Art Archives - Page 2 of 4 - SketchUp for Design

Creating an Undulating Wall with Scale By Tools in SketchUp

July 15, 2020August 29, 2020 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

This week's video tutorial shows an application of my recently published Scale By Tools SketchUp extension. Specifically, the Move Vertices by Image tool allows you to modify a mesh based on image data, which as a result embosses the image on that surface. This can then be used to create terrain, but it has many other applications, too. In this example, I am using this tool to deform a wood slatted wall with a ripple pattern. This would be manufactured using CNC cutting, for example. Links Creating an Undulating Wall with Scale By Tools in SketchUpScale By Tools ExtensionA different approach: Creating an Organic Wall | Method 1 - From Spline Curves in SketchUp ...

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...

Set Up a Turntable animation Video in SketchUp with Ruby (Snippet)

August 12, 2019December 5, 2021 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

https://youtu.be/mnAv54zK1DE?autoplay=1&loop=1 This collection of small script snippets presents handy little routines that are usually too small to put into a proper extension. Use them with the Ruby Code Editor (just paste the code and hit “run”) or make them more permanent as a menu item (see Appendix D in my book). Every once in a while it's very useful to be able to precisely control the view in SketchUp. One of those cases is when you are creating a turntable animation video of an object (like the one shown above). The snippet below allows you to set that up by creating pages with defined view parameters. First, we need to set the eye (view) height. That is best roughly located at the middle of the object, nine feet in my example. Then we are simply creating as many pages as necessary (in SketchUp proper, those are called "Animation Scenes", of course). I decided to go with four orthogonal views that all point at the object (which for this...

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....

Patterned Panel + Bending Extension = Cool Candle Holder

October 30, 2018June 11, 2020 by Alex SchreyerNo Comments

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 then curving them. Also, this...