As announced in their latest blog post, Google has just released an optimization feature for their online spreadsheets (which, of course, are part of Google Docs). With this new feature, linear optimization problems can be solved easily. This is a great feature and makes online spreadsheets even more Excel-like and usable. Here are some of the features:

• Minimization or maximization of target cell, but no target value optimization. TIP: Minimize the difference to a target value if you need this.
• Select (unlimited?) cells as design variables. Restriction to positive values is possible.
• Add (unlimited?) constraints. These can be “<=”, “=” or “>=”. Since the dialog has no scroll function, the number of constraints is apparently limited by the screen height.
• Due to the nature of the optimization algorithm, only linear problems can be computed. This means that formulas may not contain power functions or decision-based formulas (IF-THEN).

I haven’t tried this feature out yet on a real problem, but my main performance question would be whether the calculation uses Javascript in the local browser (likely) or uses Google’s server resources, which may speed things up  on a large problem.

For more help and information on this feature, look at the relevant Help page. And if you need an optimization solution for Excel spreadsheets that is based on Genetic Algorithms, check out my handy tool.

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CASE architects have developed an interesting whitepaper for Autodesk that illustrates nicely the conceptual design process in Revit 2010. In this paper, a highrise development is taken from the conceptual stage through some Ecotect solar analysis all the way to facade panelization using the new Revit tools.

You can download the document from Autodesk here.

On the SketchUp and Google Earth front, Google has retooled their aceptance criteria for buildings for 3D Warehouse. A nice explanation was published on their blog. Maybe more of our UMass campus buildings will make it now into the 3D buildings layer.

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Dukta Matte

On May 26th, the Swiss wood awards were given out. After the German awards a few weeks ago, these awards highlight more reasons for building with wood such as the custom cut wood slab that transforms into undulating plates (shown above).

More on holzpreis-schweiz.ch.

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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 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.

Here’s the original posting:

Official Google SketchUp Blog: Save some cash on SketchUp Pro.

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WinDirStat main window

Now that the semester is over and all the grades are in, it is time for me again to clean up my computer before summer work starts. It is simply amazing how much that machine get filled with stuff over time. Add to that that my hard disk is small by today’s standards and I have my work cut out for me.

Since this may be of help for others, here is my to-do list when I clean my machine. Since I am running a Windows machine, all of those apply to Windows only.

• Uninstall unused software
  I try out a lot of software and often forget to uninstall those right away. My uninstall tool of choice is the Revo uninstaller. It not only runs the software-supplied uninstaller but also checks for connected files and registry settings.
• Run a disk cleanup
  That’s always a good idea. Run the Windows cleanup program as a baseline and then run CCleaner for more options and possibly a registry scan.
• Find and cleanup big files
  I find the main space problem on my harddisk comes from huge files. Finding those is often a good step in chasing down which program stores large amounts of data. I use WinDirStat for this. It is a small software that lists large folders and files in a treeview and – especially useful – in a colorful diagram. This is how I found out about many of the other tips in this list.
• Defragment drive
  You should do this regularly anyways. In my case I couldn’t do that until I had some time since I had to free up some space on my harddisk first (Windows’ defragmenter needs 15% free space to run). I also use Defraggler since it can defragment individual files. One tip: Disable hibernation (in your computer’s power settings) and set the pagefile to zero (right-click on My Computer and look under Properties) before you defragment. Those two files (hiberfil.sys and pagefil.sys) can be huge and are locked otherwise.
• Cleanup MS Outlook archive and/or backup files and then defragment those
  Depending on how you use Outlook (if you do), it may be wise to delete old items. You can easily do so by running an advanced find (right-click on folder name in Outlook) over your “Personal Folders” file or your “Archive” file (if you have archiving enabled). I typically delete old items that are at least three years old.
• Cleanup iTunes
  You may want to check iTunes for leftover podcasts, duplicate movies etc. Then delete those and maybe change the settings to only store the latest version of your subscribed podcasts.
• Delete Picasa originals
  If you are happy with how Picasa modifies your images, then there’s no need to keep backups (I burn my original files on CD-ROMS as added safety anyways). Do a search for folders named “Originals” or “.picasaoriginals” and then delete those. You can use Windows’ search function but you’ll have to make those folders visible first since they are hidden (in any explorer window go to Tools > Folder Options…).
• Malwarebytes anti-malware
  You should check for malware every once in a while anyways. I ran Microsofts’ little program which didn’t find anything. Then I tried Malwarebytes’ software which found the little bugger. Also do a check with Ad-aware.
• Apple installers
  For whatever reason, Apple decided to cache every single installer for iTunes, Quicktime, Safari etc. for the past years on my harddrive. They are in folders called “Installer Cache”. You can spot them easily using WinDirStat and then safely delete at least the old versions.
• Google Desktop index file
  This turned out to be a huge space hog on my harddisk. It may be a good idea to uninstall google desktop and reinstall. This way, the index gets rebuilt and old leftover items get removed. I also found that the index was significantly contributing to my harddrive fragmentation. You might need to manually remove the index files – mine didn’t clean up after an uninstall. Again, spot them using WinDirStat (They are under “Documents and Settings > All Users”.
• Video temp files
  If you burn a lot of DVDs (of your family movies for example), look for temporary files or burn images. Video software often stores a full copy of the DVD on the harddisk before it burns the DVD itself.
• System restore
  Final tip: You can reduce the amount of space that system restore uses by looking under the My Computer properties. Don’t turn it off, it’s a useful feature!

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Plugged (Image by saschaaa)

I recently had the need to set up several different websites in one (hosted, shared) webspace. While this by itself is trivial there was a catch: I had multiple domains that needed to be DNS forwarded (using CNAME) to this webspace. In essence, the functionality I needed was that once a user goes to one of those domains, he/she would get the site served from one of the subdirectories in my webspace.

This again were trivial if the domains had been hosted with the company that provides me with the webspace. But in my case, the domains could not be moved and therefore I needed the DNS forwarding. In case you run into a similar situation, here’s what you need to do:

1. Make sure you have Linux/Apache.
   This method works with Linux and Apache. I don’t know how to do this with Windows since IIS doesn’t have a clean way to rewrite URLs.
2. Get a static IP.
   This is usually not included in a cheap, shared hosting plan. Some hosters offer those but mine didn’t. However, with my hoster (1and1.com), I was able to purchase an SSL certificate, which gave me a dedicated IP.
3. Set up subdirectories and add URL rewriting
   Set up one subdirectory per site and add the site content into these. Then add a .htaccess file into the root of the webspace and add the following lines. Of course you’ll have to modify them to your need.

1
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RewriteEngine on
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteBase /
# Site 1
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^sub1.site.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subdirectory1/.*$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /subdirectory1/$1 [L]
# Site 2
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^sub2.site.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subdirectory2/.*$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /subdirectory2/$1 [L]

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e3 Building in Berlin, Germany. Seven stories in wood.

The German wood awards have just been given to a variety of projects that include built objects – anything from highrises to garden sheds – and new products for wood construction.

The first prize went to an amazing object: A seven story apartment building in Berlin whose structure consists of glulam columns and beams as well as solid wood walls. It is the e3 and more info is available on e3berlin.de. See also the image on the right.

It is also great news to note that one of the honorable mentions went to a colleague of ours and one of his projects. Prof. Leander Bathon and the Wood Technology Lab of the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden received this prize for a bridge in Austria that uses a novel glued-in wood-concrete composite system. Some information on our own work on this system can be found here.

Wood-concrete composite bridge in Austria

Finally, if you know German then you can download the official publication.

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Here’s a method that I found recently on the buildz blog: Although it is not clear from the rendering dialog, it is easily possible to do a soft-shadowed ambient-occlusion rendering in Revit’s implementation of MentalRay.

This is done by setting the time of the rendering to sometime during the night. After the rendering, just open the exposure settings dialog and increase the exposure until it looks right. The result is below:

Credit for this method goes to David!

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The first news about SketchUp is news itself. To be more to the point, the folks at SketchUcation.com have just launched an interesting news portal. It is called The Daily CatchUp and it was created to bring frequently updated news to us SU users. So far, posts seem to follow the major topics and announcements on the SCF forum and add whatever else happens in SU world. Definitely a good daily read! (And I like to see that the site was built on WordPress)

NPR Tools from Render Plus

Render Plus Software

The recent announcement of the release of NPR tools by Render Plus Systems is a good reminder for me to mention their lineup of products, which all look very interesting. Here is a short list:

• NprTools – Adds non-photorealistic rendering like soft shadows or sketchy shadows
• IRender nXt and IRender Lite – Another renderer for SU
• RpTreeMaker – A free tool to create trees and shrubs
• RpTools and RpEdits – Copy and mirror tools (free)
• RpWallMaker – Create thick walls with openings easier
• ProjectSketch – An office-planning tool
• RpReports – Attribute definition and reporting tool
• RPS 3D PDF – And last but definitely not least a tool to create 3D PDFs

And for all Revit users that may want an alternative to MentalRay, there is also AccuRender nXt for Revit.

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The Old Man

I just had to do this one. Admittedly portraits are not really my thing but I think it turned out quite okay (although a bit haunting). So how did I do it?

The kids’ playground just received a new layer of wood chips and some of them had fantastic shapes. So I took them, grabbed a camera and Photoshop and the result is above. For the curious reader the original chips are shown below.

What makes up the old man

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