks and hopefully discover something new.


Questions, comments, and ideas are welcomed. I'm particularly interested in hearing about tags to use as "Major Categories" in organizing the links. What makes sense to you? What is the minimum number of major categories that are needed to organize all plugins? 


[ pluginsblog's delicious bookmarks ]

I just thought I'd show a picture of a SketchUp model I had 3D Printed a few months ago from Shapeways.com. The model was made with a greeble plugin and is a 1 inch cube.




We are the Borg. Resistance is Futile.

gModeller: energy analysis plugin for Google SketchUp

Derek wrote in to tell us that the plugin formerly known as the Greenspace LiveEnergy Modeller has been improved and is now called gModeller.

From the greenspacelive site:

gModeller is an energy analysis plugin for Google SketchUp. Based on the gbXML standard for designing resource efficient buildings and specifying associated equipment, gModeller enables the building designer to decorate 3D SketchUp building models with gbXML surfaces and openings, to identify and label gbXML spaces, and to import and export gbXML models.

As a result of using gModeller, Google SketchUp becomes an intelligent solution for low carbon building design. Models can be quickly exported to gEnergyEPC for energy analysis and certification.

[ gModeller ]