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...
If you came to one of my presentations at the 2018 SketchUp 3D Basecamp in Palm Springs and are interested in the slides, here they are. You can find all of the code examples from the talks here (and on your USB "Stick of Knowledge").
In this presentation, I not only gave an introduction into Ruby coding with SketchUp, but I also explained how my own SketchUp extensions came to be and what is behind those from a coding perspective.
Feel free to write any questions you have into the comments below. All the best with your Ruby coding endeavors...
Presentation Slides
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I just updated my Ruby Code Editor extension to version 4.0 with many fixes and new features. You can read more about it in my announcement post:
https://alexschreyer.net/sketchup/sketchup-ruby-code-editor-4-0-now-available/
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Okay, admittedly SketchUp 2017 has been out for a few days now (there's even a first maintenance release already). I just didn't get around to posting about it. So, what do I like most about this release? Here's my rundown:
A new Graphics Engine
This one is a major improvement. As you may know, SketchUp doesn't only exist on Mac or Windows computers, but since a little while also as a browser-based modeling app on the web (at my.sketchup.com). This means that there are three different graphics environments out there in which you can push and pull to your heart's content. It makes only sense from a software development standpoint to unify those three. Fortunate for the users, this also leads to much more consistent graphics as well. Specifically this means:
The modeling environment is now DPI-aware. This means that on a high-resolution screen, everything from lines to tool cursors now scales with the set resolution. You can see this already in the...
