Future UK Meet?

dylan · 26 Mar 2008, 15:41

Name: Dylan

Surname: Morton

Age: 39

City: Sheffield
State/Province/County: Yorkshire

Profession: Architectural Technologist.

About yourself: I discovered SketchUp version 5 by accident whilst browsing Google. After taking time out to learn the basics I found out we actually had five Pro licenses at work which had never been used. I have been loving the program ever since.

Hobbies:A big fan of the outdoors, cycling, motorcycling and computers!

Meetup interests: I plan to arrange some sort of UK based meet as a pre taster for future Basecamps
I think the UK is small enough to allow for travelling etc.
One or two days, meet up, share ideas, have fun and sink a few beers.

All can be discussed and ideas shared if we get enough interest.

Contact info: Send me a PM if you're interested or just reply to my post right here in this topic.

sintra · 26 Mar 2008, 15:52

Hi Dylan,

Small world, i'm from just down the road from you in Doncaster

I also discovered sketchup in a similar way just searching about and ever since i havn't been able to leave it alone

Greetings from Doncaster

Darren

watkins · 26 Mar 2008, 16:47

Hi All,

I live in Oxford and work at the Department of Atmospheric Physics (http://www.at.ox.ac.uk). My background is physics, but my love is engineering. We do lots of things at the department, including designing parts for space instruments.

I discovered Sketchup last summer and have become hooked too. I use it to quickly model mechanical assemblies before moving to other software (I use Inventor 11) for part by part design and detailing.

Regards,
Bob

pav_3j · 26 Mar 2008, 16:51

Name: luciano

Surname: frige

Age: 21

City: Canterbury
State/Province/County: Kent

Profession: Architectural Technologist/Student

About yourself: I discovered SketchUp version 5 at uni, at first i hated everything about it, it just seemed too simple. then i realised that was the beauty of it!

Hobbies: i'm a scout leader, i'm heavily into classic VW's and play a lot of rugby. that's about it!

Meetup interests: you tell me when and where, and i'll be there!

toeknee · 10 Apr 2008, 11:03

Name: Tony
Surname: Simpson
Age: 43
City: Hereford
County: Herefordshire
Profession: Oak Timber Frame Design

About yourself: I discovered SketchUp version 4 a while back whislt looking to produce drawings of buildings for planning purposes - I found it SU rocks bring on SU7
Hobbies:I like having fun sking food beer and having fun.

sepo · 13 Apr 2008, 13:30

Hi

I am based in Northampton , UK. Chartered Architect running own design studio. I also teach visual comm at Northampton Uni, teach skiing in Milton Keynes and I am part of development team of Podium. With me it is full on and if we are going to meet it we should plan in advance.

watkins · 13 Apr 2008, 14:58

Dear All,

With reference to the UK meeting, I could enquire at some of the colleges in Oxford. The town is very easy to get to from Gatwick and Heathrow as there is a regular bus service. There is also a very good bus service between Oxford and London. Oxford also boasts a good selection of restaurants and pubs, and most colleges offer accommodation during periods when students are on vacation.

I imagine that a weekend meeting would be favourite as most people have full time jobs. The next long student vacation begins at the end of Trinity term. Consequently, the window of opportunity starts week beginning 16 June and goes on to the last weekend in September.

Regardless of where we meet, what would people like get from the meeting. Do we just meet up for a chin-wag and a beer, or should the meeting be more structured with one day given over to 20-30 minute presentations on modelling techniques, tips-&-tricks etc? It would not be difficult to secure a meeting room with the right audio-visual equipment.

I think it would be nice if we went away from the meeting a little wiser as well as having met the faces behind the many posts.

Regards,
Bob

dylan · 13 Apr 2008, 18:25

I really want us to all come away learning something new if possible and im sure everyone feels the same.
What you are suggesting Bob sounds really good. It would be nice to get access to a room we can use with the facility to show presentations.

It goes without saying a night out with some good food, a few drinks and laughs would also be part of the plans.

I expect we could get quite a few people interested, we just need to get them visiting this Forum.

watkins · 14 Apr 2008, 16:47

Dear Dylan,

Perhaps we should start the ball rolling with a new thread, such as 'Possible Presentations at UK Meeting'

Here are a few ideas:

Terrain modelling using the sandbox tools
Using 2D CAD files to simplify modelling
Drawing techniques for woodworkers
Organic modelling - tools and techniques
Techniques for animating your model
etc

Of course, we could take just one topic (say Terrain modelling), and make the meeting a workshop, going from basic use of tools to advanced modelling.

Something I have always wanted to do is model interesting buildings (we have many in Oxford), but I have no idea how to get the proportions and size right in the absence of dimensioned drawings. I would like to model my local church, but I am daunted by the detail. How did Paul Russam go about modelling his church?

Kind regards,
Bob

Paul Russam · 15 Apr 2008, 12:05

Name: Paul

Surname: Russam

Age: 43 (I think)

City: Belfast
State/Province/County: Northern Ireland

Profession: 3D Illustrator/IT Manager

About yourself: I'd been a 3D Studio user since it came on 5 floppy disks (about 1991) but since I discovered SketchUp about 3/4 years ago 3DS hasn't been touched. I'm originally from England but been living in Northern Ireland for around 10 years and loving every minute of it.

Hobbies: I always hate filling in the 'hobbies' section on a form as I don't really have any but I'm a bit of a fan of Formula 1 and generally mucking about with computers.

Meetup interests: Travel is no problem anywhere in the UK, I'd suggest somewhere in or around the Birmingham/Sheffield area(s) as their well connected with the M1/M5/M6/M40.

Here's a quick list of things we may want to cover in no particular order
"Here's what our product can do to help you" - Presentation(s)
"What we want from V7" - List of features/fixes to 'officially' pass on to Google
"How do I do this?" - Help!
"This is how I do this" - Showing off!

But generally it would be just fun to meet as many of us as possible, I doubt we could count on the fingers of one hand the number of people here who have actually meet.

Do we do this before/during/after the US basecamp.
Before could enable us to composes some questions to be asked on our behalf.
During would enable us to 'take part' with the aid of modern witchcraft.
After could mean that one of the UK attendee's who was at basecamp (b*$&t@rd) could fill us in.

Bob,
With regard to the church I measured everything by hand using a Leica Disto laser thingie, only when I got outside did we employ a local surveyor to take some spot heights for the roofs/steeple etc.
The hardest thing was to mentally dismantle the building as see it as its buildable parts: floor/walls/roof/columns/pews/windows etc. without getting overwhelmed by the whole thing.
On more than one occasion I abandoned any form of measuring as 'I didn't know where to start'

watkins · 15 Apr 2008, 13:09

Dear Paul,

I have no problems with a meeting further north, I just thought that people might enjoy the college 'experience'. Plus, the the architecture of Oxford is very interesting and so the location might appeal to many. If I have time I will post a few images of interesting houses on the forum.

One question that needs to be asked. As the meeting will resemble a weekend break, do participants want to bring wives and girlfriends? It might make getting away easier for some, and harder for others. It might make spouses more disposed towards our addiction.

Thanks for explaining how you went about modelling the church. My church is St. Peters, Wolvercote (http://www.stpeterswolvercote.org/), and should be easier to model. The original bit is the Saxon tower. The rest is relatively new as it was substantially rebuilt in 1860. The Walter Tomb would be a hard one to model as one would need many of the organic modelling scripts and bucket loads of time.

Regards,
Bob

Paul Russam · 15 Apr 2008, 18:00

As I said, anywhere's good.
My family are in Stratford-upon-Avon so Oxford is fine for me, straight down the M40.

linea · 21 Apr 2008, 10:31

Name: Jon

Surname: Wood

Age: 33

City: Kingston Upon Hull

State/Province/County: East Yorkshire

Profession: I'm not sure what my title should be. I do quite a broad span of architectural/ design related stuff as I work freelance but I'm not an architect so I don't do structural stuff. Currently work includes: "urbanism" (cityscape modelling for local government), CAD, planning applications, visualisation, commercial interior design, landscaping etc...

About yourself: I did a degree in Museum & Exhibition Design (graduated in 98), but only very briefly worked in that field. Spent some time as a product designer, kitchen designer, interior designer and a spatial design college tutor and then ended up working in interiors and architecture in about 2002. I worked in an architects practice full time from 2004 - 2007. Now I work mainly through an agency with a few of my own jobs as well.

My degree was old-school, no cad, all drawing boards and hand drawn perspectives. I learnt AutoCAD, Photoshop and some 3ds Max after I graduated. I think I discovered Sketchup around 2002 and now it is used for 99% of my work. Learning Kerkythea - going ok.

Hobbies: Allotments, photography, running, drawing.

Meetup interests: If we agree on a place I'll be there.

Discussion / Meet up topic:
"Integrating Sketchup into the workflow". I know it is a very very broad topic, maybe too esoteric, but I think addressing how we can use SU in a BIM type way for instance would be a useful direction. But I'd be happy to talk about anything SU related.

sepo · 3 May 2008, 09:39

Any movement...news ...anything ?

watkins · 3 May 2008, 14:08

Virtual tour of Oxford anyone?

Welcome to the new Oxford Chemistry website | Department of Chemistry

(www.chem.ox.ac.uk)

There is a chap over at the Chemistry Department that does this stuff.

Regards,
Bob

JasonWD · 13 May 2008, 16:49

I'm London based and would be up for a mini seminar somewhere. I have been using SU since V2.

swedishnitro · 24 May 2008, 12:35

Sheffield sounds good to me, I would love to get some hands tutorials with experienced pros.

PS I'm based in Sheffield too.

linea · 25 May 2008, 06:05

I think we need to all agree on a location as soon as possible, like in the next week. I'm happy to meet anywhere but at the moment Watkins has, it seems proposed the most practical location - Oxford because of the student facilities available.

remus · 25 May 2008, 06:12

I'd be good with oxford as well.

Anyine know when the colleges break up for the summer? might be an idea to organise it for after then as there will probably be a lot more rooms spare then.

watkins · 25 May 2008, 08:22

Dear All,

Just a quick reply. My wife, Shanti, said that she would help organise the meeting if held in Oxford.

I suggest that we use the Google website facility mentioned by Jim to organise the meeting. I don't think the forum is the right place. The website could be called UKSketchupEU, or something similar. I am assuming that attendees could come from southern Ireland, hence the EU.

What we need first is the number of attendees. I'm guessing 15 to 20 people.

Regards,
Bob