Scan Explorer in SketchUp
A few days ago, the Trimble folks announced the release of a new point cloud extension for SketchUp, Trimble Scan Essentials For SketchUp. This came on the heels of their release of version 2020.1 of SketchUp Pro. And if you asked me, being able to easily work with point clouds in SketchUp is absolutely the most exciting feature of this year's release cycle!
Never heard of point clouds? Check out this Wikipedia article as a primer.
Up until recently, Trimble produced the Scan Explorer extension for SketchUp that allowed you to load a point cloud and extract construction points, planes, etc. into the 3D model. The workflow was a bit clunky in that the cloud would never load into the modeling environment but remained in the viewer dialog. This is now much improved in this new extension.
I should mention at this point that there are also other LIDAR and point cloud extensions for SketchUp, most notably Undet, which you...
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
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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....
After SketchUp's 3D Basecamps in Boulder (2012), Vail (2014), and Steamboat Springs (2016), this was my fourth such event, this time in Palm Springs, CA. Aside from the move from CO to CA, this event also hosted a lot more attendees, over 1200 in total, with folks coming from over 30 countries.
I really enjoy these 3D Basecamps. Not only because I can talk about topics that are dear to me, e.g. in my presentations this time on Ruby coding, but at which other event can you meet so many amazing people that all share the same passion, then listen to a keynote about making (delivered by the incomparable Grant Imahara of Mythbusters fame), then sit at lunch with an Oscar-winner (by complete coincidence), followed by listening to presentations about design, laser scanning, and drones in construction. And let's not forget that the same day was capped by a party under the Californian sunset with old and new friends from all...
I originally created this site at sketchupfordesign.com as a companion site to my book "Architectural Design with SketchUp". When I did that (in 2012), I came across BuddyPress, an add-on to WordPress that allows for managing an online community, complete with chats, forums, groups, and notification emails. While the idea of creating a community around a book was a good one, spammers, new privacy rules, SSL, and time spent on general maintenance of such an endeavor eventually made me realize that this was a bit too idealistic. Besides, there are many SketchUp forums out there already. As a result, I removed BuddyPress and its functionality completely from this site.
This summer I set out on redesigning this site more as a blog where I post news and tutorials related to SketchUp in general and my book in particular. You can still engage in discussions related to book chapters or anything else that's posted on this site. You can also subscribe to...
