Stunning animations about landscape architecture

The American Society of Landscape Architects has produced a number of beautiful and educational animations collectively called Designing Our Future: Sustainable Landscapes. Even better, ASLA asked our good friend Daniel Tal to write, narrate and produce them with SketchUp. You probably know Dan as a bestselling SketchUp author; it turns out he’s a pretty phenomenal video guy, too. Here’s one of them:

Here’s how ASLA describes the raison d’etre for this project:

These animations and their supporting materials are meant to help the public get a sense of both sustainable landscape design and the type of work that landscape architects do. Each animation has a companion guide to sustainability education resources. Designed specifically for students from kindergarten to 12th grade, the resources include curricula, games, activity guides, and videos to help classrooms explore these ideas in greater depth. All these resources are at your disposal when you are discussing the profession in your communities.

Congratulations to ASLA, Daniel Tal and the National Endowment for the Arts (who provided some of the funding for this undertaking) on their commitment to educating people about the impact that design—both good and bad—can have on their everyday lives. I've always believed that the best way to promote good design is to make the tools more accessible. Affordable tools that are easier to learn encourage more people to participate in the process. Participation inevitably leads to understanding, which I think is the key to making better decisions about design.

As both a designer and an educator, I encourage you to watch the rest of these animations and to share them with wild abandon. You’ll be doing the world a favor.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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You’re invited to fly to the red carpet

[Cross-posted from the Lat Long blog]

This Sunday night is the 83rd annual Academy Awards, which makes a dazzling presence at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscar® Awards are the oldest awards ceremony in the media, and was created to honor film achievements. However, this event has evolved into something more of a spectacle and broadcast success over the years. There’s the extravagant red carpet, infamous paparazzi, buzzing interviews, entertaining ceremony and of course the fashion commentary.

Last year, I hosted an Oscars party for friends and got dressed up in high heels, rolled out a red carpet, made themed drinks & snacks and of course had the obligatory ballot with prizes. As we sat on the edge of our seats and critiqued the fashion, we pretended to be right there on the red carpet with the stars.

This year, we thought, why not take the experience one step closer to reality? Take a virtual tour of the Kodak Theatre in Google Earth -- as if you're actually there! It includes the red carpet, paparazzi and even the Oscar statues. Watch the video below to fly to the red carpet in 3D or download this KML to take a tour in Google Earth.



If you’d like to take your own trip on the red carpet in Google Earth, download a 3D model of the Red Carpet, Hollywood and Highland Center, and the Kodak Theatre.

You’ve probably already made your predictions, but if you’re curious about what other people are thinking, check out the Oscar Search Trends. See which nominees are being searched and also realtime news articles and mentions. I’m putting my bet on James Franco for “Best Actor in a Leading Role” but according to the graph I’m not alone.

There are two days left to take a virtual trip to the red carpet, see live search results for nominees and even have time to find the perfect pair of heels or cuff links. Enjoy watching the show!

Posted by Natasha Danko, Google Earth Product Marketing Manager

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New book: Google SketchUp 8 For Dummies

When I first downloaded SketchUp years ago, I thought I was the coolest guy on the block because I could push/pull a square into a cube. Then I went online and saw what some other folks were modeling and realized I needed to up my game FAST. So like many folks, I turned to (my now colleague) Aidan Chopra’s Google SketchUp For Dummies book.

I learned a lot from this Dummies book, so I’m especially proud to be able to announce that the newest edition of Google SketchUp For Dummies is on bookshelves now. This new edition is fully revised and updated to cover all the tastiness we packed into SketchUp 8—both free and Pro. You can find the book online and at bricks-and-mortar bookstores.

If you’re new to SketchUp, the book is a great primer. It will teach you how to (among other things):

• Navigate SketchUp’s user interface.
• Build a model from scratch.
• Create and use components.
• View and present your models.
• Use LayOut to create documents and presentations.

A detailed table of contents is available for download from the publisher’s website. If you’re a grizzled SU veteran or already own an older version of this book, I’d still recommend checking out the newest edition. It contains several new sections about:

• Adding additional floor levels to your models
• Working with solids and the Solid Tools
• Using the revised Match Photo toolset
• Geo-modeling with SketchUp 8 and Building Maker
• Presenting your designs with LayOut in SketchUp Pro
• Finding and making use of Ruby scripts

There are also two additional chapters available for free download on the website, and the book’s accompanying YouTube channel has 62 supplemental videos that walk through the many techniques and examples presented in the book.

I like to tease Aidan and say that I only read half of his book. What I don’t tell him is I read the first few chapters straight through to get me up and running, but I refer to the advanced chapters often to brush up my modeling skills! In other words, this is a great resource no matter what your level of SketchUp expertise.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing

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Learn from the best: SketchUp modeling for pre-production

Sunil Pant, friend of SketchUp and eminent 3D modeling ninja, is teaching an online workshop next week through CG society. It’s called 3D Design and modeling for pre-production using Google SketchUp. Sunil has been a concept artist in the motion picture and video game industry for over 4 years, working with George Hull and other luminaries. His credits include Iron Man 2 and Dreamwork’s Megamind. We profiled Sunil on our blog a few months back.

King's Court Room

In this course, Sunil will go into detail about how he uses SketchUp to quickly block out designs in 3D in order to work out issues relating to proportion and scale. Over the 8 week course, attendees will learn how to design complicated props and vehicle designs like this:

Monorail Maintenance Vehicle

The online course starts on Monday and runs through April. Sign up soon -- spots are limited.

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SketchUp Pro Training Schedule: March/April 2011

Our March and April 2011 SketchUp Authorized Training Center schedule is now available. The map below contains information on specific locations, dates, and courses provided:


View in a larger map

Posted by Shara Rice, SketchUp Training Team

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Shaderlight Winter Wonderland winners announced

Our friends at Shaderlight have just wrapped up their Winter Wonderland rendering competition; the winning entries are delightful:

First Place: Luke Holdmann, Milwaukee, USA

Second Place: Abedallah, Christchurch, New Zealand

Third Place: Zoungy, USA

Kate from ArtVPS (makers of Shaderlight) tells me that the Mac version is on schedule for release in March. Can't wait!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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The art and design of Uncharted 2

When I joined the SketchUp team a few months back, I did what most people do when they want to learn about something new: I plugged “SketchUp” into my favorite search engine. It wasn’t long before I found my way to this wonderful interview of concept artist Robh Ruppel done by our friends at SketchUpArtists.org.

Robh was the Art Director on the massive PS3 hit Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. In this interview, he discusses how he used SketchUp to help conceptualize and design the video game’s look and feel. For those of you who aren’t gamers, Uncharted 2 was big—really big. Think Avatar.

Concept Art: From SketchUp models to tonal drawings to production

Driven by cutting edge graphics, dimensional characters and a gripping story, Uncharted 2 was a runaway critical and commercial success. To date, the game has sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide. It’s the fastest selling first-party title for PlayStation and was named by Metacritic as the most critically acclaimed game of 2009. Uncharted 2 won over 100 awards, including Game of the Year accolades from publications like IGN, Eurogamer, Game Informer, Joystiq, Kotaku, AIAS, Game Developers Choice Awards, and the Spike Video Game Awards.

Robh uses SketchUp to determine the size and major shapes of the game’s environments.

Needless to say, Uncharted 2 was an instant classic; having spent more Saturday nights playing this game than I care to admit, it was pretty exciting to read about how Robh used SketchUp to work out the game’s aesthetic, and so I thought I'd reached out to Robh to see if he’d be willing to talk to us on camera about how he used SketchUp on Uncharted 2. He agreed, and with the help of the good folks over at Naughty Dog Studios, we put together this case study:

One of the hardest parts about this project was distilling Robh’s many pearls of wisdom about concept art, designing in 3D and SketchUp into a YouTube video, so we’ll follow up with another post in the coming days that has a transcription of our entire interview.

One more thing: If you found this video compelling, check out the trailer for the upcoming Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. I’ve already pre-pre-ordered my copy.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing team

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New in Building Maker: Duplication

Endlessly repetitive buildings might not do wonders for the urban fabric of a city (Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse, anyone?), but they present some distinct advantages for the average geo-modeling addict. Anyone using a computer who hears the phrase "repeated forms" should immediately think “duplicate.” After all, doing the same thing over and over again is what microprocessors live for.

Similar buildings in the The Hague, The Netherlands

Nearly identical apartment blocks in Berlin, Germany

In situations like the ones in the cities above, Building Maker's "New from current" feature really comes in handy. You use it to duplicate existing models for re-use elsewhere. With any saved model open, right-click in the center of the next building you want to work on and choose Start new building from current from the context menu that pops up. Here’s what it looks like in the app:

Model a building in Building Maker and save it.

Right click the center of the next building you want to model and choose Start new building from current.

Position the new building wireframe in multiple views.

Repeat a few times, and you end up with something like this. These models, incidentally, were made by Supermodeler Dan Nielsen (aka Dan2310) almost a year ago—without this nifty new feature. Think of how much time he could have saved!

Posted by Brian Brown, Software Engineer and Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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Dutch geo-modelers gather to model The Hague

Cross-posted from the Dutch Google Product Blog.

Delft, The Netherlands was the most recent location for a Your World in 3D workshop. The goal of the event was to gather members of the local community to learn Building Maker so that they could model The Hague. Design8, an established Google SketchUp distributor in The Netherlands, organized, promoted and led a very successful event. Over 60 people attended the workshop, which was held at the ultra-modern technical facilities of TU Delft, a prominent Dutch engineering school.

The Dutch version of YMCA?

The day was kicked-off with a presentation from Professor Alexander Verbraeck of TU Delft, where he shared numerous examples of how 3D digital models were being used today. “It’s no longer a fringe area of study” he said, “3D is very much here to stay.”

Participants listen to opening remarks.

I followed with a brief summary of why Google was supporting these workshops and why it was important for local residents to develop and maintain 3D models of their cities. To paraphrase: “The built-world is undergoing change every day. Local residents are in a far better position to maintain an accurate view of their town than Google.”

Workshop attendees ranged in both age and experience. We had everyone from teenagers who have grown up with computers in their lives, to retirees who are eager to learn a new skill. Building Maker is a tool that suits all ages and skill levels. The Hague was added to Building Maker in December with a few other cities. Geo-modeling has been popular in The Netherlands since the concept was first introduced in 2006, so the strong interest the workshop received wasn’t unexpected.

Orlando from Design8 assisting a workshop participant

After a short introductory demonstration by Orlando Sardaro of Design8, attendees began modeling. Prizes were offered for the best model and for the most models created. Had we offered a prize for "most distance traveled", Supermodeler MILO Minderbinder would have walked away with two awards. The young man, (who is not yet old enough to drive) endured a three-hour train ride (each way!) to attend the workshop. Not unexpectedly, MILO put his modeling talents to work and created this terrific model in SketchUp in the short time he was there. The prize for his work is a 3D print of the model, provided by i.materialise.



Nicole and I would like to thank Design8, TU Delft, and all the attendees for a terrific day!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

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Proper Animation is a very cool plugin

Somewhere near the top of SketchUp's all-time list of feature requests, there's a big, bold headline that reads ANIMATE THE MOVEMENT OF OBJECTS. It's something all of us have wanted to do at one time or another. Unfortunately, it's also not something we've managed to tackle just yet. And that's why Ruby script plugins for SketchUp are so darn useful.

A while ago, I found out about a nice little plugin called Proper Animation. Watching the teaser video (below) inspired me to model and animate my very own robotic contraption. Shockingly, it only took me about half and hour to do; Proper Animation is refreshingly easy to figure out and use.

This script's premise is that objects in your model—groups and components—can each have multiple positions. You manually assign each position to build an animation. Playing that animation involves using SketchUp's already-existing Scenes feature. The really nice thing is that Proper Animation automatically connects positions to scenes.

The first thing you need to do is download and install the plugin. Its developer is MorisDov; you can find it on his site. Proper Animation also comes bundled with its own tutorial PDF. If you're looking for even more encouragement/inspiration/support, you can check out the plugin's SketchUcation thread.

Here's how I recommend getting started with Proper Animation:

Step 1

Build a box and turn it into a group. This plugin only works with groups and components.

Step 2

Right-click the box and choose Proper Animation > Set Position - 1. This tells the plugin where the box should start out.

Step 3

Move the box using SketchUp's Move tool. It doesn't matter where you move it to.

Step 4

Right-click the box again and choose Proper Animation > Set Position - 2.

Step 5

Open the Scenes Manager (Window > Scenes) and create a couple of new scenes. Clicking the Add Scene button twice is the quickest way to do this.

Step 6

Choose Plugins > Proper Animation > Start Scenes Observer from the menu bar. This tells SketchUp to start paying attention to the Proper Animation plugin.

Step 7

Click the first scene tab and watch the box travel back to its original position. Now click the second scene tab to animate the box back to Position 2.

Step 8

Telephone Pixar to let them know you'll be applying for a job shortly.

Proper Animation does a whole bunch of other stuff, too. There are controls for scene transition and delay timing, as well as fancier parameters like easing. You can use the plugin's dedicated "Animation Attributes Map" dialog box to fiddle with individual settings. Extremely advanced people are even experimenting with combining animation and rendering—take a look at the most recent pages of this SketchUcation thread to read all about it.

Note: Running Proper Animation on my Mac with the latest version of SketchUp 8 installed, I'm experiencing some weird crashing that didn't seem to happen before. Using the plugin in connection with Scenes (as described above) seems to resolve the issue, though.

Thanks to MorisDov for a truly nifty piece of technology. A thousand nerdy assembly line robot models owe their lives to you.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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New SketchUp books for interior designers

Judging by last year's SketchUp Pro sales numbers, it's pretty clear that interior design is one of our fastest-growing markets. It's about time, too—between the piles of content on the 3D Warehouse, the availability of awesome photo-rendering plugins, LayOut and SketchUp's all-around awesomeness, there's plenty for interior designers to love.

And now there are books, too! Adriana Granados is an architect and interior designer who happens to know an awful lot about SketchUp. She's written a series of mercifully short, to-the-point manuals collectively titled Google SketchUp for Interior Design & Space Planning that are available for sale online. The books are printed in full color and I think they're really helpful.

Training Course 1: Developing Basic Skills
104 pages | Full Color

Training Course 2: Acquiring Intermediate Skills
66 pages | Full Color

Training Course 3: Materials and textures, the key for interior design
45 pages | Full Color

Training Course 4: How to communicate your ideas in a convincing way
64 pages | Full Color

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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New in Building Maker: See what’s already modeled

We’ve launched a slew of new features in Building Maker recently, but I thought I’d focus on one in particular for now. One of the trickiest things about Building Maker was figuring out which buildings had already been modeled and which hadn’t. I’m happy to announce that we’ve added a feature that solves this problem.

Colored markers in Building Maker indicate the "modeled status" of buildings on the map.

When you’re looking at a city in Building Maker, you’ll notice hundreds of colored blue and gray markers. These markers indicate the “modeled status” of the buildings on the map. Round dots show models by other people; placemarks show models you’ve made. Here’s what the colors mean:

• Blue markers: Models which have been accepted and are live in Google Earth
• Cyan markers: Models which are awaiting review by us
• Gray markers: Models which have not been accepted

Feel free to tattoo this on your arm to help you remember what the symbols mean.

Buildings which haven’t been accepted (indicated by gray markers) fall into one of two categories. The first includes those which we’ve reviewed and decided not to include because they don’t meet the acceptance criteria for buildings in Google Earth. These gray markers also indicate geo-located models which are in draft (not marked “complete and ready for review”). If you’re geo-modeling a city with Building Maker, look for buildings with gray markers or no markers.

Fun fact: Internally, we refer to the little, round dots as “measles.” Since infectious diseases generally carry a negative connotation, we decided to call them “markers” instead. You’re free to call them anything you like.

Posted by Mason Thrall, Building Maker Team

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Geo-modeler and Sydneysider Peter Olsen

Cross-posted from the Official Google Australia Blog

Retired software engineer Peter Olsen discovered SketchUp shortly after it was acquired by Google in 2006. He published his first model to Google Earth’s “3D Buildings” layer in July 2008. Two and a half years later, he has 68 buildings in Google Earth—some as far away as Italy and Peru.

Peter is a Sydneysider, so it’s not surprising that he focused his initial geo-modeling activity in his home town. He’s modeled several of the city’s most visible buildings and structures, including Luna Park, the Anzac Bridge, Pyrmont Bridge and the Sydney monorail.

In addition to the 3D model, he also created a fully animated version of the Luna Park Ferris Wheel (seen above) complete with moving shadow, using a technique pioneered by Barnabu in his London Eye animation.

Peter noticed that many of Australia’s special places had not been modeled, so he expanded his reach by modeling Australia's unique underground Parliament House building in Canberra, Australia's capital city.

Like any artist, Peter continued to perfect his skills by tackling more complex geometric structures. Peter says:

“I never lost my interest in architecture and throughout my years in computing I dreamed of the day when a program would be invented that would allow the construction and manipulation of a 3D model of a building. The capability was naturally developed eventually, in the form of very expensive CAD programs. Imagine my absolute delight when I stumbled across a brilliant free program called Sketchup. My years of dreaming had suddenly become a reality.”

In 2010, he modeled one of the most challenging places on earth: Machu Picchu.

Many geo-modelers estimate building heights and other details from photographs. Not Peter. He takes great pride in the accuracy of his work as his description in the Machu Picchu model indicates: “The model contains every building, terrace and staircase and is accurate to less than 10cm (4") over most of the site.” Peter insists that he likes his “models to be absolutely accurate reproductions, not just approximate representations.”

During email discussions about some of Peter's Sydney models, I jokingly mentioned that the Google Sydney building had yet to be modelled. Four hours later he forwarded a reasonably accurate model of the building based on a few scant photos of the recently-completed building that he found on the web.

I appreciated his efforts and and invited Peter to lunch at the Google office. After lunch Peter spent 6 hours painstakingly measuring and photographing every nook and cranny of the building (I guess he liked the food!). A week or so later he forwarded his latest work of art, which has since been incorporated into the 3D buildings layer. Peter says that his “sense of amazement at the results that can be achieved with SketchUp has not diminished since the day I started work on my first model.”

Google Sydney would like to thank Peter for putting our beautiful office on the map!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

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Take a trip to the Super Bowl with Google Earth

[Cross-posted from the Latlong Blog]

We’re two days away from one of my favorite events of the year, the Super Bowl (and I’m sure I’m not alone!). I’m one of those fans who starts watching football during pre-season and can have entire weekends ruined if my team loses. For me, the Super Bowl is the culmination of hours spent glued to the television and more hours doing post-game analysis (read: arguments) with fellow football enthusiasts.

However, what I love most about the Super Bowl is the tradition around it. It’s a time when friends and family get together and stuff their faces with nachos and beer, argue about who they wish were performing at halftime and watch the two best teams in the league slug it out for the storied Lombardi trophy. Even the commercials are good!

Unfortunately, not all of us can have the luxury of being at Cowboys Stadium – site of Super Bowl XLV – for the game, so we thought we’d offer users the next best thing: the Cowboys Stadium in 3D for Google Earth. Watch the video below to fly to Arlington, Texas and see the stadium in 3D.



You can also visit the stadium in Google Earth by searching for “Cowboys Stadium, Arlington TX” (make sure the 3D layer is turned on). Or, click here to see the area in your browser with Earth view in Google Maps.

We hope you enjoy the game as much as we will. Oh, and go Packers!

Posted by Gopal Shah, Google SketchUp team

Update: Go Steelers! -Nicholas Whitaker, Chief Steelers Evangelist

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It’s Groundhog Day!

Today is the 125th anniversary of Groundhog Day – a tradition in the US and Canada when a weather-predicting woodchuck named Punxsutawney Phil tells us how long winter will last. Every year on February 2, a group of local dignitaries hold a ceremony at Gobbler’s Knob, about 2 miles outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Just after sunrise, Phil emerges from his burrow in front of thousands of spectators. The legend states that if Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. No shadow means there will be an early spring.

Punxsutawney Phil in Google Earth

This year, Phil emerged at 7:25 AM and did not see his shadow! Despite the major winter storm stretching across 2,000 miles of the continent, it sounds like we’ll be enjoying an early spring!

You can check out Gobbler’s Knob by entering the coordinates 40°55'48.65"N, 78°57'27.53"W into Google Earth or by clicking here to see the area in your browser.

Posted by Zach Moore, 3D Data Specialist

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A new SketchUp record!

Two weeks ago, we issued a free maintenance release that eliminated the much-loathed Shadow Bug (among other things) -- and the SketchUp community went bananas with paroxysms of delight. We felt like Oprah on one of her "Favorite Things" episodes. More of you downloaded SketchUp 8 in the seven days after the M1 release than had ever done so in any one-week period in history.

Some of my favorite quotes from around the social web:

Great work for all SU users! It's SU9! -- GENKI via the SketchUp Blog

My first full day of work with M1. halleluja! Not a single crash in SkU or LayOut. And no more subtly changing layout view to avoid the shadow bug! Thanks for such a fantastic update. My work life is so much better now. -- Hendrik via the SketchUp Blog

Congrats to the SU team. Now we can finally lurk in the shadows...hehe -- NVizeon via the SketchUp Blog

What's left for us to complain about now? -- Thomas via our Facebook page

To make sure you're running the latest (and most certainly greatest) version, open SketchUp 8 (free or Pro) and choose Help > Check for Update. If you're on a Mac, choose SketchUp > Check Web for Update. Let's see if we can break the record for 30-day downloads, too!

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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