Looking for a 'Reality Button'

tpstigers

I'm wondering whether a plugin exists. Ordinarily, I'd spend a bunch of time searching for it, but I have no idea what it would be called. Let me see if I can explain it clearly:

We recently bought a house. Almost immediately, I set about modeling it with SketchUp (the method to my madness is a desire to "try out" any remodeling my wife might get into her head). I'm pretty happy with the model (so far - I haven't finished it yet) except for one thing: the house is old (more than a century). What this means is that none of the corners are square, none of the walls are plumb and none of the floors are level. Because of this, the SketchUp model looks odd and just not right. Actually building a model to allow for all the imperfections would be a nightmare. The preferable solution would be to tweak the lines and angles just a bit, to random degrees and in random directions (a 'reality button').

Does a plugin exist that can do such a thing?

Thanks.

Terry

Krisidious

there is a plugin that randomly movies stuff slightly. let me look for it.

it had something to do with making a model unusable to someone who downloaded it for actual dimensions, but allowing them to still see the overall idea.

I can't remember the name of it.

chippwalters

Jim Foltz created a plugin for me a couple years ago which does exactly this. It is called Jitter and can be found at:

http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/p/my-plugins.html

Anssi

Whatever you decide to do to tweak your model to look more "real", do not save your tweaks in your original model but keep it for further modifications (when your wife asks for something different, for instance).

A model that has small irregularities is always difficult, if not impossible, to work with. That is why even professionals make their walls generally vertical and their angles straight. You must also realize that every measurement taken also has its tolerance, so that the reality may be more regular or more irregular than they show. For instance, measurements taken by a laser tachymeter have a tolerance of about 50 mm, so that when you get a measured drawing representing a system built structure, it will show a lot of columns with lozenge-shaped cross sections - and you know RHS steel columns of a structure that hasn't collapsed are square. Of course, irregularities so big that they must be taken into account when planning modifications, had better not be overlooked.

Anssi

Krisidious

I strongly agree with Anssi.

pbacot

I often measure out old structures for remodel. I measure and note as accurately as I can, but a wall has to really be at a strong angle for me not to draw it square in the end. Critical dimensions must be given to builders off of existing elements, but the plan itself doesn't have to be to actual real world tolerances. I would keep the model and plans as if square and do the massage in rendering or at least a one-off copy of the model.

Way back my first foray into CAD involved a floor plan with various angles. Even when well-defined, angles make it difficult for someone starting out, believe me.

mitcorb

Thanks for the Jitter link. I was thinking about this same issue not long ago. And I had done an experimental model where I did a lot of deforming to knock down straight lines and crisp edges to try to capture what I had handsketched. Of course, one could always use some fuzzy styles to some effect.

tpstigers

Thanks for all the advice, folks. I fully intend to keep an unmodified copy of my original model for future use (this is the one I will use for all design purposes. In a former life I was a carpenter - I'm well aware of the gap between plan and reality). I'm not looking to reproduce the realities of an old structure, just to simulate them. My primary reason for this is that anything I build will be square, level and plumb. When I show ideas to my wife, I want her to see what it looks like when new construction meets old (also, I just want to be able to tweak a copy of the model for the look of the thing).

Thanks,

Terry

Gaieus

I am working on a building with lots of different vaults (several types and sizes and there is only one of them that is really square). It's a building complex that have been developing for the last 3 centuries. I can say I suffer a lot and am at a point that I will redo the whole in a rectangular system and only have one or two (the really obvious ones) be different.

OK, I have the correct vaults and such now for B&W "construction drawings" (this is not going to be for construction) but eventually I will have to create something like a Unity3D or similar "walkabout" with correctly textured things and all - and of course, hen walking about, you would never notice that an angle in the corner is not 85 degrees but I cheated and it is 90 (but such a difference would cause me headaches when texturing a dome for instance).

So there is a reasonable level of irregularity but when it is too small, you should really not care too much already.

tpstigers

@gaieus said:

I am working on a building with lots of different vaults (several types and sizes and there is only one of them that is really square). It's a building complex that have been developing for the last 3 centuries.

Can I ask where that is? (I ask because I'm an archaeologist and that complex looks interesting.)

Gaieus

Here (in the above export, I did not include the two, eastern parts but you can see how extensive the complex is under the GE poligin. also added to some photos there):
Old Tanner House.kmz

Interesting however that after 1711, it is not subject to archaeology for us here (legally). Previously it was 1686 - the end of the Ottoman/Turkish rule - but then they changed to 1711 (most probably also due to excavations I also took part then lead and on top of a Roman fort we found another one from the first decade of the 18th century when we were fighting one of our almost decennial wars of independence against the Habsburg House)