First impression for all attendees
The SketchUp 3D Basecamp (and Bootcamp) user conference that just wrapped up its weeklong stay in beautiful Vancouver, BC, Canada, is the latest in a series of bi-annual meetings. The organizers again chose an inspiring venue and the main difference with previous conferences was that the 2000 iteration never happened due to a well-known global event. Therefore, attendees were four years out from their last meetings and hence quite excited to see each other again.
Now, that is a pretty nice location for a conference!
Everyone who knows this city knows how nice the conference location in the convention center is (or is it "centre" - we are in Canada, after all). The only disruption came when cruise ships departed next door with their horns blaring.
I gave four talks on different topics at this conference. Below are the cover slides for those. When I get back home, I'll post more here about various details that I just didn't...
In this tutorial I use the example of a large wind turbine array to show how useful my Random Tools extension for SketchUp can be in making things look more realistic - by rotating turbine blades in this case.
Tutorial Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHuqTEaOtI0
Tutorial Steps
Time needed: 10 minutes. The three main steps to prepare a component for use with SketchUp's Random Tools extension are also illustrated below. For this example it is best to use a component, not a group. As I show in the video, grouping the rotor blades will not allow the extension to properly place its center at the rotation axis. Therefore, start by selecting the rotor blades and the axle and using the "Make Component" tool. In the Make Component tool, we then need to place its axis at the center of rotation. Click the "Set Component Axis" button and then place the axis as shown below. Now you can use the "Randomize Objects" tool from the Random Tools...
A new feature of my Scale By (Image/Attractors/Equation) Tools SketchUp extension is the ability to transform (scale/rotate/move) objects by proximity to other objects ("attractors"). Not sure what this means? Check out the tutorial video above that explains the basic functionality.
You can learn more about this extension on its page and the reference manual.
Tutorial Video
https://youtu.be/QRle49KTceY
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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...
At least when it comes to creating realistic-looking vegetation in SketchUp, it is important to be able to randomly place, scale, and rotate objects. Nothing looks worse than a "sterile" copied/pasted row of trees, for example. Of course, this applies to other objects as well, like e.g. a shag carpet or fur. Let's fix this with today's code snippet.
Random grass in a randomized landscape
Typically, the objects to be placed would come in the form of components (trees, grass, bushes, as in the image above). And those then need to be placed somewhat randomly on one or more faces in your model. A good example for that is a lawn, as I discussed in Chapter 5 in my book. As I mention in Chapter 4, there are of course several extensions available that let you accomplish this task. However, as it turns out, we can re-use two pieces of example code from Chapter 7 and do this with just a few...
