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TurboCAD Deluxe 16 is being sold for just $69 until the end of June, and if you order the DVD version they’re including a $50 value training too. See the offer here.

What were you doing when you were 16? Designing space stations? Well, obviously. Who didn’t? But which CAD software would you choose for such an undertaking? CATIA, ProEngineer, Autocad, Bentley? SketchUp anyone? Eric Yam, joint winner of the NASA Space Settlement Contest used SketchUp to produce a whole range of detailed illustrations and visualisations in a 96 page document!

Now, while Eric probably isn’t the typical 16 year old, he does represent a growing trend regarding the IT literacy of school leavers, which now also extends to 3D design with SketchUp. What this means to you and me is that the generation behind us is born 3D CAD literate. They have tools in their hands we could only dream of. Software companies such as PTC in the past tried to become the de-facto CAD standard by giving away free versions to schools, but these attempts proved fruitless. Indeed, PTC’s ProEngineer has lost much of its market share. It’s too hard to use and too expensive for the mainstream.

What CAD vendors don’t appear to appreciate is that we’re all children when it comes to learning new things. We all start at nothing and work from there. So if software is not useable by children it’s not useable by mainstream adults. Conversely, what works on children will work on adults too.

Worried CAD vendors

Anyone who profits from CAD in any way, either as a user or seller, has a lot to be worried about right now. SketchUp is growing in its user base (and edu base) at an unprecedented level. I was recently at an Autodesk Revit training event where more of the audience questions revolved around SketchUp than the actual product we were there to learn about. And the industry is worried for one very simple reason. They’re starting to lose customer loyalty, and with it their market share. “If you can design a NASA space station with $400 SketchUp Pro, why can’t I use it for my project too?”

Yesterday Urbs company announced the initial release of Modelur application, which makes the design of urban space rapid and simple. This new application is based on Google SketchUp and is available for testing to all participants of a Pre-beta partner program until the first release. Participation in Pre-beta partner program is free of charge.

What are the advantages of Modelur?

The main advantage of the program Modelur – in comparison with existing computer aided design applications – is its specialization for use in urban design and planning, which makes it a great time saver comparing to traditional tools. Beside special tools for parametric urban design of buildings, it also offers real-time survey over achieved urban control values and warnings when some limitations, such as minimal distance of two buildings, are not fulfilled.
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Some time ago I undertook to test the most popular rendering applications used with SketchUp. It took far longer than I’d anticipated! So I didn’t get any further than Kerkythea, Blender, Podium, Irender, Truespace and Vue. What I can tell you, for what it’s worth, is my conclusion on that small group.

Best overall renderer for SketchUp

My best buy recommendation for 2008 based on SketchUp integration, power and quality, and the ease of obtaining help, goes to Kerkythea. It can be downloaded for free at www.kerkythea.net/joomla

Best buy for external renders

When doing any amount of outdoor Architectural Visualization work it becomes painfully apparent that we are at the mercy of the “entourage” creators. A great render can be utterly spoiled in a moment by placing a dodgy tree in the scene. So when thinking about what render engine to use, you need to spend a lot of time weighing up how easily, cheaply, and render time efficiently you can put foliage into your scenes. My search ended with Vue Esprit. It’s simply a wonderful piece of sofware.

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A new book is due to be released by 3DATS entitled 3ds Max 2010 Architectural Visualization – Advanced to Expert. It’s 700 pages long, and it better be because of the massive $119.95 price tag! But if you get your credit card out straight away you might just be able to get the pre-order discount of $40. Offer ends May 7th 2009. If anyone gets a copy and wishes to post a review here, please get in touch.

The single most important announcement in the development of the internet this millenium has just been made. Did you miss it? Ok then, for those who did, here it is again: Google puts 3d on the web

I must say, I feel more than a little vindicated by this announcement. For several years my family, friends and colleagues have put up with me raving about how the web will go 3D, and do so hand-in-hand with SketchUp. But have they taken me seriously? And my web designer friends have largely ignored my plea that they go and get 3D educated or at least 3D aware. So yes, I feel a little better now:)

But let me put these portends in plain English. Google is 100% behind a 3D internet experience. A 3D enabled Chrome is now being advertised on the front page of Google, coincidental with the release of the O3D programming interface (Open 3D).  Every web designer and developer now needs to ask themselves “can I afford to ignore this?” or a more pertinent “how long have I got to exploit this before I’m left behind?”

There’s just 15 days to go if you want to submit an entry for the 2009 CGarchitect.com Architectural 3D Awards. Award categories are split up into moving image, still image, and real-time entries:

Architectural Film/Animation

• Best Overall Architectural Film/Animation
• Best Editing
• Most Original Film/Animation Treatment
• Industry Choice

Architectural Image

• Best Overall Architectural Image
• Best Architectural Interior Image
• Best Exterior Architectural Image
• Most Original Image Treatment
• Industry Choice

Real-Time Presentation

• Best Overall Real-Time Presentation

To give you an idea of the quality of entry you’re likely to come up against, check out this link for last years finalists. I think you’ll also love this animated entry by Uniform (UK) which is a superb example of how you can mix 2D and 3D to engage the viewer in a storyline.

CGarchitect.com 3DAwards – Uniform (UK) from Jeff Mottle on Vimeo.

When giving clients an idea of their new interior, or when trying to sell a property, a 360 degree virtual tour can be a quick and easy option to get accross the spatial information you need. If you have Quicktime viewer installed you can click on the following link for an example.

Interior Panorama walkthrough

This cost effective alternative to a walkthrough animation can save a lot of money, particularly if you have a lot of rooms to showcase. In addition, the small file-size and interactive nature of virtual tours make them ideal for the web.

Have you ever wondered how filmmakers and documentary producers always seamlessly link scenes in different places, or even different times? One minute you might be on earth, the next in space, or one moment in 2009, the next in 2029! But you always know where you are.

They achieve this by the clever use of continuity scenes, or “orientation” footage. These are often very simple panning shots of the location where the next scene will take place. These can easily be created for your film or documentary or online flash intro, with the use of 3D animation techniques as you can see in this clip.

If it weren’t for short scenes like this, the viewer would be left disorientated and confused. This clip was created in Vue using one of their example sets. The camera is moved and keyframes set up. Vue outputs in avi format which can be edited within VirtualDub.

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