Modeling a laser-cut Halloween costume for my son

October is the time of year that all of my creative energy is focused into a single, solitary purpose: the design and making of an unreasonably complicated Halloween costume for my son. This year, I was determined to reflect his outsized interest in aviation by building him his very own airplane. Something with an open cockpit. Something with a propeller. Something vintage. I started by touring the 3D Warehouse, collecting models of airplanes that might be good candidates. I settled on a WWII-era F4F-4 U.S. Navy fighter because I liked its shape, and because the model I found (by D.James) was beautifully executed.

 I found this Grumman F4F-4 on the 3D Warehouse. It was modeled by D.James.

Opening it in SketchUp, I began the process of simplifying the plane down to its most basic forms by hiding or deleting stuff I didn't need. The landing gear and propeller went. So did the wire-looking thing (I'm not much of an engineering buff) that connected the tail to the cockpit canopy. Eventually, I grouped the remaining bits of airplane together and put them on a single layer that I called "Reference."

The first step was to strip away the details that I didn’t think I’d need.

Next, I set about creating a brand-new model of the fuselage and tail by using the Circle, Push/Pull and Scale tools to create a form that (more or less) matched the existing model. I worked right on top, using the original geometry as a snapping guide for the new. This didn't take as long as you'd think, and it resulted in a simple form that I could easily manipulate later on. For the wings and stabilizers (the smaller wings on either side of the tail) I traced basic, flat shapes; I knew I wouldn't end up making them aerodynamically correct, so I didn't bother giving them a realistic thickness. It is, after all, illegal for a two-year-old to pilot aircraft in the state of Colorado.

D.James’ model is very complex, so I made myself a simpler version (grey) by modeling directly over the original (blue). The wings and the horizontal stabilizers are just flat faces.

Not being able to find a decent model of a small child anywhere online, I used a toddler-sized cylinder as a scale reference as I scaled down the entire vehicle to fit him. "Rough" doesn't begin to describe the level of accuracy I employed at this stage of the engineering process; I basically held a ruler next to his waist and decided that he could squeeze into a ten inch tube. I did NOT at any time actually squeeze him into a ten inch tube. Mostly because I didn't have one handy.

At this point, I set about changing the proportions to increase the airplane's overall level of adorableness. To do this, I grouped together the body, wings and tail bits, made a copy off to the side, and used the Scale tool to stretch and squish the whole thing.

Starting with a squashed cylinder to represent a toddler, I used the Move tool to change the proportions of the airplane until it looked wearable.

At this point, I'd pretty much decided that the airplane would be made out of laser-cut cardboard (more on that later), so I continued modeling with the assumption that the wings and stabilizers would be 2D shapes, and the body would be a more organic, 3D form. This part of the process was the most time-consuming and fiddly—it was just a matter of tweaking the shape of each element until I was happy with the overall proportions of the plane.

The intermediate state of the airplane is actually very basic.

As I settled on a material and construction method, I spent a lot of time on the website of a New Zealand and US-based company called Ponoko. They offer laser-cutting and 3D printing services, and their material selection is terrific. Ponoko has also been a good friend of SketchUp since they launched several years ago. Frankly, I'd been waiting for an excuse to try them out; their offering seemed really slick.

Before I could go any further on the airplane project, I needed to know more about the material I'd be using: its precise thickness, what sheet sizes are available, and its cost. Weight and budget were my major concerns, so I settled on double-layer corrugated cardboard with a thickness of 0.264 inches (6.7mm) and a maximum sheet size of 31.1 x 15.1 inches (790mm x 384mm). Sheets that size cost $3.50 apiece, which is cheap, plus file setup and cutting, which is decidedly less so. When I uploaded a test file to Ponoko to see what this undertaking might cost, the average price per sheet of cut parts was about $25.00. I figured I'd need about ten. This was turning out to be a very expensive cardboard airplane.

The double-layer corrugated cardboard page on Ponoko’s website. Make note of the material thickness for accurate modeling.

Back in SketchUp, I set about figuring out how to build the project out of interconnected, flat pieces. I started with the easy parts: the horizontal section of the body, which included the wings, and the vertical section, which included the tail. These two components were the structural parts of the plane, so I made them out of three layers of cardboard, laminated together for stiffness and durability.

The horizontal fuselage sheets (which include the wings) provide the airplane’s back-to-front structural strength. The vertical pieces are necessary for forming the nose and tail.

To design the rest of the plane's pieces, I copied the 2D profiles that made up the fuselage, made them into faces, and extruded them to the same thickness as the cardboard. Each piece was an individual group at this point; I didn't bother making named components until I was further along.

The ellipsoid “fins” that march down the length of the airplane are the key to defining the fuselage’s sleek, rounded shape.

Next, I used the maximum sheet size for the cardboard to figure out which parts would need to be subdivided and re-assembled after they'd been cut. This task was made a bit simpler by the fact that the biggest pieces of the plane—the horizontal and vertical "slabs" I'd started with—were each made up of three thicknesses of material. I just figured out a design that would hide the seams on the outside, visible layers, while allowing the middle layer pieces to overlap enough to form a strong sandwich when I glued everything together.

Parts which would ideally have been cut from a single sheet of cardboard had to be broken up into smaller pieces due to the small maximum sheet size for that material. These were then sandwiched together with glue. The resulting triple-layer laminates ended up being very stiff.

One of the last steps in the design process was to design the slots that would allow all (or at least most) of the pieces to interlock together. Figuring that the kerf (the width of the cut made by the laser) would be very small in this material, I decided to make the slots exactly as wide as the material thickness. This part was actually kind of fun—it's the closest I've ever come to modeling a 3D puzzle.

There are lots of ways to cut slots in the pieces; I used the Line and Push/Pull tools in combination with the Copy and Paste in Place commands.

At this point, I began the delicate process of converting my groups into components; piece by piece, I exploded each group and then immediately made it into a component with a meaningful name. Where I had a pair of identical, flipped parts (this was actually the majority of the airplane), I made sure both were instances of the same component. The airplane is made out of 58 individual parts, but only 32 unique components.

Because the airplane is so symmetrical, most of the parts are flipped and duplicated component instances.

Just for fun, and because I knew it would look really cool, I copied the plane onto a duplicate layer, and used the Move tool to arrange the parts as though they'd been exploded out from the object's center.

All of the airplane’s parts, exploded outward for visibility.

To have something laser cut by Ponoko, you give them a vector file (EPS or SVG) with all of the parts laid out flat. They provide Adobe Illustrator templates for all three of their standard sheet sizes, which makes things a bit easier. In order to go from a 3D, assembled object in SketchUp to a series of 2D cutting files in Illustrator, I needed to disassemble the plane piece by piece. Figuring that it would be easiest to have the assembled and flat versions adjacent to each other, I made a copy of the airplane off to the side and proceeded to take the copy apart with the Move tool. I used the Move tool's rotation grips (and occasionally the Rotate tool) to spin pieces around so they lay flat.

I made sure not to forget any pieces by literally taking apart an assembled copy of the airplane, laying the parts flat on the ground as I proceeded.

Almost there. I drew a rectangle that matched the sheet size of the cardboard, turned it into component, and made a dozen copies. Then I went through the laborious process of figuring out how to lay out all of the airplane pieces in an efficient way. Having done some experimentation on Ponoko's website, I'd discovered that it's significantly cheaper to produce two copies of the same cutting file than it is to make two different sheets. Good thing, because it turns out that most of my airplane parts are symmetrical; they're mirrored copies that exist in pairs. To take advantage of this, I arranged all of the symmetrical pieces on five sheets and produced two copies of each; all of the "singles" fit on only two more. In total, I had twelve sheets of parts.

The grey rectangles represent 31” x 15” sheets of cardboard. Notice that there are five pairs of identical parts sheets, plus only two unique sheets (in the upper left corner). This significantly reduced the laser cutting costs.

Digging around on Ponoko's website a little more, I discovered a mention of something called "nodes" which help to keep slot-assembled parts from wobbling and falling apart. Basically, it involves adding rounded bumps to the slots in your pieces. The size, position, and number of nodes depends on your material and its thickness, and the website didn't provide any specific tips for my double-layered corrugated cardboard, so I made an informed guess and crossed my fingers: I settled on a node height of 1/16th of an inch, which, multiplied by two, represented about a quarter of the 0.264" thickness of the sheet. That's a lot, but I figured that cardboard is a pretty compactible material. I was lucky; the nodes ended up working perfectly.

Nodes help to keep the parts snug when the final object is assembled.

One at a time, I copied each sheet to a new SketchUp file, set my camera to a top, parallel projection view, applied a simple, white Style with no profiles edges or other effects, did a Zoom Extents, and exported a PDF at 1:1 scale. Then I opened each PDF in Illustrator, copied just the parts, and pasted them on a new layer in the template provided by Ponoko. I went through this process a total of seven times—once for each unique sheet I'd be sending them.

The sheets are exported out of SketchUp Pro as 1:1 scale PDF files. These are then opened in a vector illustration program like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape.

In order for Ponoko to convert an Illustrator EPS (their required upload format) into whatever file they send to their laser cutters, you need to make sure all of the edges in your drawings are colored and sized correctly. Blue lines tell the laser to cut, whereas red lines are used for engraving. Just follow the instructions on the template and you'll be okay.

After uploading my files, putting in all my credit card details, finalizing the order, corresponding a few times with the friendly staff at Ponoko, and waiting a couple of weeks, a box arrived at my house. I opened it up and was nearly knocked over by the smell of laser-cut cardboard. It's an odd odor; not terrible, but definitely not pleasant. I quarantined the pieces in the spare bedroom and went to work punching everything out.

The accuracy of the cutting was astounding. I've never laser cut anything; I expected the pieces to look good, but the quality of what I got made me alternate between grinning and literally giggling. For a person who spent hundreds of hours in architecture school hacking away at cardboard, foam core, basswood and plexiglass with an X-Acto knife, the extravagant expense of laser cutting instantly justified itself. I was hooked.

I couldn’t believe the quality of the laser-cut parts that arrived on my doorstep.

It took longer to peel the paper backing off of the individual parts than it did to assemble the actual airplane (not counting the time it took for the glue to dry completely). With only a couple of exceptions, the parts slotted together exactly the way I'd designed them to. It was the most gratifying thing I've made in years.

It took me only a couple of hours to put the airplane together. The next version will have less glue—that was the most time-consuming part of the process.

As a devout follower of the Church of Making Things Overcomplicated, I decided early on that the airplane should have a custom-designed instrument cluster. And a steering wheel. And a working, motorized propeller. This is already a monster blog post, so I'll end the description of my process here. To conclude, a few photos of the end result.

The final result weighs somewhere between five and six pounds, but that includes the steering wheel, the propeller motor, and four AA batteries. My son (who’s two-and-a-half) had no trouble wearing it.

 I designed the instrument cluster entirely in LayOut, using layers of translucent details to simulate reflections, highlights and shadows.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Announcing SketchUp 3D Basecamp 2014

Dreaming in SketchUp is a telltale sign. Trying to Push/Pull through physical walls is another. The symptoms of SketchUp addiction are many and varied, but one thing is certain: the only remedy is to attend 3D Basecamp, the world's premiere destination for all things SketchUp. Your obsession won't be cured, but you'll meet lots of other people just like you. Besides owning a holodeck, what could be better than that?

It gives me immense pleasure to announce SketchUp 3D Basecamp 2014. Our next shindig will take place from April 14th to the 16th in Vail, Colorado. We’ve booked an amazing venue in the heart of the Rocky Mountains—during ski season. We’ve made sure that there will be lots of meeting space, reliable internet, affordable lodging and terrific food. We’ve done what we’ve never done before: We’re announcing Basecamp six months ahead of time to give folks plenty of time to plan. This is going to be epic.

We’ve put together an FAQ that should answer most of your burning questions. For the rest, please use the “More Questions?” widget at the bottom of the FAQ page; we’ll answer them as best we can.

Update! 3D Basecamp registration is now open! Visit the website for more information, or go directly to the registration page to sign up. See you in Vail!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Fabbing with friends: a WikiHouse for World Maker Faire

When we first heard about WikiHouse, we knew we wanted to build one. When WikiHouse’s co-founder gave an inspiring Ted talk this past May, we were inspired to build one. And when we read the WikiHouse modeling standards (make groups, use layers!), we knew that we just had to build one.

So as we sat down with the WikiHouse team this summer and talked about how we could collaborate for World Maker Faire, our goal was a no-brainer: design and build our own WikiHouse in just over a month.

The SketchUp WikiHouse for World Maker Faire. View more photos of this project here.

Kicking off the project, it was quickly evident that between the SketchUppers and the WikiHouse’rs, there were more than enough architects to go around. Aside from the reality that no one on the team had a CNC router in his garage, we knew we’d need a project partner with tons of CNC experience -- and one who wouldn’t laugh off the idea of hammering together a thousand cut pieces in the middle of Maker Faire.

Enter our friend Bill Young over at ShopBot Tools. We’d been itching to do a project with Bill since he caught us spreading saw dust all over Maker Faire Bay Area earlier this year. Bill’s practical experience with wood selection, tolerances, and project planning are nicely measured by his ability to engrave anything (onto anything) while generally believing that most things are possible. With the right mix of optimism and practicality, we started trading SKP’s back and forth, hashing out the trade-offs in various design concepts.

Concept 1: A custom tarp could be tricky, and would we even hear ourselves over a CNC in one bay?
Concept 2: Using 'Add location,' we noticed the lookout would showcase a cozy stretch city highway.
Concept 3: We were charmed by an iconic design with exposed sections, but this required too much wood and time.
The Constructible Model: Just right with all the right hooks, tabs, and S-joints.

With an ‘as-built’ SketchUp model set and 160 sheets of plywood sitting in Bill’s shop, it was time to derive cutting sheets and turn up the ShopBots. (Note: if you’re looking to prep your own model for CNC, the free WikiHouse plugin for SketchUp turns grouped geometry into neatly laid out cutting sheets).

Soon after we began cutting, it became clear that our two central constraints were time and lumber. Thankfully, our design and tools were well-suited to these pressures. The WikiHouse design standards call for modular elements that could easily be added, subtracted or adapted -- and because WikiHouse uses SketchUp as a platform, making in-progress changes was painless and quick. With a quick pivot for build phasing (agreeing what to cut next based on how much wood and time remained), the sawdust started blowing and the sheets started piling.

Ply piles in progress: only a small accumulation of the full project. See more photos from our cutting phase.

Some 1,150 cut pieces later, we are on our way to New York City after a fantastic month of collaboration between architects in the U.K., software engineers in Colorado, and woodworkers in Virginia. When we reach World Maker Faire, we’ll be joining forces with friends from the SketchUp community to show what open design tools, open design platforms, and a bit of courage can accomplish in just two days.

The right tools for the job: custom cut and engraved wiki-mallets for World Maker Faire.

Didn't make it to World Maker Faire? Follow the build progress.
Want to see more photos of our project to date?
Watch a timelapse of the SketchUp WikiHouse build.

Posted by Mark Harrison on behalf of the SketchUp Team

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A textbook for teaching SketchUp

We’ve spent a lot of time watching students of all ages take to SketchUp. Fearlessly, they dive right in, texturing polygons until they’ve created imaginatively robust landscapes, or even autofolding simple geometric structures into mind-bending helixes. Clearly, discerning kids aren’t waiting for permission to explore and design in 3D. We’ve also seen insightful teachers recognize SketchUp’s potential as a teaching platform, but for them jumping into a whole new way of learning isn’t as straightforward.

This fall, longtime SketchUp author Bonnie Roskes has introduced a comprehensive (and rather large) guidebook for teaching in 3D. For middle and high school teachers as well as college and university instructors, SketchUp 2013 Hands-On: Student Coursebook bundles basic and advanced exercises, along with step-by-step modeling guides and over 50 “DIY” projects that can be assigned as homework or classwork. Bonnie’s book also includes an Instructor Guide with all the solutions to these projects (so teachers can become 3D experts in step with their students).

SketchUp 2013 Hands-on -- a teacher's handbook/encyclopedia for teaching in 3D.

SketchUp 2013 Hands-on covers all of SketchUp’s tools and features with illustrated, step-by-step instructions. Need to challenge the more advanced modelers in class? Bonnie also provides an add-on guide to 35 popular SketchUp extensions.

SketchUp 2013 Hands-on clocks in at 505 pages, so there is a handy PDF version (that is much less expensive) and a better choice for students using the book on laptops or tablets. Bonnie can set you up with an evaluation PDF, or help coordinate discounts for bookstore or group orders: just send her a note. Bonnie has been writing about SketchUp for about a decade now, so we can vouch for both her books and her enthusiasm for helping teachers use 3D to connect and engage with students.

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, SketchUp for Education

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Teaching Dynamic Components to the web: a SketchUp summer research project

Hey there. My name is Brandon, and this summer I interned at SketchUp.

I attend the Colorado School of Mines and, as you might guess, I study computer science. Regardless of your major at Mines, all students are required to take a class on drafting. When I was offered a position on the SketchUp team this past spring, I was hesitant to believe I could accomplish anything in three short months. After all, it took me an entire semester to learn another 3D modeling program (which will remain nameless). Thankfully, SketchUp is as easy to use today as it was when I first opened it in middle school.

One of SketchUp’s most powerful feature sets are dynamic components, groups of geometry that have advanced functionality. To use a dynamic component today, you’d download one from the 3D Warehouse (or create it from scratch) and open it in SketchUp before you can change its parametric options. My summer research project was to investigate the feasibility of configuring those parameters from within a browser, before downloading the component to your computer. Another way of looking at it: can we teach a web browser to customize a dynamic component?

Here I am presenting a prototype of my research project to the SketchUp developer team

Last year, we unveiled the SketchUp Showcase which featured the prototype of a web-based model viewer that lets you to rotate and view models in a browser without having to install any additional software. It’s still a prototype, but this viewer offered me a basic way to display a dynamic component online, and then redraw it as parameters changed.

I spent a great deal of time making sure that when an input parameter changed, the browser displayed component transformed just as it would inside SketchUp. To pull this off, I thoroughly investigated how dynamic components work. This involved hours of playing inside SketchUp on my own and bugging numerous engineers for help. Reading through the source code didn’t hurt, either. This allowed me to properly rewrite the dynamic component functionality in JavaScript so that the behavior in a web browser would be consistent for users.

A screenshot of my research project in action: the configurator changes the material in a NanaWall dynamic component, then the component is re-drawn in a web browser

Proving that a web application could configure a SketchUp model was only one part of my research. I also had to investigate how to teach a web browser what a dynamic component is in the first place. You see, what our viewer prototype reads and displays is the geometry contained within a SketchUp file. But dynamic components are more than just geometry; they contain attributes like variable values and formulas.

To close this gap, I used SketchUp’s Ruby API to create an extension that exports the component along with its dynamic properties wrapped up in a separate JavaScipt object. The browser is then able to reunite the geometry from the exported file to its JavaScript counterpart, so the component can be parametrically manipulated. In a way, the extension acts like a moving truck. All the geometry gets packed and sent in one file, while all the attribute data gets sent in another. Everything ends up in the same place, albeit in pieces, and everything works just the same after being reassembled.

My extension exports a dynamic component to the web, packaging its dynamic properties separately so that they can be read by web browsers

This idea of using technologies that require no additional software fits pretty well with SketchUp’s development philosophy, and my research this summer hints at the potential of a SketchUp configurator for the web. For example, components could be viewed and modified on mobile devices, allowing people to share and collaborate more effectively. 3D Warehouse users might be able to manipulate components online, allowing them to find the right modeling asset even faster. Reporting tools could be built in to model viewers, allowing real-time cost analysis, helping designers keep projects on budget and on track.

There were many other highlights from my summer at SketchUp: helping launch SketchUp 2013, learning a ton about LayOut from architects and designers at the AIA National Convention in Denver, and mastering high-tech hardware configurations via our office espresso machine and 3D printer. All in all, I feel pretty lucky to have joined Trimble, and I’m curious to see what’s next from the minds behind SketchUp.

Posted by Brandon Rodriguez, SketchUp Web Intern

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SketchUp Pro for set design: A conversation with Andy Walmsley

Andy Walmsley (AndyWalmsley.com) is an Emmy award-winning set and production designer whose work has appeared in television, Broadway, Las Vegas, and beyond. Andy uses SketchUp Pro extensively in his design work, and, in this post, shares how he came to production design as a career and how 3D has changed his work.

Walmsley’s set model for America’s Got Talent, designed in SketchUp Pro

What kind of sets do you work on?

I’m very diverse, especially for someone in my field. I am essentially a set designer although there are many fancier names for my job: art director, production designer, scenic designer, scenographer. Most people in my line of work tend to specialize in one genre. For example, the guys who do Broadway theater set design rarely (if ever) work on TV sets. Television designers who do ‘drama’ don’t do entertainment shows (like award or game shows). And the designers who do opera and ballet don’t do musical theater. Movie designers just do movies. Rock n’ roll touring designers also specialize. I am very unique in that I design for major TV entertainment shows, Broadway musicals, Las Vegas spectaculars, museum projects, ice shows, cruise ship performances, theme parks, circuses, corporate events: essentially, I’ll design a set for any genre as long as it’s entertainment.

The production design for the Tennis Channel's Wimbledon Primetime

How did you get into set and production design as a career?

I come from a family of performers. My great grandfather was a very famous British comedian; my grandmother was a silent movie piano player; my grandfather a big band bass player; my dad was a famous comedian; and my mom a fire eater (yes, a fire eater). So I grew up backstage in Vaudeville theaters, TV studios and the circus. For a while I wanted to be a TV cameraman, so my mom bought me a little Lego TV camera crew and I built Lego TV sets and had my little plastic crew shoot my masterpieces. The models got more and more elaborate, and one day a family friend, magician Paul Daniels (the UK’s David Copperfield) saw my models and said, “You know, people actually do this for a living.“ I owe a lot to Paul and even more to Lego.

Have you worked on any projects that folks might have heard about?

Just a few. Most famously, I designed Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (before I started using SketchUp). My original design for that show is the most duplicated scenic design in history, as the set has been built to every identical detail in 108 countries around the world. That set was also used in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. I designed for American Idol which is often considered the most successful show in the history of American television. I was nominated for three Emmys for that show and won the Emmy for ‘Outstanding Art Direction.’ I’ve worked on America’s Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance, and a bunch of other well-known TV projects.

Walmsley's 2009 Emmy-winning production design for American Idol

I’ve designed about 14 Las Vegas shows now, which is more than anyone else I know. In theater my most famous show was Buddy — The Buddy Holly Story. That production was duplicated in 13 countries. My other big theater gig is Blood Brothers, a fantastic musical which is still running in the UK nearly 20 years after I first designed it.

What is your favorite part about your job?

The ultimate satisfaction for me is to spend a few days creating a model, virtually walking around every inch of it, then only a couple of months later find myself walking around the real set. Most of my sets are huge; they usually occupy sound stages that are 100 feet by 200 feet in size. To be walking around something that you visualized and that came out of your head (via SketchUp) 10 weeks previously is an amazing feeling of power. I think a lot of designers are megalomaniacs, and I think I can see why.

A concept design for an "extreme musical chairs" variety show

How long have you worked with 3D modeling software?

I initially invested in a full Mac set up in the 90’s. As if by destiny, the week my hardware and software arrive in the mail, I also landed a huge job and didn’t have the time to learn how to make the leap from a drafting table and pencil to digital tools. Then another job came in, and another, and from that moment I have never been out of work, but also couldn’t find the time to learn to work with the new tools.

Fast forward ten years. I had moved to The States to work on American Idol. Shortly after arriving, I purchased a bells-and-whistle drafting table and rented some office space at Henson Studios so that I could set up a model-making office. Pretty soon, I was being mocked by colleagues for still drafting on paper. I signed up for a Vectorworks course that the Art Directors Guild was offering and struggled for the first month. The instructor, Don Jordan, had the patience of a saint, and during one of the class breaks he showed me a new program that he thought I might find easier to grasp — and that was SketchUp. I remember staring at the screen like a caveman looking at the first wheel: I was in love immediately.

I’m musically inclined so I often relate my experience with 3D modeling to this metaphor: musicians can pick up some instruments and just instinctively be able to play them. I can grab almost any instrument that you blow into and get a tune out of it in seconds. But string instruments, I am hopeless with. SketchUp is just one of those instruments that I could play instantly.

Why is 3D important in set design?

Let me describe the process as it was prior to SketchUp Pro. I would go to a meeting about a new show and get briefed, go back to the office and start drafting roughly in pencil, then take those drawings to my two or three model makers (who I had to pay every Friday). They would then spend a week or longer building the models. I would take the model (often on a crowded London train) to show to the producer, he would inevitably want to make changes, I’d take the model back and the assistants would break the model apart to rebuild it with the adaptations. All of this was extremely time consuming, very expensive. Model materials aren’t cheap, and model-making employees (and their models) take up a lot of space. I also don’t miss constantly breathing in toxic glue and paint fumes.

One of Walmsley's older, physical production models for American Idol

Now with SketchUp Pro, I don’t even need an office. I go for the initial briefing and can usually turn around a very complex SketchUp model in one (or max) two days with no office, no employees, no equipment, no fumes. The best part: I can now email designs to my producer without travel and I can make changes by quickly editing the SKP file, often in a hotel, an airport or a Starbucks. Now, that is Freedom. I have said it many times, and it sounds a bit overdramatic, but SketchUp literally changed my life.

Tell us about a particular design problem that you’ve been able to address in SketchUp.

Glossy floors. So much of entertainment involves GLOSS. We love glossy floors and reflective surfaces: it’s all glitzy showbiz stuff. It’s also a curious modeling problem to solve. Sometimes I will assign the stage floor a smoky, transparent surface and then copy the entire model above and scale it inside out underneath my transparent floor. It will really look like the above scenery is reflected in the floor but really you are looking at a complete copy of the model under the floor.

Do you have any advice for other SketchUp users?

My problem is that I have gotten super fast on SketchUp, but done so using my own little tricks and not really utilizing the software properly. Have you ever seen a bad driver in a car? They can drive well enough but they are using the wrong hand on the wrong side of the steering wheel. Doesn’t seem so safe, right? That is me with SketchUp: I make it do great things, but I always think there may be a better way to save time beyond just working quickly. One of my resolutions this year is to get some one-on-one training from a real expert to help me master some of the fundamentals. That should help me get up to super, scary modeling speed but with my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel.

Posted by Mark Harrison, SketchUp team

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Announcing the Visiting Professionals Program for Higher Education

In our line of work, we meet a lot of SketchUp ninjas. These people have gone way beyond memorizing keyboard shortcuts and customizing templates; they bend SketchUp Pro and LayOut to their will to solve complex design and process problems, to collaborate more efficiently with clients and partners, to build successful businesses. Frankly, these are the folks who make SketchUp do things that even we never imagined possible.

We’re inspired by these 3D experts, and we want to help transfer their expertise and knowledge to the next generation of SketchUp professionals. Our new Visiting Professionals Program is an exciting opportunity for U.S.-based university students and faculty to learn how SketchUp Pro and LayOut are used in professional practice across a variety of disciplines.

The SketchUp Pro Visiting Professionals: a veritable roster of 3D ninjas

The SketchUp Pro Visiting Professionals Program provides access to real-world experts in architecture, planning, landscape architecture, interior design, construction, video game design, film and stage design -- just to name a few. Our program participants include professional designers, renowned educators, and published authors. Beyond SketchUp Pro, these are professionals who have a lot to share about managing schedules and expectations, getting client buy-in and selling project ideas, and working across multiple software platforms to develop flexible workflows. After all, for most people, getting work done means choosing the right tools and making them all work together.

Visit our program site to learn more about what a visit to your school might include, and browse our directory of professional specialists. Then, apply to have a SketchUp Visiting Professional come to your institution. We will be facilitating a limited number of no-cost, U.S. visits for the 2013-14 school year.

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, SketchUp Pro for Education, Program Manager

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This ain't our first rodeo

It’s always been a SketchUp tradition to include a member of our team as the default component. Functionally, we include these 2D figures to lend a sense of scale and perspective when you first open SketchUp. Without a scale figure, it would be impossible to tell if you were looking at the origin from 10 feet away or from 10,000.

But our scale figures are also subtle nods to the friendly folks on our team. Bryce, Sang, Susan; these people have all played an important role in the development of SketchUp. They’re also great friends. So, who is the scale figure for SketchUp 2013?

Introducing Derrick, the scale figure for SketchUp 2013

It has been about one year since we were acquired by Trimble. It has also been one year since we lost the person who made it all happen. Derrick Darby was Trimble's champion for our acquisition, and was very excited to move to Boulder, Colorado and continue his career with us. Sadly, he passed away just as the deal was closing, leaving behind a beautiful wife and three talented sons.

Derrick had the kind of rare, infectious personality that made us feel like we’d known him for a lifetime, even if we’d just met him. He was a true southern gentlemen. And although he wasn't with us as we unpacked on our first day at Trimble, we wouldn't be where we are today without his leadership and thoughtfulness. Derrick was a visionary and an innovator who previously sold two of his own companies to Trimble. He had been around the block with technology creation, acquisition, integration and strategy -- creating jobs and opportunity for many along the way. Derrick liked to say that the SketchUp acquisition wasn’t Trimble’s first rodeo. We hope it's one that continues kicking up dust for generations.

A few past and present members of the SketchUp team

So, picking a scale figure for SketchUp 2013 was an easy decision. Derrick remains an integral part of our team and family, and we couldn't think of a better way to remember him than to share a bit of Derrick’s personality with world of SketchUp users. The next time you open SketchUp, take a moment to interact with Derrick's component (Tools > Interact) and send some good vibes to guy who was largely responsible for SketchUp’s third act.

Posted by Chris Keating, on behalf of the SketchUp team

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Making custom patterns for LayOut

The major new feature in the newest version of LayOut in SketchUp Pro 2013 is Pattern Fill. It lets you fill any shape in your document with a pattern. LayOut ships with a library of patterns to get you started, but creating and adding your own is possible, too. This post is a tutorial on how to do just that.

The Basics

Patterns are made up of image tiles. When you assign a pattern to a shape, LayOut fills that shape with image tiles to create the pattern you want to see. The following picture shows this concept in action:

A sampling of patterns that ship with LayOut. Each is made up of image tiles which repeat to form the pattern.

There’s nothing magical about image tiles in LayOut; they’re just JPG, TIF, GIF or PNG images. All of the pattern tiles we’ve included with LayOut happen to be PNGs because that format supports non-lossy compression (which makes them look good) and alpha transparency (which makes parts of them see-through). If you can, you should make your pattern tiles PNGs, too.

To add a pattern to LayOut, all you have to do is choose Import Custom Pattern... from the drop-down menu in the Pattern Fill panel. You can choose any image you like; LayOut will automatically turn it into a pattern by tiling it (copying it in a grid).

How does LayOut decide how big to draw each individual tile in the pattern? It looks at the source image’s resolution (pixel density) and uses that. Every PNG, JPG, TIF, and other raster image is saved with a resolution when it’s created. This is expressed in pixels per inch, or ppi.

Consider an image which is 1200 pixels wide by 600 pixels high. If this image is saved at 300 ppi, its physical size would be 4 inches (1200 pixels ÷ 300 pixels per inch = 4 inches) by 2 inches . If it were saved at only 100 ppi, its physical size would be 12 inches (1200 px ÷ 100 ppi = 12 in) by 6 inches. The higher the resolution, the smaller the physical size.

Example: A simple geometric pattern

A pattern composed of parallelograms, or hexagons, or cubes, depending on how you look at it.

Let's make a pattern that looks like the one in the image above. This pattern is relatively simple to create for three reasons:

1) It has only one basic unit.
The “cube” is repeated over and over; there is no other shape.

2) It isn’t trying to look “random”.
Patterns that are supposed to look like a random distribution of elements are much trickier to create. I’ll cover them in a separate article.

3) It has no horizontal or vertical lines at its edges.
The following procedure isn't ideal for making pattern tiles that are made up of horizontal and vertical lines (like bricks and other rectilinear units). Those patterns, while common, are actually special cases that require a completely different technique to make sure they look right when they're tiled together. You can see three examples of these in this article’s first image, above. I'll outline that different technique in a separate article.

The technique that follows uses LayOut and Photoshop. While it’s possible to create pattern tiles using only LayOut (or even SketchUp, for that matter), Photoshop (or another image editor like GIMP) makes it much easier by providing pixel-level editing and tools for resizing raster images precisely.

Step 1: Use LayOut to manually draw a sample of the pattern.

LayOut is an obvious way to create simple pattern tiles like this one. The addition of SketchUp's Copy Array feature to LayOut in SketchUp Pro 2013 makes tasks like this one a lot easier.

Step 1: Start by manually creating an area of pattern. For something this simple, LayOut works well.

Step 2: Outline a single tile with a rectangle.

Drawing this rectangle on a new layer makes it easier to turn on and off later on. Giving it a thick and brightly colored outline makes it easier to see what you're doing.

Step 2: Use the Rectangle tool to outline a single tile.

Step 3: Fill the "tile outline" rectangle with a bright color and turn off its stroke.

This step makes it easy to crop away everything you don't need once you're in Photoshop. Choose a fill color that doesn't appear anywhere in your pattern tile.

Step 3: Convert the outlined rectangle into a filled shape with no stroke.

Step 4: Duplicate the page and delete only the rectangle.

Step 4: Duplicate the page and remove the rectangle on the copy.

Step 5: Export a PDF.

In your exported PDF, include both the page with the rectangle and the one without.

Step 5: Export both pages as a PDF file.

Step 6: Open the PDF in Photoshop.

In Photoshop, choose to open both pages of the PDF as separate image files. Set the image size to something quite large, like 5000 pixels wide. You'll downsample (make them smaller) later on.

Step 6: Open the pages of the PDF as separate Photoshop files

Step 7: Copy / Paste one file into the other.

In the open file with the colored rectangle, choose Select > All from the menu bar, then choose Edit > Copy. Move to the other open file, then choose Edit > Paste Special > Paste in Place to create a new layer.

Step 7: Copy/Paste in Place the contents of one file into the other, creating a new layer in the second file.

Step 8: Select the colored rectangle.

Choose the layer containing the colored rectangle, then activate the Magic Wand tool and click once on the rectangle to create a selection from it.

Step 8: Use the Magic Wand tool to select only the colored rectangle

Step 9: Crop the image based on the rectangular selection.

Choose Image > Crop from the menu bar to crop the file based on the selection rectangle. Choose Select > Deselect when you're done.

Step 9: Crop the image, leaving only a single pattern tile

Step 10: Hide the layer containing the colored rectangle.

When you hide the layer with the colored rectangle on it, you should be left with only a single pattern tile in your Photoshop file. Save the layered image as a PSD file.

Step 10: Hide the layer containing the colored rectangle.

Step 11: Resize the file.

Choose Image > Image Size... to open the Image Size dialog box. Make sure the Resample Image checkbox is checked, and the drop-down menu below it is set to Bilinear. Type in a new width, in pixels, for your pattern tile, then click OK.

Note 1: If you create a very large pattern tile, you won't ever have to worry about blurriness or visible pixels when your pattern appears in LayOut—it'll be sharp as a tack. On the other hand, making your tile too large could bog down your computer; it all depends on how large each tile will appear, how many tiles LayOut will end up drawing, and how zippy your computer is.

Note 2: When it comes to digital images, there are some "magic" numbers to be aware of. They're the powers of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc), and using them makes it easier for your computer to resample an image when it needs to be displayed bigger or smaller than its native size. Making your pattern tile image width one of these numbers says to the world, "I know what I'm doing."

Step 11: Resize the image using the Image Size dialog box.

Step 12: Change the image resolution.

Choose Image > Image Size... to open the Image Size dialog box again. This time, make sure the Resample Image checkbox is unchecked. The fields in the Pixel Dimensions area of the window should be uneditable.

Here, you're setting the physical size of the pattern tile on your page in LayOut. The value you type into the Width field is the physical width your tile will appear in LayOut when the pattern is set to 1x scale in the Pattern Fill panel. If you want an individual tile to be 0.5 inches wide in LayOut, enter that measurement into the Width field, and click OK.

Step 12: Change the image resolution (the pixel density) so that the pattern appears the correct size on your page in LayOut.

Step 13: Save your image as a PNG file.

As I explained at the top of this article, PNG is the image file format that offers both lossless file compression and support for areas of transparency. Both are desirable qualities in a pattern tile, so PNG's almost always the way to go.

Step 13: Save the image tile as a PNG file. Giving it a meaningful name will save time in the long run.

Step 14: Import your custom pattern into LayOut.

Back in LayOut, open the Pattern Fill panel (Window > Pattern Fill) and choose Import Custom Pattern... from the drop-down menu at the top. Find the PNG file you created in Step 13 and open it.

To make your custom patterns available in every new LayOut document you create, put them in folders on your system and use the Add Custom Collection... option from the drop-down menu in the Pattern FIll panel.

Step 14: Use the Pattern Fill panel to import your custom pattern into LayOut.

In my next couple posts, I’ll outline techniques for creating pattern tiles that are rectilinear, ones that incorporate transparency, and ones that are supposed to look like a random distribution of elements. Stay tuned, and good luck.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Introducing SketchUp 2013

Less than a year after joining the Trimble family, it’s our pleasure to announce the arrival of SketchUp 2013. For this release, we focused on two things: building an ecosystem that makes it easier for millions of SketchUp modelers to find and use the plugins and extensions they need, and continuing to turbocharge SketchUp Pro’s documentation and presentation features (in the form of LayOut). We think you’ll be really excited about both—we certainly are.

Extension Warehouse: A smarter approach to SketchUp plugins

Can SketchUp do X, Y, or Z? Extension Warehouse is the place to find out.

Over the years, our beloved plugin developers—the folks who use our Ruby scripting tools to build add-ons for SketchUp—have created some truly amazing features. Historically, these extensions have been crazy useful, laughably affordable, and (for the most part) incredibly difficult to find. No more.

For 2013, we built a repository of extensions—an Extension Warehouse, in our parlance—that provides a one-stop shop for anyone looking to customize their copy of SketchUp. This one new feature is actually dozens (eventually hundreds) of new features, all ready and waiting for you to discover. Using the Extension Warehouse to find, install and update plugins is a simple operation. And best of all, it all happens right inside SketchUp.

By far the best way to get to the Extension Warehouse is by clicking its icon in SketchUp 2013's main toolbar.

When you visit the Extension Warehouse, you’ll notice it’s every bit a modern app store: most-popular lists, user reviews, download statistics, introductory videos and more. Clicking a plugin’s “Install” button takes care of just about everything that used to make Ruby scripts so cumbersome to use. No more digging around for your plugins directory. No more unpacking files and folders into precise locations in your file system. No more wondering why this can’t all be easier. Because now it is.

LayOut in SketchUp Pro 2013: More tools for turning your models into drawings

We’ve heard that you’d like to take your SketchUp models farther into the documentation part of your workflow. For that, we’re continuing to turn LayOut in SketchUp Pro into a full-fledged tool for creating scaled, annotated and dimensioned drawings from your models. In this version, we’ve added hatching and other pattern fills, speedier vector rendering, better zoom, more useful callouts and other improvements we think you’ll love.

The complete list of details about what’s new in SketchUp Pro 2013 is too long to include in this blog post. We’ve written another one just for that purpose: SketchUp Pro 2013: A closer look at LayOut.

SketchUp Make: A new brand for an old favorite

We decided that the free version of SketchUp needed a name and a brand of its own. Now the word “SketchUp” refers to a product family of which there are two members: SketchUp Pro and SketchUp Make. The latter is still free, international, and aimed squarely at every treehouse builder, 3D printing wizard, and pinewood derby all-star in the universe. It’s a reflection of our commitment to our “3D for Everyone” mantra, and I’m super proud to say it’s here to stay. Read all about it here: re(Introducing) SketchUp Make.

We know there’s been some confusion about choosing the right version of SketchUp in the past, so we want to be absolutely clear about this going forward. If you’re working on a personal project, SketchUp Make is for you. If you’re doing professional or commercial work, SketchUp Pro is for you. You’ll notice we’ve clarified that SketchUp Make is “not licensed for commercial work.” We think SketchUp Pro can help our professional users do amazing things, and with their support, we have every intention of making it an even better tool for modeling, documentation, and communication. And if you need 3D modeling in the classroom, in a makerspace, or in your garage, this change doesn’t affect you at all: SketchUp Make is free and here to stay.

Upgrade and Support, all rolled into one

Starting today, we’re introducing a simplified Upgrade and Support program for SketchUp Pro. It goes like this: When you buy a new license for SketchUp Pro 2013, you’re also buying a year’s worth of included upgrades (major and minor), email tech support, and phone support for installation and licensing issues. If you already have a SketchUp Pro license that you need to upgrade to SketchUp Pro 2013, you can purchase the same Upgrade and Support program separately. We think it’s a good deal, and we think you will, too. Find out more about it here: Upgrading to SketchUp Pro 2013.

Posted by John Bacus, SketchUp Team

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