SketchUpdate

Building blocks: 3D models with detailed facades

2009-11-24T15:45:00.001-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog)

With tools like SketchUp and Building Maker, modelers around the world have been creating remarkably high-quality 3D buildings for Google Earth -- just check out any of our Featured Modelers to see the impressive work they've been doing. We've also had local governments contributing models of their entire city - like Amherst, Massachusetts and Washington, DC - through our Cities in 3D Program.

At Google, we've also been busy working on expanding our 3D coverage. Last week, we added detailed 3D models for Valencia, Spain. Many of these were Google-created models and before that, across the Atlantic, we released models in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Indianapolis, Indiana. In addition to adding entirely new areas, we've been tinkering with ways to make richer, detailed 3D models. If you zoom into downtown Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Berkeley, or Stockton you'll now notice that our 3D coverage is now much more extensive and a lot more vibrant.

San Diego, CA

Berkeley, CA

The buildings in these five California cities now have detailed facades, meaning that you can see storefronts and architectural details like you would if you were walking down the street. We've constructed these models by using imagery from Street View, similar to the way that users can make photo-textured models in SketchUp 7.1.

With these models in Google Earth, you can go in one swoop from viewing the globe through an astronaut's eyes to virtually browsing the shops in San Francisco's Chinatown or San Diego's Gaslamp District.

Showing is always better than telling, especially for an interactive and vivid experience like this, so go explore the models in Google Earth. To kickstart your exploration, check out this video preview of what awaits you:

Posted by Christian Frueh and Manish Patel, 3D Modeling Team

May the best model win

2009-11-20T15:45:00.004-07:00

Since we released Google Building Maker several weeks ago, we've seen a large inflow of new 3D models. Great job!

If you've been following our posts (or Tweets), you might be wondering why we're introducing new cities in Building Maker in the same locations where we have existing 3D buildings in Google Earth. It's pretty simple really, but allow me to explain.

If you explore any of the cities currently in Google Earth you'll notice that there is a blend of 3D data from multiple sources, including Google-created, contributed (by cities and local governments), and community-generated (geo-modelers using either SketchUp or Building Maker) buildings.

The Google-created buildings act as a base layer. While these models are an accurate depiction of the real world in their current form, we consider them to be a starting point upon which the geo-modeling community will update and improve them with higher quality models, with rich metadata about the buildings. I liken the "3D Buildings" layer in Google Earth to a giant 3D wiki, which, by definition, "allows visitors to easily add, remove and otherwise edit and change some available content."

Here's a couple important things to keep in mind when modeling for Google Earth:

1. Photo-textured models that meet our quality standards will automatically replace untextured models, regardless of source.

2. Photo-textured models, generated in either SketchUp or Building Maker, are reviewed against a Google-created model (if one exists), and, if it's of comparable quality and completion, we will always choose the hand-drawn model over the Google-created one.

Whether you're a new Building Maker user or an accomplished SketchUp user, the key thing to remember is that the best model should always win. Will we replace the Google-created buildings with user-generated buildings? You bet! The source of the model is irrelevant. What's important is that we're all working together to collaboratively build a virtual representation of our world.

So, keep on modeling. We look forward to seeing your creations come through the pipeline! Let's work together to create a 3D world!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Business Product Manager

You find 'em, we'll fix 'em

2009-11-19T09:39:00.005-07:00

We recently released SketchUp 7.1 into the wild, and a ton of you have upgraded over the last few weeks. As is often the case when a ton of folks with all different system configurations load a new version of SketchUp, we found a few undiscovered bugs that needed fixing ASAP. Today we're releasing the first maintenance release of SketchUp 7.1 out to all users. There are no new features in this release – just a bunch of bug fixes. Here are a few highlights:

The Measurements box did not always responding to input on the Mac. When a user brought focus to the Measurements box on the Mac (e.g. via clicking in it or tabbing to it), the Measurements box no longer accepted input. This issue has been fixed.

Selection/inferencing was not as precise. Previously, when picking or inferring entities, it was sometimes necessary to zoom in more in 7.1 than in previous versions of SketchUp and SketchUp could feel less snappy. Selection and inferencing should be back to feeling accurate and snappy.

Intersection inferences could no longer be found in some cases. When two faces intersected, the intersection inference was not always found unless x-ray mode was turned on. Intersection inferences should now be available again in this case.

...and here are the rest of the release notes

I recommend this update for all users; you can download and install it for free right now. Just open SketchUp and watch for the "SketchUp Update Service" pop-up dialog.

Remember: the crash reports you file when something goes catastrophically wrong are the most important tool we have for figuring out what needs fixing. Keep those crash reports coming, and we'll keep fixing SketchUp!

Posted by John Bacus, SketchUp Product Manager

New cities, new features in Building Maker

2009-11-17T12:30:00.004-07:00

When we launched Building Maker a few short weeks ago we were unsure how everyone would respond. Given the massive influx of models we've received since it launched, one thing is clear - you like making buildings for Google Earth! If there's been a consistent request since we launched it's "more cities please!" So today we're adding eight more for your modeling enjoyment:

- Brussels, Belgium
- Rotterdam, the Netherlands
- Cologne, Germany
- Dortmund, Germany
- Boston, MA, USA
- Las Vegas, NV, USA
- Los Angeles, CA, USA
- San Jose, CA, USA

This release expands our city offering to three new countries: Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. Brussels has architecture ranging from the medieval to the postmodern. Rotterdam has some of the tallest buildings in the Netherlands, as well as the famous cube houses. Largely rebuilt after World War II, Cologne mixes modern architecture with churches and landmarks from the Middle Ages. Church towers characterize the skyline of Dortmund, Germany. All told, there are some terrific (and challenging!) buildings to model.

In the United States, our list of cities continues to grow. In Boston, buildings such as the Massachusetts State House, Faneuil Hall and others along the Freedom Trail are prime examples of colonial New England architecture. Boston is also an epicenter for well known universities including Boston University, M.I.T, Radcliffe, and Harvard. Las Vegas has has some of the wildest and most unique architecture available, and should test the skills of Building Maker users. Los Angeles is the second largest city in the U.S., and the area we have added includes downtown L.A., Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the UCLA campus. Finally, San Jose will be at the center of our largest coverage area in Building Maker to date. It will now be possible to model buildings in the area stretching from Gilroy, CA to Mountain View, CA.

In addition to the exciting list of new cities available in Building Maker, we've also introduced some feature updates that may interest you. First, we've introduced a Google Earth view in Location Picker. When choosing a location, you are now able to click the "Earth" view so that you can see what buildings have already been built in the area you are modeling in order to avoid duplicated effort or to look for buildings that need improvement.

Not ready to submit your model for review? Then use the new "draft save" feature. In the save dialog under "Additional options" you can now uncheck the check box for "This building is complete and ready for review." [Note: English only] This will save a draft version of the building and will not be reviewed for inclusion in Google Earth until a completed version is saved.

Finally, we've introduced a new primitive type - the "Freeform Polygon" [English only]. As the name implies, this primitive allows you to create a polygon with any number of sides. Of the primitives offered, this is the most free form shape, but it is also the most challenging to use because it is so unconstrained. It is best used when building on top of existing blocks using the snapping feature. We recommend that you first toggle off the snapping tool, drag and constrain the points of the polygon in multiple images, and then toggle on the snapping tool to glue the points to existing blocks.

We hope you enjoy these new features and building models in these new Building Maker cities.

Posted by Spudde Childs, Software Engineer

Explore Valencia in 3D

2009-11-12T19:55:00.003-07:00

As of today, you'll be able to see Valencia, Spain in 3D by opening Google Earth and flying down to one of the most beautiful cities in Mediterranean Spain. When you have Google Earth open, make sure the "3D Buildings" layer is checked to get the full effect. Watch the video below to see a fly-through animation of Valencia.

If you want to see some impressive buildings in Valencia, we recommend flying down to these places:

City of Arts and Sciences (open kmz file)
Plaza de Toros (open kmz file)
Saint Mary of Valencia Cathedral (open kmz file)

Posted by Nicole Drobeck, 3D Modeling Specialist

Learning 3D with Google SketchUp

2009-11-10T14:17:00.001-07:00

Google SketchUp has been popular with young 3D modelers and educators for years. It opens up the world of 3D like no other application, and teachers love the fact that SketchUp is free. I recently had a chance to look over our office copies of the ModelMetricks books, which show teachers and kids how to get the most out of SketchUp. These books are written by educational technology specialist, and long-time friend of SketchUp, Bonnie Roskes of 3DVinci. The design projects are based on the idea that some concepts can be easily taught with 3D immersion. Not to mention that 3D is fun and engaging. The books work with the free download of Google SketchUp and guide you through each activity, step-by-step, toward a specific modeling result.

Kids follow instructions towards the learning objective but retain space for their own creativity. One of my favorites, "Go to Your Room!" sounds bad, but is really fun. Kids are exposed to the basics of geometry, alignment, and scale in creating a room interior but have the discovery experience of finding and filling the room with cool components from Google 3D Warehouse.

As Bonnie notes, "activities include integration of digital images, interfacing with Google Earth, and creating puzzles and optical illusions. Kids as young as 8 can get started with the Basics Series, and the Intermediate and Advanced books can entertain all the way through high school."

Bonnie makes other resources available for students, parents and teachers on her website. She’s got books on geometry, free project guides for teachers, and a monthly project subscription. If you’re into geometry, be sure to also check out Bonnie’s free resources and projects on the Math Forum. Now, go to your room! Being grounded was never so fun.

Posted by James Therrien, Google SketchUp Team

Winners announced for Monopoly's Design Your Own Building Competition

2009-11-09T16:20:00.002-07:00

Since the launch of the MONOPOLY City Streets game in September, millions of buildings have been built in the game. Soon after the game launched, the Monopoly team hosted the Design Your Own Building Competition with the help of Google SketchUp to create three new MONOPOLY City Streets ‘must have’ properties. They received hundreds of 3D buildings ranging in design from towers to ice cream parlors. It was amazing to see the variety of buildings submitted to the competition.

The jury selected three buildings that are now incorporated into the game. The three winning entries have been selected for their beauty, originality and for capturing the fun spirit of MONOPOLY City Streets.

The winners are:

Grand prize winner: Stairway to the Future Tower by Matthew

Second Place: Revolving Restaurant and Blimp by Zoungy

Third Place: Spiral Scraper Luxe by Brendo

If you’d like to see all of the entries, please visit the competition collection in the Google 3D Warehouse. Thank you for the entries and congratulations to the winners!

Posted by Tasha Danko, SketchUp Product Marketing Manager

Milwaukee and Indianapolis in 3D!

2009-11-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

Today, we introduced two new 3D cities: Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Indianapolis, Indiana. Take a tour (download kml) of these new cities in Google Earth 5.

Posted by Alex Juhola, 3D Modeling Specialist

Geo-Modelers: We want to feature you!

2009-11-05T13:00:00.001-07:00

You may have noticed that we frequently add stories about 3D modelers to our Google Earth Featured Modeler section on the Google SketchUp Blog and the Google 3D Warehouse (here's our last Featured Modeler story). These modelers have done extraordinary work and created fantastic 3D buildings for Google Earth.

If you've been geo-modeling for a while, maybe you wondered how we choose who gets featured. The honest truth is that we have a very unscientific method: we browse the 3D Warehouse, just like you. That's why we want to reach out to our blog readers to ask if you would like be considered as a Featured Google Earth Modeler. We want to hear from you, share your 3D models, and tell your story to the world! Also, if you have a friend who's a terrific modeler but may be too humble to share, poke them with a stick and get them to submit their story.

There is a simple form to get the process started. If we select your story, we will contact you, draft the story for your approval, then put it on the SketchUp Blog. Submit your story here!

Posted by James Therrien, Google Geo Team

Join the Building Maker community

2009-11-04T11:28:00.003-07:00

If you'd like to connect with fellow Building Maker modelers, check out the additions we introduced to the product today. Click on the "Join the discussion" link to get to the Google Group for geo-modelers. We created this discussion group for people who model 3D buildings for Google Earth. It's a great source for tips, tricks, and other product support.

For example, someone else might be modeling buildings close to the ones you're modeling. In fact, they may be modeling the exact same building! You could use the Discussion Group to reach out to other users and find out if someone else is modeling nearby. With this tool, you can connect with some of the world's most enthusiastic and experienced modelers.

We also added a link, "Follow us on Twitter", which will take you to our Building Maker Twitter page. Follow us to get up-to-the-minute news about when new cities are introduced, new product features, new 3D buildings in Google Earth, featured modelers, and other news.

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Business Product Manager

Google SketchUp 7 is now available in Japanese

2009-11-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

Google SketchUp 7 の日本語版がついに登場。バージョン 7 の新機能については、[このウェブページ]をご覧ください。

For version 7, we decided to focus on three main areas: making SketchUp easier for new modelers, simplifying the process of model sharing and collaboration and adding more tools for SketchUp Pro customers. We made changes that make everyone's life easier, and launched LayOut 2, a separate program that lets Pro users create detailed multi-page documents and presentations. Download a copy of Google SketchUp 7 in Japanese and give it a try. Happy sketching!

Posted by John Bacus, SketchUp Product Manager

Google Earth, SketchUp, and Honey did!

2009-11-02T11:42:00.001-07:00

Recently, my wife and I realized that the plywood retaining wall keeping our backyard from sliding into the pasture behind our house had to go. She kept reminding me that I work with Google modeling tools everyday and should come up with a plan to build a replacement wall.

Honeydew (read "honey, do") turns out to be more than a melon. But she was right. Using Google Earth, I was able to get a very accurate view of the construction area and with Google SketchUp, I created a model that guided the design and construction by our contractors. The challenge was to replace the plywood with something that would last a long time and give us access to the pasture. Time, water and gravity take their toll for, sure, as you can see from the "before" picture.

An overhead view in Google Earth provided an accurate measurement of the total fence width. But I had some concerns about the actual property line because the pasture is privately owned. A very cool thing you can do with Google Earth (works great in free version or Pro) is to import electronic parcel data. Many cities and county governments provide their survey and parcel data online as a public service. Google Earth makes it easy to use. My city had my house's parcel data - which I found and loaded.

I brought the Google Earth view into SketchUp and did some initial design to get scale and sense for what was possible in the actual space. Of course, my design comps had to go through review and approval with the boss (I'll leave you to guess who that might be). Then, we worked together using SketchUp to plan the look of the fence. We wanted a nice gate to give us access to the pasture. There are some beautiful custom fences available online, but they would have cost half our budget! So instead, we "drew inspiration", a nice way of putting it, from some Google image-search results.

With the model in context, we were easily able to communicate with the contractors who bid the job. The only question they had was about the gate, since they had to have their carpenter create it. No problem, as I had constructed the gate in SketchUp to scale by simply array-copying the 2x2's and 2x5's. But, because I have the Pro version of SketchUp with LayOut, I was able to provide the carpenter with a PDF that had not only the dimensioned gate, but images of the hardware we wanted to use an an outline view of the assembly. No muss no fuss. The resulting gate was cool to see!

The contractors were great and got the job done under budget and on schedule. I may have even created some SketchUp converts. Final results are below.

Posted by James Therrien, Google Geo Team

Featured Modeler: Arrigo Silva

2009-10-28T12:00:00.004-06:00

In the West, some of the longest-standing architecture is found in churches and cathedrals. As cities grow and evolve over time, structures come and go with the requirements of society. Through changes over centuries, though, major cities in Europe can still be recognized by their large churches. Enrico Dalbosco (Arrigo Silva, as he is known in the Google 3D Warehouse), a resident of Padua, Italy, understands why churches last and has taken up the cause of showing them off in 3D on Google Earth.

"I have devoted myself to modeling churches because I really like ancient and modern art. Through many, varied periods of time, churches have brought together the highest expressions of artistic skill and their construction has brought together the most renowned architects, sculptors and painters. I think for this reason I am not the only person who is interested in modeling churches for Google Earth and there are still a profusion of beautiful sites of all religions awaiting a modeler!"

Enrico is a retired electronic engineer and has many hobbies including music and photography. He's played classical piano since childhood and is also a fine artist working in watercolor and with ceramics (check out his ceramic buildings and landscapes). In 2007 when, surfing the Internet, he came across Google Earth and was excited to see everything there: sky, fields, roads, houses of Padova, Italy...the whole world, as he describes it.

"What was even more exciting was discovering that here and there on the Earth's surface there sprouted cities, towns, several buildings, monuments, and churches. I wondered, who made them? Was it something I could do too? So I came to discover Google SketchUp. Before that I had never used a 3D package."

Initially, Enrico thought it was necessary to fix all the edges, one by one, entering exact length but quickly discovered that SketchUp took care of scale on its own.

"SketchUp had additional surprises in store for me: in addition to being free (which is a good starting point!), the product has a completely intuitive interface that seems to anticipate what I am trying to do (split surfaces at midpoints, rotation, array-copy, group, create named groups etc.). I must say that I have a thorough knowledge of software usability because of my professional background and SketchUp has one of the best user interfaces I've seen."

In an ironic twist of fate, it was actually Enrico's work with a non-geo-located model, a bust of Beethoven, that most impacted his workflow for creating Google Earth buildings.

"A key learning for me was discovering the power of projecting textures: you can take a flat image and project it onto a complex form. I found a beautiful 3D bust of Ludwig van Beethoven in Google 3D Warehouse, and I sensed that I could 'paint' him, so I found a portrait of Beethoven. I was able to import the portrait as a texture and mold it to the contours in one fell swoop! It was a little miracle, to paint with a single command, and within seconds the countless shapes that made up the face of great musician!"

His first creations were the churches of in neighborhood and the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua, which proved a challenge because of the complexity of its structure. To address the challenge, "I adopted the old method of the Roman emperors ( "divide and conquer": if you want to solve a problem, split it in several parts...) subdividing the structure into simple elements: the façade, the transept, the church towers, the domes ..." For the photo textures, Enrico searched the web and found lots of photos taken on the ground from all possible view-points. The divided (and conquered!) structural elements can be seen in the graphic below.

Modeling Western religious architecture requires an understanding of the structure of vaults and domes - the "onion dome" characteristic of Orthodox Churches can be particularly daunting.

"Indeed," says Enrico, "the primary challenge that the Cathedral of St. Basil in Moscow posed was its domes: due to their incredible variety of shapes and colors, I couldn't find a single formula to cover all of them, and so I had to adopt different strategies - smooth and relieved domes, colored and textured domes ... it took some experimenting, trial and error, but in the end I was able to create all the varied dome shapes, including the most twisted, of course, always using the well-tested Beethoven method to project textures!"

Enrico expanded his dome-modeling techniques in working on the domes of the Church of the Nativity in Suzdal.

"In this case, I adopted a more complicated strategy: I initially prepared, with SketchUp, a geometric model of each dome (onion with and stars) and then I created a screen-shot which I then projected (once more using the Beethoven method) these texture on the sectors of the “real” domes. I worked really well."

Clearly, Enrico is pushing the boundaries of what is possible and how ornate and beautiful models for Google Earth can be. It's a revelation!

Posted by James Therrien, Google Geo Team

We're awash in Building Maker models!

2009-10-23T11:30:00.004-06:00

We didn't know what to expect when we released Google Building Maker last week. Would we hear crickets? Would we be hit by a tidal wave? Somewhere in-between? Well, the headline of this post says it all! We've been trying to find dry land in the sea of models you've created! So I guess you like the app!? Seriously, we're doing our very best to review and process these models into Google Earth as quickly as we can. Thousands of models are included in the first wave which will be visible in today's 3D buildings release, so look for yours!

If you don't see your model in the 3D Buildings layer of Google Earth, there are two possibilities: It either needs some additional work on your part to meet our acceptance criteria, or, it's still in our processing pipeline. You can check the status of your models by visiting the Google 3D Warehouse, logging into your account, and looking at the bottom of the model details page. If it's been accepted, it will look like this:

We may have been overwhelmed with the volume of models but that doesn't mean that we haven't taken notice of the incredible models that have been created. We're very impressed! In fact, we've created a new Best of Building Maker collection in the 3D Warehouse to showcase your work, like this cathedral by geo-modeler chrischibuilder.

If you'd like to stay informed on the latest Building Maker news you can follow us on Twitter. We'll be posting updates when new cities are available for modeling, tips & tricks, and other product news.

Happy modeling!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Business Product Manager

Bright idea: a LayOut case study

2009-10-23T09:30:00.001-06:00

Clear communication of ideas and plans is an important part of the design and/or building process, regardless of the scope of the project. Mike Brightman, of See Before Building and Bright Ideas Consulting, has provided a few examples of how he used the presentation and documentation capabilities of Google SketchUp Pro to communicate with contractors, design with a client, and submit permit drawings for approval.

See his case study for more information on the problems he was trying to solve, and what he did to solve them.

"SketchUp Pro and LayOut are extremely efficient in all phases of the design process. I can generate a concept, thoroughly explore and revise my design, create design documents, generate permit drawings, and then export from SketchUp Pro to a 3D .dwg model or 2D .dwg snapshots. This work-flow gives me all of the speed and freedom of SketchUp Pro and the ability to move into the construction document phase in CAD."

Posted by Nancy Trigg, SketchUp Pro Sales Team

Design It Shelter Competition: The Winners

2009-10-21T12:39:00.015-06:00

Earlier this year, we teamed up with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to launch the Design It: Shelter Competition. People all over the world were invited to use Google SketchUp to design small buildings and submit them for consideration. We received over 600 entries from 68 countries – the level of participation was astounding. You can check out all the entries on the Guggenheim website.

Two prizes were offered: the People's Prize and the Juried Prize. To determine the winner of the People's Prize, students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture winnowed down the entries to a list of ten finalists. Visitors to the Guggenheim website could vote for their favorite; the shelter with the most votes won. A jury of seven experts selected the winner of the Juried Prize.

Here's a video that announces the winners and talks a little bit about them:

The People's Prize

The winner of the People's Prize is the CBS – Cork Block Shelter
by David Mares of Setúbal, Portugal

The Juried Prize

The winner of the Juried Prize is the SeaShelter
by David Eltang of Aarhus, Denmark.

Each of the winners will receive transportation to New York City for two people, accommodation for two nights, "backstage" tours of both the Guggenheim Museum and our New York Google office, and free admission to a number of other NYC museums. The Juried Prize winner will also receive a check for one thousand dollars.

Congratulations to the finalists and to the winners. Thank you to everyone who submitted a design, and thanks to everyone who voted.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

It's design competition season

2009-10-20T08:45:00.000-06:00

If you're like me, you enter competitions to win cool stuff, to challenge your brain a little, or to try new tools. Well, some friends of SketchUp have told us about a few design competitions they're hosting this Fall to keep you busy (warning: these might have an impact on your day job). Have fun and good luck!

Pumpkin Carving Contest
Hosted by: SketchUp Island Blog
Deadline to enter: October 24, 2009
Website

Furniture Design Competition
Hosted by: Vaughan Benz
Deadline to enter: November 15, 2009
Website

Parkitecture: Designing the Garage of the Future
Hosted by: Dwell
Deadline to enter: November 20, 2009
Website

Putting Mexico on the Map
Hosted by: Google team in Mexico
Deadline to enter: November 30, 2009
Website (Spanish only)

Posted by Tasha Danko, SketchUp Product Marketing Team

Let's talk SketchUp ideas

2009-10-16T11:30:00.000-06:00

As some of you've seen, we recently launched a Product Ideas series for Google SketchUp and Google SketchUp Pro. If you aren't familiar with Product Ideas, then you'll definitely want to check it out. You can post thoughts on how to make SketchUp better as well as vote on suggestions from other users. The more you vote, the better we can tell which new features are important to you.

In the past three weeks, we've seen some amazing responses. SketchUp users from around the world submitted over 300 ideas to our series. We've heard everything from "fix the shadow bug" to "edit projects collaboratively" to "keep it simple." However, we still want to hear what you think. This SketchUp series will be closing on October 22nd (that's next Thursday), so add your suggestions and votes soon!

Finally, we also want to let you know what we think. Many of the suggestions that have come up are ideas that we've been talking about too. Some of them are possible, some of them aren't, but we think that you should get honest responses to the top ideas (and yes, we did respond to the "fix the shadow bug" suggestion). Visit the Answered Ideas section to see all of our replies.

Thank you to everyone for sharing, and check back soon for the results.

Posted by Vicky Tait, SketchUp Support Team

Introducing Google Building Maker

2009-10-13T09:00:00.001-06:00

Hot on the heels of the SketchUp 7.1 launch a couple of weeks ago, we're pleased to announce the release of the latest addition to our 3D family: Google Building Maker is a super-specialized, online tool for creating buildings specifically for Google Earth.

Building Maker lets you choose a building to model by looking at aerial imagery. After you've told it what you'd like to model, Building Maker loads up several different aerial views of that building taken from different directions. You then align simple 3D shapes – boxes, prisms, pyramids and others – to the different views. Building Maker takes care of all the photo-texturing for you; it uses the aerial photos to "paint" your building when you save it. Models you create with Building Maker are stored in the Google 3D Warehouse, and are automatically considered for inclusion on the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth. If your model looks good (and if there's no better one already in its place), it'll appear in Google Earth (for millions of people) within about a week.

Check out this video to see Building Maker in action:

We're launching with 50 cities that are ready for Building Maker. We'll continue to add cities as fast as we can, but feel free to jump in and give Building Maker a test drive whenever you like. Modeling in a place you're not familiar with is a great way to learn something about it.

So is Building Maker supposed to replace SketchUp? Absolutely not! SketchUp is a general-purpose tool that people use to model everything under the sun. Building Maker, on the other hand, is a specialist. For folks who want to make models and see them in Google Earth, it's simple, efficient and (we hope) downright fun.

Here's something else we think is neat: Anything you create with Building Maker, you can download and open in SketchUp. You can tweak textures, refine geometry – whatever it takes to make your building even better. When you're done, uploading your improved model to the 3D Warehouse further increases its chances of being accepted into Google Earth.

Some more things you should know about Building Maker:

Building Maker is an online app, meaning it runs entirely in your web browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc.).
To get credit for what you contribute, you need to sign into your Google Account.
Make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed on your computer.
If you're on a Mac, you need to download the Google Earth plug-in directly.

Building Maker is free and available in 14 languages. Go to www.google.com/buildingmaker to join the worldwide mapping community. Have fun!

Posted by Mark Limber, Product Manager and Matt Simpson, User Experience Designer

Document this!

2009-10-12T16:50:00.005-06:00

Scanning the Internet over the weekend, I came across a great LayOut 2.1 blog post by a friend of the SketchUp team, Eric Schimelpfenig. Eric is a kitchen designer and the author of Sketch This!, a blog dedicated to helping design professionals use Google SketchUp Pro and LayOut for kitchen design.

Below are Eric's LayOut images. If you have SketchUp Pro installed, you can download his LayOut file to check it out for yourself.

In the last post, I started to tell you about LayOut 2.1's most useful new feature, dimensioning. After testing the new dimensioning feature on small projects here and there, I took the plunge and created my first full presentation and kitchen plan in it.

I started with creating the SketchUp model, coloring it, and setting up all my views. Then, I sent it over to LayOut. Over there I was able to create different pages with all my views. I started out with all the perspective views. These are typically the views that you would go over with your customer during presentation.

Next, I added some elevations and sections of pertinent parts of the kitchen. These pages have all the dimensions, cabinet codes, and notes for the contractor or installer. The last few pages contain some detail parts, and the counter top details.

While this may look like just a normal plan generated from any other cad software, there is one really nice benefit with using the SketchUp to LayOut workflow: All of the views are referenced off of the original 3D model. What this means is that the workflow process isn't a one way street. If at anytime during the creation of this document I need to change something, I only have to do it in the SketchUp 3D model once. When I save the model, each and every page in LayOut is updated, so all my changes are reflected everywhere.

Yes, other cad software packages can do this, but SketchUp does it very easily.

Posted by Chris Cronin, SketchUp Sales Team

A new place for your models

2009-10-12T11:30:00.003-06:00

Last week, Google released "Place Pages" in Google Maps, which provides maps, reviews, pictures and other information about a place - all in one view. The Place Page shows where the place is located, how to get there, what users have to say about it, and what it looks like.

For many buildings and landmarks, you can also view a 3D model of the building. You can spin the building around and see its front, back and sides. Need to know where the entrance is? Rotate the building to find it. These 3D models were created by 3D enthusiasts , uploaded to the Google 3D Warehouse, and are now available for view by millions of Place Page users.

For example, take a look at the beautiful Cathedral of Dakar in Senegal, modeled by Google 3D Warehouse user "zappy bibicy".

Place Page offers a new venue where millions of people can explore and learn from the 3D models created by Google 3D Warehouse users. Enjoy!

Posted by Lori Meskey, Google 3D Warehouse Team

Introducing a new Help Forum

2009-10-09T16:35:00.001-06:00

As you may know, we've recently launched the Google SketchUp Help Forum alongside the launch of Google SketchUp 7.1. While our previous Help Group was a great resource for answering your questions - helping you find answers, and sharing your expertise with other users - it's our hope that the new forum will be all of that and more.

We've developed many new and exciting features which we think will make it easier and quicker for you to find the answers that you're looking for and chat with others in the SketchUp community. Some of the new things in the Help Forum include:

Find answers before you even ask your question! The forum will automatically suggest a similar thread as you begin typing your question in a new post.
Mark any reply as "Best Answer" and show this reply right below the original question. If you post a question, you can mark any reply to your question as "Best Answer" as well.
Create richer posts by referencing all kinds of online sources, including images and videos.
Get to know others in the forum better by creating a useful profile, which includes an avatar.
As you build your reputation as an expert, you increase your "level" in the forum. After a while, who knows - you could be the next SketchUp Sage!

If you'd like, you can watch an instructional video about the new Google Help Forums, or you can dive right into the SketchUp Help Forum. It's already hopping and open to new members. We hope you can stop by and say "Hi!"!

Posted by Jody Gates, SketchUp Support Team

SketchUp Pro in construction - video case study

2009-10-08T17:00:00.002-06:00

The development of virtual construction models is a great way to communicate more effectively, resolve issues before they happen, and save time, resources, and money on construction projects. Our friends at Mortenson Construction have helped us with this video case study that shows how, using Google SketchUp Pro, they were able to develop virtual construction models that helped them communicate more effectively and become more innovative builders. Have a look at the video below for more details:

Posted by Chris Dizon, SketchUp Pro Team

The sweetest model you'll see this year

2009-10-07T14:35:00.000-06:00

Time to have your socks blown off. Jacques (a.k.a. Silvershadow) is a SketchUp god who hangs out on the SketchUcation Community Forums, and he's done it again. I'm completely serious when I say that looking at his work makes me, simultaneously:

inspired to hole up for a weekend and do nothing but make beautiful things with SketchUp
never want to build another 3D model again, knowing I'll never come close to Silvershadow's level of über-SketchUp-ninja-mastery

Enough giddy babbling – here are some pictures. Try not to drool on your keyboard.

Note: All images are a combination of SketchUp and VRay rendering.

The best place to immerse yourself in the heavenly glow of this endeavor is to read through this SCF thread. You'll need a free login to see the images, but signing up is well worth it.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Product Evangelist

New book: Google SketchUp for Site Design

2009-10-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

Our friend Daniel Tal's new book about SketchUp is getting terrific reviews, and we couldn't be prouder of him. Google SketchUp for Site Design: A Guide to Modeling Site Plans, Terrain and Architecture is a rollicking thrill ride of 1970's murder and intrigue on the high seas. Think it's not? You'll have to get a copy to see.

Truthfully, this book covers SketchUp topics that no one's even come close to explaining in previous volumes: terrain modeling with the Sandbox tools, techniques for working with huge models, how to wrestle CAD files and using Ruby scripts, just to name a few. He also writes about something he's dubbed "SketchUp Process Modeling", a start-to-finish workflow for completing massive projects without losing your marbles.

The book includes hundreds of beautiful color images with helpful annotations and captions. Flipping through it the first time, I couldn't believe how much work Dan must've put in. He's a practicing landscape architect who uses SketchUp every day in his work, so the material's relevant to pros in a way that most books aren't.

Be sure to take a look at the website Dan built for the book, and be sure to check out his YouTube videos; they're great.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist