SketchUpdate

The results are in, and they are beautiful

2009-07-09T09:55:00.002-06:00

Wow! We received some amazing entries for the Google SketchUp 2009 International Student Bridge Modeling Competition. Higher education students from over 65 countries registered for the competition, 42 collections were created in the Google 3D Warehouse, and 77 bridges were modeled from all over the world. The types of bridges range from historical to pedestrian, rail and highway - and they were all certainly impressive. Check out our winners page for details and comments from our illustrious panel of judges.

The winners are:

1st Place
Jason Wong
School of Architecture and Construction Management, Washington State University, US

2nd Place
Tobias Merk
School of Design, Hochschule Augsburg - University of Applied Sciences, Germany

3rd Place
Nicholas Falbo
Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning, Portland State University, US

Posted by Allyson McDuffie, SketchUp for Education Program Manager

Keyboard tricks and shortcuts in LayOut

2009-07-08T14:30:00.000-06:00

Just like in Google SketchUp, there are keyboard modifiers that let you control how LayOut functions while you are creating your LayOut designs. Below are a few that you may not know about.

Copying a selection

Similar to SketchUp, you can Copy/Move a selection by holding down CTRL (Option on a Mac) while moving an object.

Nudging items on a page

Using the arrow keys on your keyboard allows you to move your selections up, down, right and left in precise increments. The distance of each "nudge" is determined by your document's unit settings:

Metric: move in increments of 0.5 mm
English (inches and feet): move in increments of 1/64"
Points: move in increments of 1 pt

You can also hold down Shift (along with an arrow key) to nudge in bigger increments:

Metric: move in increments of 5 mm
English (inches and feet): move in increments of 1/4"
Points: move in increments of 10 pt

Scaling a selection

Holding down Shift while resizing a selection window allows you to scale your selection proportionately. If you use Shift in conjunction with Alt (Command on a Mac), your selection scales proportionately about its center.

Modifying lines, arcs & curves

You can edit the shape and direction of lines and arcs by double-clicking to edit them. While in edit mode, you can add control points and convert lines into Bézier curves by holding down CTRL when you click them:

Double-click on line segments or arcs to edit them.

While editing, click while holding down CTRL (Option on a Mac) to add control points.

While editing, left click-drag on a control point while holding down CTRL (Option on a Mac) to add Bézier handles, and to convert a line into a Bézier curve.

Sampling Styles

Tapping S allows you to sample the style of an existing object and apply it to a selection:

Select the items you want to change.
Tap S on your keyboard and click any entity to sample its style properties. Bingo! Your selection automatically takes on the new style. This works on any object on the page, including shapes, text and labels.

You can also sample a style while you're in the middle of using any 2 or 3-click tool – Rectangle, Circle, Line and Label, for example:

Click once to place your first point.
Tap S and click to sample another object on the page.
Finish whatever element you're drawing. It should have all the style properties of the object you sampled in Step 2.

Note that tapping the S key isn't a shortcut that activates the Sample tool; it's a special mode that works while you're in the middle of using another tool.

Posted by Chris Dizon, Google SketchUp Team

Featured Modeler: John from Dursley, England

2009-07-01T15:35:00.001-06:00

John is a retired British architect whose passion for photography and knowledge of his town's architectural history helped shape his beautiful 3D models of Dursley, Gloucestershire in England.

"The alignment of the buildings on Castle Street is a bit on the skew," he said, "but that makes sense if you know there used to be an actual castle in that location. The castle had a moat that the streets were laid out around."

John started using Google Earth and Google SketchUp around the same time. His brother was introduced to SketchUp at a lecture on SketchUp by his SeniorNet group. John's local library had an Internet cafe and, on his brother's recommendation, he took a look at Google Earth. "I was absolutely staggered. And decided I had to put Dursley on the map. There's another chap who does great stuff in Gloucester City called Andrew. He helped me out when I was first getting used to the process, in dealing with stuff like zed-flashing (z-fighting), where two overlapped textures have a flashing problem."

As John explains, an architectural background and access to information on the history of a specific site are both critical to his process for creating a realistic representation of Dursley.

"What's remarkable to me about 3D buildings in Google Earth is that they can combine in a live model all of the detail that is otherwise only available from different books and records. There is a resource in the UK called Buildings of England that describes with great precision the development of different local architectures. That helps me, but so does my knowledge of standard architectural practices that haven't changed all that much through the recent centuries."

John also draws a good deal of understanding about a structure based on the form of its roof as seen in the Google Earth satellite imagery. He is also keen on architectural photography (check out John's photo site).

"Knowing how roofs are built helps you: most roof surfaces have a similar slope and extend beyond the building footprint, but more important, the roof surfaces tell the story of how the walls are arranged. Add to that the fact that string courses have been used right through the centuries, work with some solid photos, and, Bob's your Uncle, you can be successful."

As for inferring building heights, John relies on his photos and makes "jolly well sure" the doors are 2.1 meters high on the textured model.

"You really need to understand how components and move/array can help you in SketchUp. Architecture has always had repeating elements. Once you have created one Victorian chimney, for example, it's likely you can use it for multiple sites. Really the key for repeatable success is to get the hang of working with SketchUp's grid system, setting your point of origin, aligning Red and Green axes to your site, and then drawing on axis. Getting on axis is like turning on the ignition before trying to drive your car."

"I really see a great educational benefit in having architecture available in Google Earth. The models are an encapsulation of so much history, architectural geometry and knowledge. They are especially important for the area of my focus, 'Listed Buildings', what you call Historical Register in the States. There really is no other way to truly capture all the detail of a building so clearly and concisely. " Check out John's site on Dursley.

As a result of his impressive work, John's models have been highlighted in the press. "The BBC was out to see what I was up to for a profile and so were the local papers." So why does he do it? According to John, he and his fellow modelers model their cities in 3D so that the world can experience the places they hold so dear. "What motivates both Andrew and myself is the same kind of interest in our home town or city. Combine that with architecture, history, and a means of sharing it with the world you can see why I get so excited. My brother thinks I should publish a coffee table book called, 'Dursley from All Angles' using screenshots of my models; I just might."

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

Design a better bus stop

2009-06-29T16:15:00.004-06:00

Last week, one of the organizers of Next Stop Design wrote to tell us about their website. In their own words, Next Stop Design is "an experiment in 'crowdsourcing' the best ideas and designs to build a better bus stop". The website lets anyone submit a design in any medium (even pencil and paper are A-OK), and also encourages folks to try SketchUp if they're game for trying out 3D modeling. Check out some of the entries; they're neat.

University of Utah Teepee by hopkinp

A reminder (while we're on the subject of online design submissions): We launched the Design IT: Shelter Competition a couple of weeks ago. The last day to submit is in August, but don't let the absence of a looming deadline deter you from getting started -- good ideas sometimes happen before 3 am.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

More 3D cities in Europe

2009-06-26T11:38:00.000-06:00

Warsaw, Prague and Oslo have joined the growing list of phototextured cities in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth. Like other major cities these 3D models are predominantly autogenerated, yet they also contain a number of Google SketchUp models generated by the user community. While the autogenerated models are good quality, user-generated models are often better because ground-based photos can produce a higher quality model than ones generated using aerial imagery.

Oslo

Warsaw

These new cities join other major European cities viewable in 3D, including Munich, Hamburg, Berlin and Zurich to name a few. If you've never visited these cities in-person, have some fun flying around and exploring them virtually.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Sr. Business Product Manager

Summer Road Trip!

2009-06-24T10:00:00.001-06:00

Are you planning a U.S. National Park tour this summer or a road trip with family and friends? If so, you might find yourself stopping by the new Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center, which serves the area from the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee - designed by architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent.

The team at LAS also designed the new Discovery Center and Ben Brady Lakeside Pavilion at the Chattahoochee Nature Center. Both the Visitor Center and the Discovery Center are targeting LEED Gold certification.

Thanks to Vikram Sami from Lord, Aeck & Sargent for submitting these case studies!

Posted by Chris Cronin, Google SketchUp Team

See the steps to model for Google Earth

2009-06-17T08:55:00.000-06:00

If you've wondered what the process really looks like for getting a 3D model into Google Earth, you should check out this new video (also included below). You'll see a building created from scratch in SketchUp, pushed up for review, and placed in Google Earth for all to see. It's soup to nuts. The building is very simple and the reference photos are great for modeling (if I do say so myself).

This video provides step-by-step directions describing how to use photographs, Google SketchUp, Google Earth, and the Google 3D Warehouse to create and upload a model for consideration in Google Earth's 3D Building layer. Check it out when you have a chance.

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

Take your 3D with you

2009-06-16T16:40:00.000-06:00

We've released a new feature in the Google 3D Warehouse that enables anyone to embed an interactive view of any 3D Warehouse model on a webpage or blog. Here's an example of how it looks on our blog:

Here's how it works:

You've probably seen these two buttons on a model's details page:

The "Link" button shows you the URL for the current page. The "Include" button expands to look like this:

If you've ever embedded a YouTube video on a web page, this should be familiar to you. You'll select the type of embed (a static image, a 3D view, or a view using the Google Earth plugin), copy the HTML, and paste it into your site. This Help Center article contains more details.

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager

Taking it further with LayOut clip masks

2009-06-12T00:25:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago, one of our developers posted about using clip masks to crop photos and models in LayOut. In this post, I'm going to take this one step further and show you how you can use clip masks with Google SketchUp models to create cutaway views and vignettes.

Here are a few things I threw together with SketchUp models and clip masks:

Cut Away Views

Vignette

To create these types of effects, just stack two models and apply a clip mask and a new look or view to the model on top. Here are some tips to help you along:

To stack identical model windows, use the copy - paste method. The pasted model will be placed in the exact page location as the first model and on top.
When creating cut away views or vignettes, use LayOut Layers to organize the stacked models.

Place the "base" model on an underlying layer.
"Copy" the model.
Lock the layer and turn off the visibility so that this instance of the model does not interfere with the design of the clip mask.
Activate a layer above the locked layer. This is where you will create your clip mask.
Select the "Paste" function. This will place a model instance used in your clip mask.
Maintaining this model in place, create your clip mask.
After you have created your clip mask, turn on the base layer visibility.
Finished!

If you want the shape of the clip mask to follow line work in the model, you can change the model rendering to Vector. This will allow you to snap to and trace along the model's edges and endpoints. You can then switch it back to Raster mode and set the clip mask.

I hope you've been enjoying our recent LayOut tips and tricks posts. Also, don't forget about our special $100 off promo on a single-user license of SketchUp Pro 7 (LayOut is included with SketchUp Pro) - it ends next Friday. Read all about it in this blog post.

Posted by Chris Dizon, Google SketchUp Guru

Land of the Rising Sun in 3D

2009-06-10T20:30:00.000-06:00

Earlier this week we released tens of thousands of new 3D buildings in Japan. Major Japanese cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto have joined the growing list of cities and towns prominently displayed in Google Earth's 3D buildings layer.

The highlights of these cities are our user-contributed SketchUp models that were submitted via the Google 3D Warehouse for publication in Google Earth.

Check out this temple in Ancient Kyoto:

Or, this one by a modeler named Seagate:

If you're thinking about contributing to any region of the world, from anywhere on the planet, we've recently improved and simplified the overall process for model submission and acceptance. So, give it a try...it's a ton of fun. For those of you already with us, keep em' coming. Your world is looking great!

Posted by Chris Keating, Engineering Program Manager

We've retooled the 3D Building Pipeline

2009-06-09T16:41:00.003-06:00

This is a long post, so grab your favorite beverage and settle in.

Over the last 6 months we've been hard at work "retooling" the 3D building pipeline. We use the phrase "3D pipeline" to describe the process a model goes through when it's been published to the Google 3D Warehouse (assuming it was marked "Google Earth-ready").

The now outdated process for reviewing and publishing your 3D building models to Google Earth's 3D Buildings layer involved a number of manual steps and was inconsistent in terms of release dates. Further, and more importantly, far too many models were getting "lost" in the pipeline and remained in an idle state for long periods of time. We're keenly aware of how frustrating it is to publish a model and wait for Google to review and publish it. So, late last year, we set off on a mission to resolve these issues.

While this may appear simple on the surface, I can assure you that it's not. You might be surprised at the number of steps a model goes through from your publishing of it, to the model appearing in Google Earth. We like to be as transparent about the process as we can, so here is a high-level overview of those steps for your inquiring minds:

KMZ creation - The very first thing that we do when you publish a model to the 3D Warehouse is create a KMZ file. This allows you and others to download/view your model in Google Earth.
Model review - Next, a team of people review the model to ensure that it adheres to our acceptance criteria (more about that later).
Duplicate check - In this step, we identify where duplicate and/or overlapping models exist. There's more of these than you might imagine, like 163 Eiffel Towers for example. This is also where we need to make decisions about which model is the best, and why some folks see a "better model exists" appear as a judgment on their model detail page . You'll be happy to know that when a user-provided model exists that is equal to or better than an auto-generated model, we will always choose the user model.
Test build - After checking for duplicates, we "ingest" all of the data that has passed through the previous step to a test server where it receives another review. A small number of models will actually fail in this step for a few different reasons - it may be too complex for example, or have bad textures. While the evaluations prior to this point in the review process have been visual, this step checks for issues that might effect display, performance, or both. It's also where we make sure that cities are where they belong, that no space elevators shoot into space, and no Godzillas appear in Tokyo.
Build and push - Finally, we push the models into our data centers so that they appear in your Google Earth client. Our data centers are spread out around the world so that, wherever you are, you can have a good experience in Google Earth.

What does all this mean to you? The new, automated, 3D pipeline will allow us to review and publish your models faster, and with far greater predictability. Specifically, the new system will enable us publish data on a *weekly* basis and, in the near future, even faster. So, with the exception of the one week per month where we need to conduct maintenance, we plan to publish models each and every week going forward.

Lost Models
Prior to this effort it was far too easy to find a model in the 3D Warehouse that appeared to be in a perpetual state of "awaiting review." Some models have been in this state for months or even years (ouch). So, in addition to retooling the process, we also scrubbed the 3D Warehouse for each and every geo-located model and sent it through our review process again. We scrubbed, and scrubbed some more, to make sure that every model that deserved to be in Google Earth was in Google Earth. Some of you noticed that a large number of models appeared in the layer in May because of this change. In fact, since we began this effort, we've *doubled* the number of user-generated models that appear in Google Earth today.

At this point we've completed our scrub and we're confident that every geo-located model has been reviewed. OK, full-disclosure.... there are a number of models that, for a variety of reasons, aren't added to the 3D Buildings layer *after* they have passed through our initial review (see "Test build" above). They look great visually, but have some other issue that may be preventing them from being successfully ingested into the layer. But, if you happen to own one of these models, fear not, we're working to identify what may be causing this. At a minimum, we'll want to update the feedback mechanism to make you aware that there's an issue with the model that's preventing it from appearing in Google Earth.

Acceptance Criteria
While some models have been overlooked, many others have been judged more rigorously than we'd like, so we modified our acceptance criteria to be a bit more lenient than it had been previously. We also developed and documented training material to ensure that we were applying a consistent approach in reviewing your models. It's still imperfect but I'm confident that it's far less subjective than it may have been before. As noted previously, we then ran all models that had been rejected through the pipeline again.

"So how has the acceptance criteria changed?" you ask. Good question. We plan to introduce some sample collections very soon that will serve as examples for what we deem acceptable, and highlight how to improve models that may need a little more work. It's not an easy job and it's one that we take very seriously. We're constantly balancing our desire to include as many models as possible, with an effort to establish a level of quality where, when combined, all of the 3D building data is visually harmonious. Geo-modeling is quite different than traditional SketchUp modeling, and we're seeing an increasing number of really fantastic phototextured models being published. Geo-modeling is definitely catching on!

In closing, we have several other features that we'll share with you soon, but suffice it to say that we've heard your pleas on the 3D Warehouse Group for faster turnaround and greater transparency in our process; we hope that you'll be pleased with the steps we've taken thus far.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, on behalf of the 3D Pipeline team

Announcing the Design It Shelter Competition

2009-06-08T06:00:00.003-06:00

We teamed up with the folks at the Guggenheim Museum to create a design competition that's open to people everywhere. Design It: Shelter Competition challenges participants to create a simple shelter for a specific geographic location anywhere in the world. Entries are 3D models designed in Google SketchUp, geo-located in Google Earth and uploaded to the Google 3D Warehouse.

Visitors to the competition website are able to view images, animations and descriptions of entries all in one place. With the help of the Google Earth plug-in, the 3D models themselves are visible right on the page. For the first time, you won't need to download a model to be able to see it "in the round".

The inspiration for 'Design It' comes from Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic assignment for the apprentices at Taliesin, his architecture school in Arizona and Wisconsin. Students design and physically construct shelters – small, simple buildings – as part of their studies. Then they live in them.

This competition coincides with the Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward exhibition currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Also on display is Learning By Doing, which focuses specifically on the student-built shelters at Taliesin. If you're in the area, be sure to check them out.

This video talks about what you need to do to get started:

Submission
To enter the competition, you need to fill out the submission form on the Guggenheim website. You must provide:

information about yourself (name, email, country, etc)
a description of your shelter
a link to your SketchUp model on the Google 3D Warehouse
at least one, and as many as four, JPEG images of your shelter
a link to a video of your shelter on YouTube (this is optional, but highly encouraged)

Program
Competition entries should:

provide a place for someone to study and sleep
be sited anywhere on Earth
have no more than 100 square feet (9.3 square meters) of enclosed space
be no taller than 12 feet (3.6 meters) high
not include water, gas or electricity

Timing
The competition starts today, June 8th – Frank Lloyd Wright's 142nd birthday. The deadline for submissions is August 23rd of this year. Two prizes will be awarded: the People's Prize, decided by public vote, and the Juried prize, selected by the members of a panel of architecture and design experts. Public voting for the winner of the People's Prize runs from September 7th to October 10th, and winners will be announced October 21st – the 50th anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum.

Judging
The judges will consider entries in light of five major criteria:

The relationship of the shelter to the built or natural environment around it
Innovative design
Thoughtful use of materials
Adherence to the project specifications
Quality of the SketchUp model

Prizes
Two prizes will be awarded:

The People's Prize: Current students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture will select ten shelters from among all of the entries. The public will choose one of these ten to receive the People's Prize by voting on the competition website.

The Juried Prize: A panel of architecture and design experts will choose the winner of the Juried Prize from among all competition entries.

Both prizes include:

airfare and two nights' accommodation for two in New York City
behind-the-scenes tours of both the Guggenheim Museum and the Google office in NYC
complimentary admission to selected NYC museums
a Google SketchUp Pro 7 license

The winner of the Juried Prize will also receive USD$1000.

Questions? Check out the competition FAQ. Good luck, and have fun.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist

The SketchUp team goes to Google I/O

2009-06-07T23:35:00.001-06:00

Last week was Google's annual developer conference: Google I/O. This year was my first year attending and, I have to say, it was a fantastic conference. There were lots of inspiring sessions and presentations on Google's numerous APIs. On the 1st day keynote, each attendee was given a complimentary new android phone. Google Wave was announced on the 2nd day keynote. Dozens of developers were showing off their work in the Sandbox demos. All of this combined with great food, snacks and bottomless pots of coffee made the conditions for innovation perfect.

This year, the SketchUp Ruby API didn't have its own dedicated session. However, we were mentioned several times in the Geo API and O3D talks. Also, few of our long time users were able to attend the show and represent SketchUp in the Developer Sandbox demo area. Todd Burch, Rick Wilson, and Chris Fullmer from Smustard.com took turns showing off the work they do using the SketchUp Ruby API. We'd like to thank them for taking the time out of their busy schedules to attend.

If you want to check out the sessions go to this website (session videos are going live on a rolling basis). All of the Developer Sandbox interviews can be found here. Also, if you're interested, check out some of our favorite photos from Google I/O.

Posted by Bryce Stout, Product Manager

Featured Modeler: Newfangled

2009-06-04T14:46:00.000-06:00

Newfangled is a 3D Building pioneer. From the earliest days of modeling with SketchUp for Google Earth, Christian (aka "Newfangled") started creating the buildings in his home town of Edmonton, Alberta in the Great North of Canada. In fact, part of his motivation for modeling was to put North America's most northern city on the map. To date, he has placed over 150 models in the 3D building layer of Google Earth and Edmonton's metropolitan status is easy to see.

"I got started after a trip I took to Calgary," Christian said, "I was actually looking for a place for dinner, and when I searched in Google Earth all these buildings started popping up. I thought it would be cool to have the same thing in Edmonton. I actually got in contact with IntoTheWest, who put up the buildings in Calgary." You may remember that Andrew (aka "IntotheWest") was our first Featured Modeler.

"The first model I created was my apartment building," Christian continued, "and once that was done I realized how easy it was and started doing the surrounding buildings. I walk to work, so I took pictures along the way, modeled those buildings, and from there I figured I might as well do the whole downtown."

Having Edmonton on the map remains a prime motivator for Christian, but he also enjoys the process of modeling in its own right. "It's relaxing. I'm a Gen-Y guy, so a lot of my friends play XBox or World of Warcraft, but what I do for fun is make buildings."

Christian is a mechanical engineer so he was familiar with CAD before he got started. After watching some of our online video tutorials and getting some hands-on practice, he was up and running.

"I picked up SketchUp pretty quickly. And once I got the hang of taking pictures that would make good textures, the process was pretty smooth, although some of my earliest buildings make me cringe a little now. Getting around trees and power lines with the camera isn't easy, so I use GIMP (a free image manipulation tool) to edit the photos before I apply them to my models in SketchUp. And I also use repeating textures to cover tall buildings."

In addition to modeling Edmonton as it exists today, Christian has begun reconstructing historic locations.

"I like the idea that I can reconstruct something that is no longer there. Using historic information I am able to bring buildings back to life." His collection on Historic Edmonton can be found on the Google 3D Warehouse. Along with a collection of proposed structures in his Future Edmonton set. "You guys should allow Google Earth to show past, future in addition to current buildings." He's right, we should.

"Recently I completed a local River Boat attraction and our Convention Center. It's great that someone planning a trip here could do a search and get informed about what's around." Christian is planning to keep on building, in fact, the mission statement on his blog is "Edmonton - one building at a time... Or maybe sometimes two."

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

Just how popular is it?

2009-06-03T22:25:00.001-06:00

Since last year, the Google 3D Warehouse has shown the number of recent 7-day views and downloads for every 3D model. Today (tweeted), we expanded this feature to show graphs of views and downloads over time. To see this, go to any 3D model details page (I've always had a fondness for Saint Basil's Cathedral), check out the "Views" and "Downloads" numbers in the blue box, and click the graph button to open the data window. If you're an owner or a collaborator, you can get daily numbers in CSV form by clicking "Export a .csv file of this data" in the graph dialog (yes, we do love you, 3D contributors).

I found some of the graphs and numbers interesting. Last year's spike in popularity for a model of the National Stadium in Beijing is pretty easily explainable, but I had to do a news archive search to remind myself why this Colosseum model got so popular last November. More and more people are using this milk truck to play Monster Milktruck. And this toilet has proven itself appealing; it gets hundreds of views a day, and it looks like most people who view it also download it. Some mysteries remain; this has always been a nice model, but why did it get popular in mid-April?

Whether you're a model creator interested in how many people have seen your work, or a curious bystander, we hope you enjoy this new feature!

Posted by Rich Feit, 3D Warehouse Software Engineer

3D tours added to the Google Earth Gallery

2009-05-28T14:45:00.000-06:00

If you're a 3D enthusiast, then you'll probably enjoy the latest addition to the Google Earth Gallery: 3D Buildings. This new category provides a number of self-running tours on various themes. The tours showcase some fascinating 3D buildings (along with bridges and statues and other structures) around the world, most of which were built by our passionate Google SketchUp users who model buildings for Google Earth. Whether your interest is castles, bridges, museums, baseball stadiums or skyscrapers, I think you'll find a self-guided tour that is of interest to you.

The tours were developed by geo-modelers Adam and Jordan, both of whom are 3D experts who really know their way around Google Earth.

To play a tour, simply click on the "Open in Google Earth" link to download the KML file. Then click the "Start tour here" link in the "Places" panel in Google Earth (download the latest version of Google Earth). Make sure the "3D Buildings" layer is checked in the "Layers" panel. The tour will pause at each location to ensure the 3D building is fully loaded. Click the play button to continue the tour. Enjoy!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Sr. Business Product Manager

Save some cash on SketchUp Pro

2009-05-28T12:05:00.002-06:00

Instead of producing a late-night infomercial for SketchUp Pro (Buy two copies, get a free pocket protector), we decided to go a simpler route: Helen put together a promo code that knocks $100 US off the price of a new single-user Pro license (it's normally $495). European and UK customers save 20%, which works out to about the same thing.

Here's the catch: Chris designed the promo coupon into a LayOut 2 doc – you'll need to have LayOut 2 installed on your computer to open the file and read the coupon. If you haven't already, you can download a trial version of SketchUp Pro 7 (which includes LayOut 2) in order to open the file. Sneaky, no?

Once you've installed SketchUp Pro 7, you can download the promo coupon and see it in LayOut. Mosey on over to our online store to take advantage of the discount until June 19th of this year.

Update: If you can't open the LayOut file with the promo code because you've used up all 8 hours of SketchUp Pro trial time, here's a workaround.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist

Drag and drop your models with Creator

2009-05-27T10:30:00.001-06:00

Esperient Creator is an interactive 3D application-authoring tool, that provides a WYSIWYG approach to creating interactive 3D applications. It's compatible with Google SketchUp and integrates right into your workflow. John D'Amours, President and Founder of Visual Training Solutions, uses Google SketchUp and the Google 3D Warehouse to create or find content. He then brings that content "to life" with Esperient Creator. He says, “SketchUp provides some great home furnishings, accents, and even unique materials and textures that can easily be modified and brought to life in RH and Esperient Creator. This is extremely useful for creating 3D instructions for improvement projects around the house, employees, and even marketing and communication tools. You never know what you’ll find in the Google 3D Warehouse…I always check there first.”

Check out this video that highlights a number of workflows using Google SketchUp and Google 3D Warehouse with Esperient Creator.

Posted by Steve Dapkus, Business Development Guy

Modifying SketchUp models in LayOut

2009-05-26T13:10:00.001-06:00

If you want more control over the style, weight and color of your model's lines or faces - LayOut can help (LayOut is included with Google SketchUp Pro 7). By applying the "Explode" feature to your model view in LayOut, you can convert it into LayOut 2D vectors. After the conversion, you will be able to snap to individual lines and faces, change their style, type, weight, color, and even their opacity.

Convert a model to 2D vectors:

1) After loading your model into the LayOut document, find the view you want to work with. Be sure the view is exactly what you want to see in vector form because the connection to the orginal SketchUp model will be cut off.

2) Open the SketchUp Model dialog box (Window > SketchUp Model). With your SketchUp model selected, look under the "View" tab and you will be able to change the model rendering style from the default style of "Raster" to either "Vector" or "Hybrid". Change your model to "Vector".

3) Now that your model has been rendered as a "Vector", right click on the model or go to the Edit menu and select "Explode".

After selecting "Explode", your model will be converted into LayOut 2D vectors. All the vectors will be grouped together automatically. You can now ungroup the vectors and modify any of the elements you want. Stay tuned for more tips on using LayOut.

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp and LayOut Guru

Disneyland Paris in Google Earth

2009-05-26T09:46:00.003-06:00

Last summer The Walt Disney Company took a big step into the realm of virtual tourism by introducing the Walt Disney World park located in Orlando, Florida in Google Earth, much to the delight of children around the world. We were impressed with the excellent quality of the 3D models, but the thousands of trees, shrubs, benches and other "street furniture" were a first, and set a new bar for realism in Google Earth.

This week Disney introduced its Disneyland Paris resort, with amazing 3D buildings. They're able to achieve this with the quality of the photos used for texturing these buildings. Disney tells me that more than 85,000 photos (450GB worth) were taken over a 20 day period for this project. The castle alone is comprised of over 354 textures derived from over 2,000 photos.

While the buildings are superb, it's really all the other detail that makes this data worth the virtual trip. There are over 500 unique landscape elements that were created to make the park look as realistic as possible. What's more, each attraction has unique plant life associated with that area. For example, palm and tropical plants were used on Adventure Island. Desert-type plants were used in Frontierland, broad leaf deciduous trees were used in Main Street, pine trees were used in Discovery Land and shaped pruned trees were used in Fantasyland. If there were street or landscaping elements in the photographs, they were modeled. This means every bench, light post, tree, bush, planter box, street sign, fence, street curb, fountain, rock, bridge, table & chair are included.

Apparently the photographers rode the Indiana Jones Temple of Peril ride repeatedly in order to "understand the actual path of the roller coaster when modeling the attraction" (a hardship I know, but "just part of the job", they say.) The model includes every loop, turn and climb. At the top of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, you'll spy Tinker Bell, complete with a trail of pixie dust, adding just a little more magic to the layer.

Disney developed a custom KML for each attraction in the two Disneyland Paris Parks, each of the seven Disney hotels and the Disney Village. Simply click on the area of interest and a KML bubble complete with Flash animations and sound will appear. You can navigate from place-to-place using this approach, but my preference is to use my 3D mouse and stroll through the park on my own at ground level.

The Disneyland Paris layer can be found in the "Gallery" folder (note that you need to have Google Earth 5.0 to view the models). The layer is available in six languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch and English.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Sr. Business Product Manager

Launched: Tell us why we're wrong

2009-05-21T22:25:00.000-06:00

We're working hard to display the very best 3D models in Google Earth. To accomplish that, we have dedicated, keen-eyed, folks looking at each model in the Google 3D Warehouse that's marked as "Google Earth Ready." If a model looks like a great fit, it's marked as "Accepted." Sometimes, though, a model needs a little more work before it's ready for Google Earth. We give a few tips on how to improve the model so that it may appear in Google Earth later. You can see these tips on your model's page in the 3D Warehouse.

I'll be the first to say that giving feedback for these models is both a science and an art. In other words, we may not always get it right. In the past, this was a problem because folks didn't have a great way to tell us that we're wrong and why. Sometimes, our satellite imagery may be inaccurate, or perhaps your building has no textures on one side because it's in a dense downtown area.

If you think we're totally off our rocker, now there's a way for you to help us correct our mistake. You'll see a link at the bottom of a review that says "Think this review is incorrect? Tell us why we're wrong." Click on the link, and you can send us a note, include a link to an image - whatever you think it takes to get us back on our rocker. We'll look forward to hearing from you.

Posted by Tommy Acierno, Consumer Operations

Cropping photos and models in LayOut

2009-05-21T09:20:00.002-06:00

When working with photos and models in LayOut documents, occasionally, you'll need to trim out unwanted information. Fortunately, LayOut provides a simple process for trimming, or 'cropping', images. The way to crop in LayOut is to use clipping masks. Any Google SketchUp model or image can have a clipping mask. Clipping masks can be any shapes drawn with tools in LayOut. For simple cropping, a rectangle is sufficient. Here’s how to do it:

Import an image into LayOut.
In the File menu, select the Insert… item.
Then, when prompted, navigate to the file you’d like to insert. Place it on the page roughly where you want it to be, but don’t worry too much about scaling and positioning yet. I typically put off adjusting the image too much until the clipping mask has been applied. Later on, I can use the clipped boundary for aligning the clipped image with other content on the page.
Draw a clipping shape.
Next, draw a shape for clipping, our image. Any shape can be used, but a rectangle is sufficient to begin with. Select the Rectangle tool from the toolbar and draw a rectangle over the region we would like to keep. In my image below, I want to trim off the little girl’s shoulder in the bottom right corner and remove the map from the boy’s hand. To help me make sure I’m keeping the important parts of the image, I like to make the fill of my clipping shape about 50% opaque so I can see the image underneath.
Create a clipping mask.
Once you have the rectangle in the right location, you're ready to make it a clipping mask. First, select both the image and the clipping rectangle. Now, in the Edit menu, select Create Clipping Mask.
Voilà, a cropped image.
Sometimes, you won't get the clipping mask right the first time. Fortunately, the clipping mask does not permanently alter your image. Double-click on the clipped image and you will see both the clipping mask and the image appear in the screen. Both can be scaled, rotated, or moved. When you click outside the image and the mask, the image will be clipped again. If you change our mind completely about clipping, turn if off altogether. Go to the Edit menu and select Release Clipping Mask.
Scale and position the cropped image.
Manipulation of the new, clipped image is the same as the image before the clip, except that the manipulation grips now conform to the cropped image boundary. This will help you scale and line up the image with other content on the page.
Other cool stuff.
Clipping masks will preserve the stroke style and color of the original image. Try adding a crazy dash pattern and color to the image and see what happens when you clip it. Also, we don’t have to restrict ourselves to rectangles. Any single shape can be used as a clipping mask. In the examples blow, I used rounded rectangles and paths as clipping masks.
Try it with a Google SketchUp model.
In addition to images, clipping masks can also be applied to SketchUp models. Just as with the images, the mask doesn’t permanently alter your model, but it does let you hide some content that might be unimportant for your page. For example, in my model of a park bench, I left a person in the model to show scale. However, in my LayOut document, I can quickly remove the person using a clipping mask, as shown below.

LayOut clipping masks are a simple feature than can produce powerful results - you can hide unwanted geometry from your model or crop a photograph. Once you use them, you’ll find you can’t live without them.

Posted by Preston Jackson, Software Engineer

The 3D Warehouse, now in better shape

2009-05-20T09:25:00.001-06:00

We launched an experimental new feature that lets you find similarly-shaped models in the Google 3D Warehouse. To try it out, go to a model details page and click on "See other models shaped like this". There, you'll see a bunch of models that are similarly shaped.

Not only is this generally interesting, but it'll also help you find stuff that you might miss with a text-only search. For example, this model is similar to this model, but they don't share any text; you might not find the first one, yet it might be exactly what you need. This feature also works well for finding things with a distinctive shape, like biplanes, swivel chairs, and 1960s muscle cars. Maybe the next time you're modeling an interior, you can use this feature to poke around for options when you're selecting furniture.

As fun as this feature is, it's also pretty cool that Google's culture leads to innovations like this. Last year, a few of us from Boulder visited Google's NYC office for an internal conference to see what new and exciting stuff our research crew had been cooking up. In a side conversation with one of the researchers there, I discovered that he'd done a lot of work in the past on 3D shape search. And as luck would have it, an intern who was just starting also had a ton of experience doing this. So a team was born! Following a good deal of work, we've got a new feature for you to play with. Enjoy!

Posted by Brian Brewington, Software Engineer

The Four R's: Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmatic, R-chitecture

2009-05-19T16:30:00.001-06:00

Earlier this year, Google exhibited at Channel 13's Celebration of Teaching and Learning in New York, NY. I had the opportunity to demo Google SketchUp and meet hundreds of enthusiastic educators - exactly the types of energetic, creative folks that you would want shaping your kids' minds. One of those teachers was Michele Macloud, Instructional Technology Coordinator at Prairieville Middle School in Ascension, Louisiana. Michele watched a demo of SketchUp for the first time and imagined gobs of possibilities. She left the booth assuring me that she would keep me posted. Well, last week I received an email from Michele telling the story of how Prairieville Middle School's 8th graders are using SketchUp to design a new school!

In the few months since I'd seen Michele in New York, Prairieville teacher Sandi Gautreau had been introducing SketchUp to her 8th grade math students. They took it in steps, starting by drawing a dimensionally-accurate model of the classroom. Sandi explained, "Once they learned what they could do and create, they sat and worked. They used trial and error, worked with each other. Students taught each other when they found features of the product. Students asked questions of each other. They were completely engrossed in the application." After developing their SketchUp chops, they began modeling an entire wing of the existing school.

In case you're thinking the students are getting off easy by playing with SketchUp instead of doing "real math", Sandi explains, "Measurement is always a weakness on standardized testing. Students actually went outside and took measurements. They drew objects in SketchUp and were able to compare the scale to the actual measurement."

At that point, the Principal, Ms. Diane Gautreau, and the District Demographics Application Specialist, Mr. Chad Lynch, met with the students. They discussed ideas for a new school, building codes, and what elements to consider to ensure a successful design. Mr. Lynch brought blueprints for an upcoming school to share with students. Armed with this information and their SketchUp skills, students went to work designing a new Prairieville Middle School. Each student chose a different part of the project to design. These parts will be brought together and presented to Principal Gautreau as a design recommendation for a new school.

It looks like Prairieville will have a pretty sweet gymnasium...

Of course, the final word in any classroom-experience belongs to the students. Devin says, "Using SketchUp made math class more interesting". Brittney concurs, "Before this project, math was stressful. It was hard." Kaylyn adds, "Now there is more to look forward to; what I do might be included in the plans for the new school."

And it sounds like Ms. Gautreau may have set Shelby on new a career path, "I learned how architects do their jobs, and it taught me that I could have a career in this field when I get older."

Posted by Tom Wyman, Business Development Guy

SketchUp is now available in Chinese (Traditional)

2009-05-15T15:22:00.002-06:00

As of today, Google SketchUp is available in fifteen of the world's most popular languages. It has taken us a while to get there, but I'm proud to announce that we've just added Chinese (Traditional) to the list of languages we support, along with French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, Korean, Turkish, Czech and Chinese (Simplified). On behalf of all of us out here in Google's Boulder office, I'd like to say "您好" to all of you, and welcome you to the SketchUp user community.

Posted by John Bacus, SketchUp Product Manager