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Just Published: Two New SketchUp Extensions (Random Tools & Scale By Tools)

July 8, 2020July 5, 2020 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

I just published two new SketchUp extensions that were both based on Ruby code that was either previously posted on this site or in my book, Architectural Design with SketchUp". Random Tools Ever wanted to place large swaths of randomly-arranged grass in SketchUp as shown in the image above? Have you been frustrated by textures that repeat a bit too much on copied wood boards? Do I have an extension for you... Read the announcement Scale By Tools Using the provided tools, you can scale, move or rotate objects based on an image or a mathematical equation. For the equation, you can choose between a trigonometric function or a power function. It is also possible to use image data to push/pull faces or move vertices, which can be useful to create ripples on water or a heightfield topography. Read the announcement...

Merry Christmas, Joyful Holidays, and a Happy New Year 2020!

December 25, 2019December 25, 2019 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

Dear friends and colleagues, I wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas, a peaceful and joyous holiday season and a healthy, happy, and successful new year 2020! Cheers, Alex P.S. Once again my card is a SketchUp model, this time with a wood-block print theme. Rendering was again accomplished in Sketchfab. In case you want to play with the original model, here it is: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/xmas2019-5385a758e8ab447bad301f7236c68ce5 ...

Merry Christmas, Joyful Holidays, and a Happy New Year 2019!

December 24, 2018February 24, 2019 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

https://sketchfab.com/models/ffc984f2997a42c884d0a7425dca0955 Dear friends and colleagues, I wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas, a peaceful and joyous holiday season and a happy and successful new year 2019! Cheers, Alex P.S. Once again my Christmas card is a simple SketchUp model, made with a randomizing script and the amazing MS Physics extension. It was then exported to Sketchfab where I enhanced all textures a bit and applied lighting....

Using Images for Scaling and Geometry Patterns in SketchUp (Ruby Snippet)

October 23, 2018February 23, 2024 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

See which image I used to scale these blocks? This post was actually inspired by a question in my 3D Basecamp presentation: Could we use images to create or modify geometry in SketchUp? As it turns out, this is actually quite easy since SketchUp version 2018. This year's version of SketchUp includes a new class in Ruby, the ImageRep. Contrary to the regular Image class (which you can use to work with images as entities in SketchUp), the ImageRep class goes further and allows you to look at images on a pixel by pixel basis. This is basically what we need to be able to read pixel color values and then use those to create or modify geometry. TIP:Want to use this without coding? This script is also in one of the tools of my Scale By Tools extension. Exploring the Code As you can see in the code snippet below, this is reasonably straightforward once one figures out the basic geometric behavior. The code...

Beautiful Functions in SketchUp (Ruby Snippet)

October 15, 2018February 23, 2024 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

A wave of scaled boxes Scripting geometry (as described in Chapter 7) can make things look very interesting (and quite beautiful) with a rather small amount of actual code. You can see this in the patterned panel example or in the pulled brick post. Both of those examples use a combination of sine and cosine functions to create a "wavy" pattern that nicely undulates shapes and geometry. There are other functions, however, some of which you likely remember from algebra and trigonometry classes. But even without delving too deeply into this, I thought it would be useful to have a reference for some interesting functions that may be of use. TIP:Want to use this without coding? This script is also in one of the tools of my Scale By Tools extension. The interactive examples shown below use the following grid of 1 inch cubes in SketchUp that were simply scaled vertically according to the lines of code that are included at the bottom...