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I’m really excited to inform you my book’s just been announced on Packt Publishing’s website! SketchUp for Architectural Visualization is for anyone who’d like to output great rendered or artistic visuals from SketchUp models. It’s been a labour of love over the last year, and there’s still a lot of editing to do, so I’d better get back to it. You can find out all about it here.

After a very, very long wait, SketchUp dimensioning has come of age. Not only does SketchUp Pro 7.1 have dimensioning tools as part of its bundled 2D presentation software (Layout), but a free 2D CAD package has emerged firm favourite for SketchUp interoperability.

DoubleCAD XT is based on the familiar style of Autocad and Autocad Lt, but has SketchUp users very much in mind. SketchUp (skp) files can be directly imported into DoubleCAD with Layers, Scenes and Components all selectable. To see what this functionality looks like check out this link to the SketchUp import showcase.

Didn’t think SketchUp was up to much compared to 3dMax?

To find out how to do this within SketchUp, head over to www.twilightrender.com and purchase a copy before the trial price expires!

twilight sketchyphysics

Once you’ve set up a scene and gone through all the hassle of creating a photo realistic render, it would be a waste not to animate it too. Kerkythea imports camera animation info from SketchUp, or you can create them directly within Kerkythea. Output is in the form of still images which need to be stitched together. I use Virtualdub which is free and available at http://www.virtualdub.org/. Animations needn’t be spectacular because even something simple like this example will give depth and realism that the still image will always lack

Here’s a recipe for modelling anything (yes, anything) in 7 easy steps! Does that sound far fetched to you? Well, read on…

Ingredients

You need a photo of your object or have it in front of you. Photos from the side and slightly above are best. You’ll also need a handful of measurements and a dash of time. And if you can remember how to use them, a pencil and paper.

Step by step

1. Sketching on paper, break down your object into boxes or cylinders. Just a few should do it for all but the most complex items.
2. Draw these in sketchup and create a component out of each.
3. Double click on each component, select each face and use the scale tool to stretch into shape as necessary.
4. Now add in chamfered or radiused corners using the “follow me” tool.
5. Add depressions or raised details within each component (if you need to) with the push-pull tool. You don’t need to overdo it though.
6. Open the materials pallet and the main colours to each component. Add further colours within the component if necessary.
7. Save the whole thing. Hit “share model” to share it in google warehouse, or “place model” to see it in Google earth, or Export to your fave rendering software.
8. What more do you want? Get going!

Tips

If you don’t like sketching in 3d, try drawing a front and side view in 2d and drawing the boxes onto these. You can still build your sketch up this way.

Pitfalls

Avoid thinking “this method isn’t complex enough for me”. Literally everything can be broken down into simple components like this. It’s how the pro’s do it so it’s good enough for you!

What else?

You might need to install Google Earth, a rendering export plugin (like SU2KT for Kerkythea) or have an open internet connection before you can do step 7.

Have you ever imported an AutoCAD drawing into SketchUp Pro and noticed lots of annoying extra lines? If so, you may have polylines with width in your original AutoCAD drawing. SketchUp imports these entities as offset lines, so if you have a polyline with 100mm width, SketchUp will draw two lines 100mm apart. To avoid this, either explode polylines in AutoCAD, or set width to zero as follows:

Select the polylines then key in the following:

pedit enter

w enter

0 enter

This function can actually be put to good use. For example you can draw blockwork walls with a simple polyline of 100mm wide, and SketchUp will import it as a 2D face ready to be Push-Pulled into 3D.

When you load up SketchUp 7 for the first time, you’ll probably need to set up the menu bars. Here’s our recommended layout allowing you to access all the most commonly used functions.

SketchUp 7 basic toolbar setup

SketchUp can be a great visualisation tool when used hand in hand with your own photographs. If you want to superimpose your design onto a photograph, bear in mind that your camera’s field of view is different to your default SketchUp f.o.v. giving the impression that perspective is all wrong. To correct this, you need to find out what your camera’s focal length is (usually 28mm, or 28-80mm for zoom cameras). You can do this by interrogating the xzif data held with your digital photo file (click on Properties: Details in windows Vista). The focal length value won’t always relate exactly to that in SketchUp, but a little trial and error, or some internet research, should show you what conversion factor to apply.

Check out the link below:

http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2008/05/setting-your-field-of-view.html

If you want to share data in both directions between Autocad and SketchUp, the Xref Manager plugin is a must. Without this tool there’s no easy way to refresh an xref within SketchUp once you’ve inserted it. You can download it free from the following link:

http://www.crai.archi.fr/RubyLibraryDepot/Ruby/em_fil_page.htm

To use it, place the files within your plugins directory. Then open SketchUp and click Plugins-Xref Tools to insert or refresh a dwg/dxf drawing. Thanks go to TIG for developing this essential time-saver!

Kerkythea is a free but highly capable rendering program with great SketchUp interoperability. A new version is just out – see the following announcement for some more details. (We can’t pretend to understand what all of it means – but network rendering to unlimited Linux machines! – wow):

Kerkythea 2008 Echo is a full staging application for rendering your
models. And now it’s available for all major platforms Windows, Linux,
and MacOSX!

Introducing the Kerkythea Instancing Brush (Earning KT2008 the name
“Echo”)
It features instancing by loading the “Brush” with any model or group
of models and painting (scattering) instances of that onto any model
“canvas” object you choose. Or, you can choose auto-population of the
canvas determined by grid, or driven by image mask!

Now featuring MLT(BPT) Metropolis Light Transport on top of
Bidirectional Path Tracing to handle the most demanding indirect lighting scenes.

Robust and completely re-vamped material editor featuring nk/ior
measured data support, synthesis layer, procedural ramps, improved materials
and the new plugin SDK for user developed customized objects.

Also featuring:
-15-25% general render speed increase (more for MLT render mode)
-Multithreading support for all render methods
-Network rendering to unlimited machines/threads/cross-platform
(requires manual connection)
-Instancing and grouping of Lights or Models
-Sky Portals, Supersampling
-Physical Camera definition enhancements
-Parallel View Rendering for plans/elevations, etc.
-IES Light implementation
-Specular, Light, Diffuse, and Diffuse Texture passes
-Improved depth map rendering
-alpha channel auto-recognition for .png and .tif files
-More widgets (Drop and align commands, manual sun positioning)
-and much more

Kerkythea now supports a zipped xml version (kzx extension) for saving
files, which, combined with instancing, can result in file sizes 5% to
10% the size of previous versions’ saved .xml scenes.

The new cross-platform plugin SDK implementation allows users to write
their own plugins including new procedural textures, materials and
lights.

See the following link for download info:
http://www.kerkythea.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=42&func=select&id=2