Show 'em how green you are

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Tasha was cruising along the information superhighway when she happened upon a design competition that readers of this blog might find interesting: It's called "How Green Are You?", and it's being co-sponsored by Dwell and the AIA. They're looking for examples of "green or sustainable" architecture that they can feature on the Contest Entries section of Dwell's website.

In case you missed it, we ran an informal little "green" competition of our own last October — check out the winning submissions if you're so inclined.

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For Earth Day, some of us planted trees

Posted by Simone Nicolo, QA Engineer & Friend of Nature

A whole bunch of us headed over to Sawhill Ponds (just East of Boulder) to help out Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado with a project we conceived and created together. We spent the afternoon clearing an acre of invasive thistles and planting more that 350 cottonwood trees along the banks of one of the ponds. All told, about 40 Googlers from the Boulder and Denver offices (joined by friends and family, and members of Americorps) celebrated Earth Day by pitching in.

The ponds themselves are the result of gravel mining; since that ceased about 30 years ago, the pits that were left filled up with groundwater. These days, the area is a wetland habitat for many species of wildlife. The cottonwood trees that we planted, once grown, will provide shade that will help keep the water cool. This is turn will reduce the growth of things like non-native Eurasian water milfoil and green algae, and discourage the growth of invasive plant species that need full sunlight to thrive.

In the photos above, you can see that it looks like we were planting sticks. We were — sort of. Cottonwood trees can be planted by burying cut branches from mature trees that have been placed in water to develop roots. Who knew?

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Even more 3D in Google Earth

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager


Just in case you hadn't heard, we released Google Earth 4.3 a few weeks ago. The new version includes (among other things) tens of thousands of photo-textured 3D models of buildings, bridges and other structures. We've improved performance, so thoroughly-modeled cities like San Francisco and Munich "pop" into view much faster than they did in the previous version of Google Earth -- you really need to see it for yourself.

Many of you have created 3D building models for Google Earth and published them to the 3D Warehouse. Google Earth 4.3 includes the best of these models, plus additional ones that we created and even more that were contributed to Google by cities and towns around the world.

Read my post on the Google Lat Long blog to find out more about 3D cities in Google Earth, and watch this video to learn about all the cool new features in the latest version. If you haven't already done so, be sure to download Google Earth 4.3 and give it a whirl.

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Breathe life into your models with Antics

Posted by Steve Dapkus, Market Development Guy

Antics is user-friendly 3D animation software for pre-visualization, machinima, education, simulation, training and a host of other things. It lets you create movies with models that you can animate to move around inside your scenes; you can even "film" the action with an infinite number of cameras that you set up. Antics is super-cool, and (like SketchUp) comes in both "free" and "pro" flavors. You can download both at the Antics website.

Even cooler (from my perspective) is the fact that the latest version of Antics features an embedded Google 3D Warehouse browser that can serve up a steady stream of models for your movies. Antics also supports direct import of SketchUp files in .skp format, which means you can build stuff in SketchUp and animate it in Antics. This Tips & Tricks forum on their website provides more information, and the following video provides a taste of what you can do.

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Thick walls with the Offset tool

Posted by James Therrien, Lead Training Simian

If you're brand new to SketchUp, one of the first thing you'll notice is that your "walls" are paper-thin. Consider what happens when you build the following:


Deleting the top face (step 3) of a form you've push/pulled into existence results in super-thin, single-surface walls. That's fine if you're building Japanese shōji, but for many applications, you'll want to model your walls with a thickness. The easiest way to go about doing this is to use the Offset tool. You can activate it by choosing Tools > Offset from the menu bar or by clicking on its tool icon. If you haven't set up your own keyboard shortcuts yet, you can switch to the Offset tool by pressing F on your keyboard.

Here's how to use Offset to create walls that look thick:

1. Start with any face in your SketchUp model.
2. Activate the Offset tool (choose one of the methods listed above for doing so).
3. Click once on your face (the one in your model).
4. Move your mouse (don't drag) toward the center of your face.
5. Click again when the offset edges you're creating are the right distance from the original perimeter of your face.
6. If you want to be precise, type an offset distance (such as 6in or 15cm) on your keyboard and press Enter (This Help Center article has more information about entering precise dimensions in SketchUp, as does this video).
7. Switch to the Push/Pull tool by pressing P on your keyboard.
8. Click between the two sets of edges on your face to push/pull it into a 3D form.
9. Click again to stop push/pulling.

Want to learn more about Offset? Check out this video.

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There's a class for that

Posted by Shara Greenlee, Training Goddess

Feeling stalled in your quest for SketchUp supremacy? Want to be master of your domain on Google Earth? Take your skills to the next level with a hands-on, classroom style learning experience. Announcing the launch of our Authorized Training Center (ATC) program in the US -- we're rolling out our tried and tested curriculum for Google SketchUp and Google Earth through a network of Google-certified training centers throughout the nation.

SketchUp and Google Earth classes are more accessible than ever. Our training centers offer a range of convenient dates, times, and locations. SketchUp Essentials 1 and 2 and Google Earth Pro Basics classes are available at every ATC, led by well qualified instructors. You don't have to explain how you mastered your 3D universe, but we hope you do.

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Go green for Earth Day

Posted by Chris Cronin, Green Giant

This year, we're celebrating Earth Day with the launch of a new website: SketchUp: Go Green! Our site highlights green projects by design professionals who use SketchUp. One such person is Michelle Kaufmann. Her eponymous architecture firm uses Google SketchUp to create prefabricated single-family and multi-family homes. Check out this video to see her story:
In addition to showcasing green projects, SketchUp: Go Green! features information about:

• how the solar industry uses SketchUp to design solar system installations for buildings
• SketchUp-compatible energy-analysis tools that you can use to better understand the environmental impact of your designs
• other resources that are available for folks who are interested in green design

Speaking of Earth Day, Google's What will you do for Earth Day '08? is definitely worth a visit, too. Aside from the inspirational content, it's a neat implementation of the Google Maps API.

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New and improved!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist


I'm happy to announce that we've combined our two old websites into one; sketchup.google.com is now your single source for information about all of our products, plugins, training and other resources. We've overhauled everything -- the new site includes:

• New, more robust pages dedicated to SketchUp, SketchUp Pro, LayOut, Style Builder and the 3D Warehouse
• A cleaner, easier-to-navigate design
• A new Community section with links to groups, case studies, gallery, 3rd party resources, and more
• A new Customers section with more information about using SketchUp for different disciplines, including architecture and design, education, contracting, engineering and construction, and digital entertainment
• Better descriptions of some of the plugins that add functionality to SketchUp
• Better information about ruby scripts, including descriptions of sample scripts and links to our new ruby API
• Better, clearer links to our training videos and self-paced tutorials
• Links to our new Google Authorized Training Centers in the US

Please take a look around our new online digs, and use the "comments" link below this post to let us know what you think.

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SketchUp 3D Basecamp 2008: 1 day left

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist

Just a friendly reminder that the sign-up period for requesting invitations to Google SketchUp 3D Basecamp 2008 will end at 11:00 pm PST on Tuesday, April 22nd. 3D Basecamp is an opportunity for SketchUp people from all over the world to get together for some good, clean Push-Pullin' fun. Check out the event website for all the juicy details, and we'll see you at the Googleplex in June.

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And the winning Styles are...

Posted by Bryce Stout, Chief Stylin' Officer

About a month and a half ago, we launched the 2008 SketchUp Sketchy-Edge Style Building Competition, and lots of you entered. The submissions we received were top-notch. Without further ado, the 10 winning Style Authors and the names of their winning Styles are (in no particular order):

Mark Pachke of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Pencil edges with whiteout border

Mark Leasor of Eugene, Oregon
Hand drafted with mask

Mark Galbraith of Linden, Michigan
Tech pen

Matthew Valero of Providence, Rhode Island
Pencil on graph paper

Devin Lavigne of Naperville, Illinois
Loose pencil sketch

Ruben Chock of Aiea, Hawaii
Stain

Alan Adams of Denton, Texas
Rough pencil

QiCong Xia of Toronto, Ontario
Pencil on light brown

Matt Campbell of Kingston, Ontario
Light grey freestyle

Daisuke Matsuura of Toronto, Ontario
Lines with wide marker #2

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all who entered. You can check out all the winning Styles by downloading this model from the 3D Warehouse. If you want to use these Styles on your own models, you'll have to save them to your hard drive:

1. Have the model you just downloaded up in SketchUp.
2. Open the Styles dialog box, choose the Select tab, and click the "Home" icon to see a list of the Styles which are applied to the model.
3. Press the the Library Options button to open the Library Options flyout menu.
4. Choose "Save library as...", then select a folder where you'd like to save all the Styles. Make sure to check the "Add to favorites" check box so your new Styles Library will always be available in your Styles dialog box.

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