A brief Leopard update

Posted by Brad Askins, Quality Assurance Engineer

Apple released a new version of its operating system a couple of weeks ago, and it seems as though lots of SketchUp and Mac users are upgrading. We've received a few questions from folks wondering about the interaction between Mac OS 10.5 Leopard and Google SketchUp 6, so we wrote a Help Center article that addresses these questions. In brief, there are still some known issues related to using SketchUp's Google Earth-compatibility features:

• SketchUp may crash when clicking the "Get Current View" button, or by clicking "Tools" > "Google Earth" > "Get Current View."

• Clicking the "Place Model" button, or clicking "Tools" > "Google Earth" > "Place Model" will do nothing on a Mac with a PowerPC processor. SketchUp will appear to have not processed the request. To work around this issue, we suggest the following steps:
  1. Click "File" > "Export" > "3D Model..."
  2. Choose "Google Earth 4 (*kmz)" from the "Format" drop-down menu.
  3. Enter a file name and click "Export."
  4. Open Google Earth and click "File" > "Open."
  5. Browse to and select the KMZ file you created and click "Open."

• Leopard users can't change which font is used by the 3D Text tool.
  

Please know that we're working on the problems, and we'll let you know as soon as they are resolved.

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Making your own Face-Me people

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist

Back before we had a blog, we'd include Tips & Tricks in the SketchUpdate e-newsletter we sent (and still send) around every so often. Recently, it occurred to me that some folks might find it useful to have them in a more "readily-bookmarkable" form; namely, this blog. Without further ado, here's the first of our Vintage SketchUp Tips & Tricks. I hope you find it helpful.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. They're wrong. The sincerest form of flattery is to find yourself included in a SketchUp model as a 2D Face-Me component. Building photo-real, custom people for SketchUp isn't all that hard; it requires a little bit of time and a photo-editing program like Photoshop, but it's a great way to set your SKP apart from all the others. Including a client's family in a model of their new house is very impressive -- if you're lucky, they'll be too distracted to notice that you had to value-engineer away their swimming pool.

Note: The images that follow were created with SketchUp 5, which used yellow as the default color for selected entities. SketchUp 6 (which is the current version) uses blue.

Step 1: Making 2D Face-Me people is easier if you start off with the right kind of picture.


Step 2: Use photo-editing software (such as Photoshop) to cut out your subject, then save the image as a PNG with a transparent background. This earlier post contains instructions on how to do so.


Step 3: In SketchUp, Import the PNG you just created into a new file. Make sure that "Use As Image" is selected in the Import dialog box before you click Import. Set it down on the ground, but don’t worry about how big it is.

Step 4: Make sure your figure is perpendicular to the green axis, then create a Face-Me component by selecting “Always face camera” in the Make Component dialog box.


Step 5: Resize your person to be the correct height by using the Tape Measure tool.


Step 6: Hide the edges of your new component and orbit around to see if it works. Then turn on shadows...


Step 7: Roughly cut out your person, erasing some edges and hiding others. The resulting outline is surprisingly convincing.

Step 8: The final result can be stored in your Components library, ready to be accessed in any model.


Update Corrected an omission in Step 3.

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Podium 1.5 is out

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist


It looks like the folks over at Cadalog have released a new version of Podium, their photo-realistic rendering plugin for SketchUp. Here's some of what's new in Podium 1.5:

• It's faster - Most users can expect a speed improvement of 15 to 20%.
• HDR output - This format provides more post-processing options if you're also using an image editor like Photoshop.
• Presets - By grouping together complicated settings (like Irradiance Gradients and Trace Refractions) into easier-to-understand presets, it's simpler to get good results without knowing what everything does.
• Transparent/translucent images - Now you can use images with transparent areas (think of the spaces in a chain-link fence).
  
• Bumpmaps - The texture of some materials is bumpy, and these bumps cast shadows and reflect light. Textures with bumpmaps look more realistic when rendered.
• No more reversed faces - You don't have to spend time making sure your model's faces are right-side-out; Podium 1.5 can render both sides of SketchUp's faces.

Check out this Podium 1.5 info page for all the details. The terrific images above are from Pete Stopple. You can find out more about his project in this thread from the Podium user forum.

There's more good news, actually: The free trial version of Podium 1.5 (which restricts your output resolution to a maximum of 500 x 500 pixels) doesn't time out -- you can use it forever. Also, I'm told that a Mac version is currently in development and that a beta should be available by early next year.

Update Revised the description of 'clipmaps' to better reflect what they do.

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Cropped pictures need not apply

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist

I received an interesting question from a gentleman in Greece the other day; he was trying to use SketchUp's nifty photo-matching feature to build a model based on this rendered image of a building. Needless to say, he didn't have any luck. To get the photo-matching feature to work, your image needs to be uncropped. That's why lots of renderings, magazine images and pictures from architecture books don't work; they've been re-framed. Why should this matter? It has something to do with re-positioning the center of the image. SketchUp's photo-matching feature works by assuming that the center of your image is also the image's "center of projection" (where the camera was pointing when you took the picture). When you crop an image, you move its center.


There is, of course, an exception to the "No Cropped Pictures" rule when matching a photo: If your picture has been cropped by an even amount on each side, or by an even amount top and bottom, the center of projection is maintained, and thus everything will work just fine.

Update Clarified the exception to the "No Cropped Pictures" rule in the last paragraph.

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SketchUp 6 now in 6 languages

Posted by Aidan Chopra, Product Evangelist

It's my pleasure to announce that Google SketchUp 6 is now available for download in six languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. Both the Free and Pro versions of SketchUp 6 (which includes LayOut) are available.

Those who have ever been involved in translating software know that it's a monumental task. Credit for this achievement goes to more people than I can name in this post, but special thanks go out to Chris K, Helen, Steve P and Tommy from the SketchUp team; they did a terrific job, and we're proud of them.

Incidentally, Google search is available in more than a hundred languages, including Faroese, Uighur and Twi, so it looks like Chris, Helen and the rest of the gang will be working a lot of weekends to get us caught up.

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Endlich: Ein SketchUp Buch in Deutsch (Finally: a SketchUp book in German)

Posted by Meike Schmidt, SketchUp Team

Heute möchte ich euch etwas vorstellen, das gerade ganz neu ist und bestimmt viele von euch interessieren wird: Im September 2007 wurde die erste SketchUp-Anleitung auf Deutsch, veröffentlicht, die in Deutschland bereits sehnlichst erwartet wurde. Ebba Steffens vom SketchUp-Shop in Köln und Jens Luethje, früher AtLast Deutschland, haben ihr umfangreiches Wissen rund um SketchUp vereint und zu einem ausführlichen Werk über SketchUp zusammengefasst. Das Resultat ist ein 430 Seiten starkes Werk, das sowohl Basiswissen vermittelt, Möglickeiten zum Selbststudium eröffnet, und viele viele Tipps und Tricks parat hat, wie man am besten mit SketchUp arbeitet.

Today I would like to present something new, something that you have most likely been waiting for impatiently. In September of this year, the long-anticipated first SketchUp book in German was published. Ebba Steffens (from the SketchUp-Shop in Cologne) and Jens Luethje (formerly of AtLast Germany) have combined their comprehensive knowledge about SketchUp to great effect: The 430-page book not only includes basic knowledge about the software, but also has do-it-yourself tutorials and many tips and tricks for working with SketchUp efficiently.

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Announcing Project Spectrum

Posted by Tom Wyman, Market Development Manager

When we set out to create SketchUp, we had a pretty good idea of who would use it. Architects, basically. For conceptual design. And we were right -- partly. As it turns out, there were a few uses that caught us by surprise: landscape architecture, video game design, fine arts, civil engineering, wedding cake design, book illustrations, set design, film previsualization, industrial design, urban planning, woodworking, medical instrument design, coin design (one of the "state" quarters), treehouse design... you get the idea.

It looks like it's time to add one more to the list (and this one may be the most fun of all): SketchUp is also an application for kids with autism.

A couple of years ago we learned that SketchUp can be an amazingly powerful tool in the hands of children with autism. Since stumbling across this bit of information, we have worked with parents, educators and kids to learn how SketchUp plays to the visual and spatial strengths often possessed by those on the autism spectrum. Siblings (and SketchUp aficionados) Meg and Casey may have said it best: "SketchUp is a great program and we're glad it exists to open the door into minds full of pictures". Indeed. From the literal to the imaginative, the pictures in these minds are as varied as the minds themselves:


It's been great fun to see how different kids respond to SketchUp. For many, it's a creative outlet and an opportunity to express themselves. For some, it's a source of self-esteem, and for others, it offers all that and a life skill as well. Thanks to the combined efforts of families, schools, our local autism society, the University of Colorado and a dedicated team of Googlers, we are proud to launch Project Spectrum. Our purpose is to connect people on the autism spectrum with free software and learning materials so that they can "open the door into minds full of pictures".

Check out this video to learn more about Meg, Casey, and Project Spectrum:

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Demeter: A new energy analysis tool for SketchUp

Posted by Chris Cronin, Account Manager, SketchUp

Recently, a number of us were introduced to a team based in Scotland who are working on a great SketchUp integration called Demeter. It's a building energy analysis plugin for SketchUp created by Greenspace Research, and it allows SketchUp users to perform an energy analysis by adding attributes to their model and then connecting the data to the GreenBuildingStudio web service, which returns an energy report. Check out the video to see it in action:

A tool that empowers designers in the conceptual phase, the stage in which they are able to have the greatest impact on the building's carbon footprint, is a big step towards building more efficient buildings. According to Greenspace, here's what the plugin lets you do:

• Assign properties to surfaces (e.g. surface types, opening types)
• Identify enclosed spaces (e.g. rooms)
• Assign surfaces to spaces
• Check contiguity to make sure that selected faces are enclosed
  
• Integrate with the UK and US versions of Green Building Studio to allow for localized energy reports
  
• Import existing gbXML files (gbXML is an industry wide standard and has been adopted by some of the leading CAD vendors such as Autodesk, Graphisoft, and Bentley)
• Export Sketchup models as gbXML
• Export Sketchup models directly to GBS for instant analysis
• Attractive 3D user interface using Rich Internet Application technologies including Adobe Flash and Flex

The plugin is currently in beta, and Greenspace Research is currently looking for beta testers. Visit them for more information or to sign up for the beta program. Also, Greenspace Research, along with GreenBuildingStudio, will be demonstrating the plugin this week at Greenbuild in Chicago. (Wow, that's a lot of green!) We're told that interested parties should stop by their booth for additional information.

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