I am very excited to be announcing the release of the third edition of my book “Architectural Design with SketchUp”! You can as of now find this new edition on Amazon, Wiley and everywhere else where books are sold. It is available as full-color paperback and e-book editions.
Since the publication of the second edition in 2015, many changes have happened to SketchUp and in the larger realm of architectural software: Trimble introduced a web version of SketchUp as well as an iPad version that has proven very popular. Real-time rendering options have increased in availability, and point cloud modeling is now often used on renovation projects. Beyond that, many new extensions have been published, others have gone away or have been replaced with built-in functionality, and their underlying Ruby engine has received new and updated capabilities. All of these changes made an update to the second edition necessary, which led to me thoroughly editing and rewriting the entire text. I updated screenshots...
AI can create a box from a text prompt and even show a completion message
Just like everyone else these days I have been trying out OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing (which now also uses the same AI - artificial intelligence - engine). One of my lines of exploration (beyond "what does this thing know about me?") was the question whether it can auto-generate SketchUp Ruby code with AI. And - as it turns out - it can do that. Albeit with some caveats.
As a start, you can go to ChatGPT and (after signing up) ask a reasonably specific question like "Which Ruby code would draw a box in SketchUp?". That would spit out somewhat appropriate code that you can just paste into e.g. the Ruby Code Editor. Apparently the SketchUp API is part of its knowledge base and generating SketchUp-specific Ruby code is thus well within its grasp. You could even refine the query with a comment like "Isn't there...
In this video tutorial I show how you can use my Scale By Tools SketchUp extension to create various designs for patterned panels. We start with sine and power equations and then use images to form intricate screen designs.
This video follows a presentation that I gave at SketchUp's 3D Basecamp in 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu-8x8Y1dnw
I had covered some of these techniques in an earlier video, included below for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvTROcPETY
I hope you are enjoying this extension. Let me know in the comments how you are using it.
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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 cover several approaches and techniques for creating 3D-printable pendants from SketchUp. This includes designs that need to be hanging in the balance (for pendants, earrings, mobile elements, etc.) as well as those with multiple support points (e.g. for name necklaces).
Tutorial Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2W0bKW8guM
Links
The extensions and websites that I mention in the video are:
Shapeways - A 3D printing service that lets you even create objects in precious metals.
Face Centroid and Area Properties - My SketchUp extension that you need to find the centroid of faces.
Solid Inspector - A SketchUp extension that is used to check for 3D printability.
Did you design anything with this approach? Share it below in the comments.
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