We're very excited to announce that Google SketchUp users now have greater access to free building performance simulation tools. IES (Integrated Environmental Solutions) has just released a free plugin, the IES VE SketchUp plugin (available for Windows only) that determines your building's energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. The plugin works within Google SketchUp 6 and connects with IES's analysis tools: VE-Ware (free), VE-Toolkits and the full Virtual Environment.
According to IES, the plugin allows SketchUp users to assign important sustainable design information like location, building and room type, construction types and HVAC systems to their SketchUp model and then import it directly into their chosen IES analysis tool, without having to re-build any geometry.
Download the plugin and the free VE-Ware to get started, and watch the video to see how the plugin works. You can also download any of the IES 3D Warehouse models to test the plugin.
Visit our SketchUp: Go Green! website for more information about how Google SketchUp can help you design more efficient buildings.
See your building's energy performance
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 3:53 PM
Elections in full swing
10:05 AM
As many of you know, the 2008 U.S. political conventions--two weeks of party business that begins for the Democrats in Denver today, and for the Republicans in Minneapolis next week--marks the beginning of the general election season. To help you stay informed and engaged in the upcoming election, we're launching a one-stop shop for political information: www.google.com/2008election.
Can't make it to Denver or Minneapolis? Go to our conventions site to view the latest news, videos, photos and blog posts. See the DNC agenda in Google Earth and fly to each event and venue.
We also have 3D models of the convention venues in the Presidential Conventions collection in the Google 3D Warehouse. Turn on the "3D Buildings" layer in Google Earth, fly to Denver or St Paul and you'll feel like you're there in-person, and you saved the airfare! You can also interact with a wide variety of political mash-ups in the Google Maps Elections Gallery.
Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team
Design Your Dwelling Competition: one week left!
Monday, August 25, 2008 1:53 PM
Just a reminder that the Design Your Dwelling competition is closing this Sunday, August 31st. If you haven't submitted your model yet, start by visiting the site location in Google Earth. Each model must be uploaded to the Google 3D Warehouse and be submitted through the Dwell entry form. The chosen design will win a trip to San Francisco (airfare and hotel accommodations included), have lunch with Dwell & SketchUp staff, attend the Dwell/AIA home tours and receive a physical model of their dream home. We can't wait to see what you come up with!
Marketing Functionary
Chicago planning firm reaches out to the community
Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:30 PM
Urban planning and community development should be a shared activity. Houseal Lavigne Associates, a Chicago-based planning firm has broken down the walls between residents, business owners, elected and appointed officials to create a truly communal design experience.
Houseal Lavigne Associates uses 3D technology to help visualize new developments and create proposals to present to the community. The city planners use Google SketchUp Pro to create 3D models of developments and proposals to help visualize what the buildings will look like on vacant sites. According to Houseal Lavigne, 3D models created using Google SketchUp are the ideal way to make projects come to life. "It helps the community get excited about what type of development might be most suitable for the property,” says Lavigne. “Google SketchUp has become a constant for our firm for 3D modeling and visualization.” Take a look at the HousealLavigne Associates case study to read more and see the actual plans and models.
Just arrived! Podium 1.5 for the Mac
Monday, August 18, 2008 11:29 AM
Our friends over at Cadalog just recently announced the release of Podium 1.5 for Mac OS X. SU Podium is a photo-realistic rendering plug-in for Google SketchUp 6. The Mac version of SU Podium is almost identical to the Windows version in features and performance and both provide one of the simplest ways to create beautiful photo-realistic images of SketchUp models.
SU Podium 1.5 for the Mac runs on Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC computers) and on both Leopard and Tiger systems. Download a free evaluation version of Podium 1.5 for the Mac (if you own a Windows license, the conversion is free).
Marketing Functionary
Model your Campus Competition in Mexico
Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:26 AM
During the Google 2008 International Model your Campus Competition this past Spring, our Google Mexico City team simultaneously ran a contest with a top Mexican university, ITESM (The Technology Institute of Monterrey), and offered separate prizes for the best models submitted by the ITESM students. In total, ITESM participants designed 111 buildings, representing 22 ITESM campuses. All of the submissions will live in a collection within the Google 3D Warehouse. Read this post on the Official Google Blog to see the winners and their models.
SketchUp goes to Beijing
Friday, August 8, 2008 8:49 AM
The Summer Games are about to start, and chances are, you're not in Beijing to see them. That's alright, though – we've got the next best thing.
Our colleagues over at the Lat Long blog have put together a terrific compendium of everything we're doing to get you as close to the Games as possible. This includes an extensive 3D Warehouse collection of Olympic venues modeled in SketchUp. You can even take a look at them in context with this Google Earth KML. Who needs air travel?
Concept art for gaming and entertainment
Monday, August 4, 2008 5:20 PM
Richard Doble, an artist with the concept art studio Massive Black in San Francisco, uses SketchUp to do some pretty amazing things. Check out his personal blog to see some of them.
Kemp Remillard works at Massive Black, too. His website contains some equally inspirational work – take a look.
Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist
Making an element appear on every page in LayOut
Tuesday, July 29, 2008 11:21 AM
As you know, LayOut is a great application for creating presentation documents from your SketchUp models. Using LayOut is relatively simple, but there are a few things about it that aren't obvious. One of these relates to creating elements (such as project titles and logos) that need to appear in the same spot on more than one page. Doing so requires that you understand something called shared layers in LayOut. Elements that you place on shared layers appear on every page that's set to display that shared layer. Here's how it works:
the Layers dialog box- In LayOut, choose Window > Layers from the menu bar to open the Layers dialog box.
- Create a new layer by clicking the "Add a new layer button at the top of the Layers dialog box. It looks like a little plus sign.
- Name your new layer "Multi-Page Elements" or "Same On Every Page", or something like that.
- Make your new layer a shared layer by clicking its "shared" icon. It looks like a little piece of paper, and it appears all the way to the right of the layer name in the Layers dialog box. When a layer is shared, its icon looks like a stack of pages.
- Be sure your new layer is active by clicking to select it (the selected layer has a little pencil icon next to its name) and create or add the element you'd like to appear on every page. Because the layer you're drawing on is now shared, anything on it will appear on all the pages in your document.
But what if there are some pages on which you don't want shared layer content to appear? Here's what you need to do:
the Pages dialog box- Choose Window > Pages from the menu bar to open the Pages dialog box.
- Click any page's "show/hide shared layers" icon (it looks like a little stack of papers) to set that page to show – or not show – elements which are on shared layers. When the icon looks "blacked out", that page won't show the contents of shared layers.
Thinking in Pictures
Saturday, July 26, 2008 2:23 PM
A number of us from the Boulder and Kirkland Google offices recently attended the Autism Society of America's 2008 National Conference in Orlando, Florida. What a great experience!
On the first day of the conference, we gave a presentation about Project Spectrum (program that introduces people on the autism spectrum to Google SketchUp) to the ASA Chapter Presidents.
The rest of our time was spent in the exhibit hall introducing SketchUp to the conference attendees, including parents, educators and people with autism. One attendee, Cole, created a java-fied remodel of the University of Alaska Museum of the North. I think he's still waiting to hear whether or not it was approved!
Our fellow Coloradan, Temple Grandin, delivered the keynote speech. Temple touched on two themes we think are at the core of Project Spectrum: taking advantage of special gifts, like visual and spatial skills, and using those gifts to develop a life skill or career. 
A special thanks goes out to our vendors, Sparks and Eagle Management, for building our Project Spectrum booth and providing set-up and tear-down services at no charge. It's wonderful to see others excited by our program, and it helped to make this a great event.
