Tutorials about using SketchUp extensions: New extensions, applied workflows, tips and tricks, etc. Learn more about this topic in Chapter 4 of my book
A rendering of the candle holder
Now that the days are getting shorter, it may be a nice home decorating idea to create a decorative candle holder. Having the powers of SketchUp and computational design methods as well as 3D printing at our fingertips, it does, of course, make sense to create something more interesting than just a boring lampshade.
This brief example uses the patterned panel exercise from Chapter 7 to create the basic geometry. Of course you can replace the sinusoidal wave pattern easily now with another beautiful function, or you could even have the cutout pattern generated based on colors in an image, which allows you to make it look like a logo, landscape, etc.
Since the resulting shape needed to have the pattern cut into a curved surface, there were basically two approaches: 1) create a curved surface and place the geometry onto it by arranging it radially (and then subtracting it), or 2) creating the panels flat and...
These days, there are quite a few ways in which we can share a SketchUp model with the world, thanks to a technology that is built right into most modern browsers: WebGL. One example is Trimble's 3D Warehouse, where an uploaded model becomes an interactive one just by clicking on a small icon:
Other web services expand on this technology. Of those, Sketchfab offers amazing possibilities when it comes to adjusting the model and its materials after upload. Using its 3D Editor, you can tweak the interactive WebGL model quite a bit. Here is an example of an edited SketchUp model.
I covered the process of preparing a SketchUp model, uploading, and adjusting it in a recent guest post on the Sketchfab blog. You can read it at the link below. Feel free to discuss anything related to this process in the comments below this post.
Below is a link to the original Sketchup model:
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Did you see my 2015 Christmas card tree image on this site? In case you were wondering how I modeled and rendered it, here is a video that explains that process. It's a bit of a minimalistic design, but as you can see in the video, I used a bunch of SketchUp extensions and the Twilight Renderer to make it happen. I hope you find the tips and tricks useful for your own projects.
Covered topics: studio setup, materials, Erode extension, components, scale tool, Fredoscale extension, Selection Toys extension, Profile Builder extension, Twilight extension, Twilight materials, Twilight lights, Twilight rendering options.
Tutorial Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBhhXavm48&feature=youtu.be
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So now that you have upgraded to SketchUp 2013 you should be facing the question: What to do with SketchUp's plugins in this release. After all, when you started the new software for the first time, it likely only had the default plugins installed that Trimble released with it. But there was also a new toolbar button for the Extension Warehouse! At this time, you have a few options. Let's look at them:
A) You are upgrading and you had plugins installed in the earlier version
With the new Extension Warehouse and the SketchUcation Plugin Store now available, which both include one-click install and easy updating, it makes most sense to get plugins that are hosted in these places through the respective installers. So even if you had installed specific plugins in a previous version of SketchUp, I would recommend to go to these tools first to find them (instead of simply copying the Plugins folder). So here's my suggested order of...
The folks over at SketchUcation recently released a plugin that allows you to a) browse their extensive collection of plugins and b) directly install them. Very nifty! The image above shows the search function (you can also browse by author or category) and the image below shows the install button.
Go ahead and try it out here.
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