As I describe in chapter 3 of my book, a component-based modeling workflow makes a lot of sense. It allows you to use a hierarchical model organization, work with attributes, dynamic components and - most recently - Industry Foundation Classes (IFC). I covered this approach at Trimble's SketchUp 3D Basecamp in Vail earlier this year. You can view the entire presentation as a video below:
Tutorial Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUyyP9v6hw
If you are interested in Dynamic Components, also watch Eric Schimelpfenig's presentation on "Dynamic Components, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1".
P.S. This a similar presentation to what I gave at Trimble's Dimensions 2014 conference last week.
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Rendering of the newly-textured CLTs
With Cross-Laminated Timber (often abbreviated to CLT) available now as a new and exciting building material, I am sure some of you will need to include these in your SketchUp models, too. To help you out a bit, I am making SketchUp components of 3-ply and 5-ply CLT panels available. You can download them from my 3D Warehouse account (you can just search for "CLT" in the Components window in SketchUp).
Models and Textures
Click on the links below to preview and access them. I am making these available under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
If you need the raw textures for your own creations, you can download these images from my Flickr account here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexschreyer/8892850629/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexschreyer/8892850691
These are from my textures set.
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You likely have seen the effect before: An image like the one above shows some shapes that look like vases. After a little while, however, you notice that the curved shapes that define the vases are actually faces - or more specific: the negative silhouette of the faces.
As it turns out, this can easily be accomplished in SketchUp. Turning these shapes into real objects is also pretty simple these days as long as you have access to a 3D printer, a CNC lathe or can browse the web, where you can order 3D printed objects from any of the vendors that I list on this page.
Follow these steps to turn yourself (or a loved one) into a vase:
1. Take a good silhouette picture. Then import it into SketchUp. For this first step, we will be using a technique similar to the one that I employed for the tree cutout component in Chapter 5.
2. On the exploded picture, trace the...
SketchUp shell model for export to structural analysis software
SketchUp is a great software for creating 3D or 2D geometry that can then be imported into analysis software (or used for analysis right in SketchUp). You already saw a few examples for this in my book: One is the building energy analysis setup with the OpenStudio plugin that I describe in chapter 4 in the book. Another one is the lighting analysis that you can do with some rendering software (LightUp is shown as one example in Chapter 5).
What I want to go over here is how you can create a structural geometry model in SketchUp that you can then export to a structural analysis application. In my case, I am using VisualAnalysis because I use it for my teaching as well. This software is available for students as a free version and allows for importing DXF models. Of course, you can use the same method with other analysis software packages...
