<sigh>

The world just doesn't seem to know what to do with 3D. Sad, sad, sad. So many missed opportunities.

SketchUp could have dovetailed nicely into Google's offerings in ways far deeper than just a tool for Google Earth, but it would have required cooperation and communication between Mountain View and Boulder, which never was to be.

Google's ad based model could have fit perfectly with SketchUp. In the late 1990s, with Hypercosm, we built a web based viewer / simulation platform and an ad server that served up advertisements while the model downloaded. We implemented web based 3D search in ways that tied together 3D models and 2D web pages together. Google had the muscle to have made 3D simulation a web supported media type. There are a zillion ways that SketchUp's mission and Google's mission could have been made to align. But, it would have required people to talk.

So long, SketchUp, it's been good to know ya.

-abe.

Abe Megahed
founder, Hypercosm (1998-2011)

Hi,

Yes, Gaius is correct, since Hypercosm Teleporter exports a web page along with a Hypercosm applet, you can treat the exported web page like any other web content.

To add your own material to an exported web page, there are two main ways that you can do this:

1. Add text, graphics, etc. directly to the HTML page exported by Hypercosm
   This should be relatively straightforward and simple, but it has the disadvantage that if you want to significantly change the Hypercosm part of the page in the future, for example, export the model with a different skin, then you'll have to re-integrate the rest of the page content over again.

2. Put the Hypercosm HTML page in an iframe inside another web page
   This is the approach that we use on the Hypercosm web site and that people who are creating a lot of Hypercosm content will tend to favor. In this approach, just make an iframe on your main web page that refers to the page exported by Hypercosm. Any Javascript or changes on the Hypercosm page will have no effect on your main web page so this is really easy to maintain and you don't have to worry about issues like including the Javascript that's needed on the Hypercosm web page.

If you need any help with this, let me know.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Greetings,

Here's a little trick for creating soft shadows right in SketchUp.
http://www.hypercosm.com/support/how_to/modeling/creating_soft_shadows_using_sketchup/index.html

I've had a number of people ask me about shadow optimization techniques for web publishing SketchUp models using Hypercosm. I figured that the technique might be of general interest to the SketchUp community so I thought I'd post it.

This technique has two main benefits over the standard SketchUp shadowing algorithm:

Advantages:

1. it maintains a good frame rate and
2. the soft shadows lend an additional degree of realism.

There are also a few disadvantages:

1. it handles ground plane shadows only
2. it's not dynamic

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Yes, it's unfortunate, but it does make sense.

The free version of SketchUp is so powerful that there needs to be some way to distinguish the pro version from the free version or nobody would drop 500 clams for the pro version.

For a more in-depth look at the difference between the free version and the pro versions of SketchUp, see the link below:
http://www.suwiki.org/suwiki/index.php?title=The_Differences_Between_SketchUp_Pro_and_Google_SketchUp

-abe.

Ton,

You're correct. Unfortunately, we don't yet have an exporter for the Mac. It certainly is on the "to-do" list, but honestly, we won't be able to get to it for some time - several months at least.

We just released the beta Mac player and have a list of items to finish to make it stable and performing consistently and reliably, which will take a month or two and then we are planning to do an iPhone player to investigate the suitability of that platform for 3D simulation and model viewing. So, that will likely take us to the end of the year. We periodically re-evaluate priorities in response to user feedback, but at the moment, a bulletproof Mac player and an iPhone player seem to be in higher demand than the Mac Teleporter, so we'll tackle those items first. We haven't forgotten about the Mac Teleporter, though!

-abe.

Hi.

Yes, there is a player required. There are a number of approaches for bypassing the need for a player (Java, Flash, and even Javascript), but none of these have even close to the level of performance that you need for real applications.

If you're interested to learn more about the techniques that we are using to make Hypercosm applets "ripper-proof", here's a writeup on that:
http://www.hypercosm.com/about/technology/pdf/hypercosm_security_white_paper.pdf

-abe.

Greetings SketchUppers,

For those who are interested in web publishing 3D models or building
real 3D web applications, there is a a new version of Hypercosm
Teleporter for SketchUp that has just been released. The new release
(version 1.6) incorporates a number of great new features including
the following:

1.               Compressed Javascripts for 10x faster page
   

loading
Web pages containing Hypercosm applets now load in around a second
compared to the 10 second wait that was previously often required for
the first page view. This makes pages feel much quicker because you
are never left staring at an web page where nothing appears to be
happening while you wait for Javascripts to load.

2.               Macintosh Support!
   

You’ve asked for it. Finally, at long last, beta version of the
Hypercosm Player software is available for the Mac and the new skins
that are part of this release of Hypercosm Teleporter support both
Safari and Firefox on the Macintosh. The Hypercosm Player for
Macintosh is available on the Hypercosm Player download page:
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/player/index.html

3.               Keyboard Controls
   

SketchUp power users are accustomed to using the mouse along with the
“shift”, "ctrl" and “alt” keys for alternative navigation modes. The
new skins support these keyboard controls making the manipulation of
Hypercosm web based SketchUp models almost identical to manipulation
inside of SketchUp.

4.               Scroll Wheel Support
   

The scroll wheel is a quick and easy way to zoom in and out. When the
scroll wheel is combined with the keyboard controls, you can zip
around your 3D models quickly and intuitively.

5.              Mapping Features
   

New mapping features make it easy to drop in a map or satellite image
underneath your web based SketchUp model. For more information about
the mapping features and skins, see this link below:
http://www.hypercosm.com/products/teleporter/sketchup/pro/features/ma...

6.              More Minor Tweaks and Enhancements
   

Additional minor new features such as improved layer (up to 125
layers), better font support and more.

For more information about Hypercosm Teleporter for SketchUp, see:
http://www.hypercosm.com/products/teleporter/sketchup/index.html

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know.

Best regards,

The Hypercosm Team

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megah...@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Hi.

Firefox3 did introduce a bug that makes it impossible to view applets in local (non web based) web pages (their bug, not ours, honest!).

We released a new version of the Hypercosm player (version 3.42) that codes around this bug and should fix the problem.

Cheers,

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com

Oliver,

Hi. I'm sorry, but there are no current plans to support Linux, although that could change if we receive requests for Linux support. We supported Linux from about 1999 through about 2001, but there just wasn't enough interest in a Linux based player to continue supporting the platform.

From a technical standpoint, there are no major issues in supporting Linux again, it's just a matter of time and resources since it's another platform that we need to maintain and test as web browsers and operating systems continue to evolve.

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Robert,

I can answer a couple of your questions:

1. Creating Custom Skins
   Creating your own user interface skins is similar to creating or editing a web page. If the changes that you'd like to make are mainly associated with the graphical layout, then you can make these types of changes using a WYSIWYG web page editor such as Dreamweaver without knowing any web scripting. This includes tasks such as adding logos, changing the web page colors and background, moving toolbars around and removing toolbars or buttons. If your user interface modifications require more sophisticated changes, such as creating new user interface elements in Flash or Javascript, then you will need to get into the scripting behind the web page. There are separate Javascript files for each toolbar and button, so it's relatively easy to find your way around the scripts and to make modifications, but you will still need to know some web programming to be effective. If you'd like to try this out you can download the skins from Hypercosm's online "Skin Repository":
   http://www.hypercosm.com/download/skins/index.html

You can make any changes that you like on these example skins and then if you decide to go ahead with Hypercosm Teleporter Pro, you can use your new, modified skins with Teleporter just by putting them in the Skins directory used by Teleporter as described here:
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/skins/how_to_use/index.html

2. Edge Width
   The Pro version of Hypercosm Teleporter is using the edge width that you specified in SketchUp so you can vary the edge width just by changing the edge with in SketchUp's "Styles" dialog box (or "Display Settings" in SU5). The smoothness of the edges is determined by how your video card handles line rendering. For example, on my computer (which uses an nVidia GeForce FX Go5200), the edges appear smooth up until I reach a window size of about 1600x900 and then the video card switches to non-antialiased mode because it runs out of onboard memory and switches to using system memory.

I'll let others speak to the ease-of-use and the question about "good support?" (I'm a bit biased)

If you'd like specific help on how to modify the skin to get the appearance and features that you are looking for, then let me know and I can help. We often help people with new skin features and frequently find that the new skin ideas are useful enough to roll into our public collection of skins (for example: http://groups.google.com/group/Sketchup-Pro/browse_thread/thread/2b3e09b42227fc09/3b0a64508ce0dac8?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=hypercosm#3b0a64508ce0dac8)

As another example, the recent additions of the "add hyperlink" and "sticky notes" collaboration features were skin modifications that were requested specifically by Hypercosm Teleporter users.

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com

Jim,

This is one of the new interfaces for the new exporter (there are several). It's actually "skinnable" so it comes with about a dozen different user interface skins that you can choose from, each with different features. Here are some samples:
http://www.hypercosm.com/products/teleporter/sketchup/pro/features/applet_skins/index.html

Here's how to apply new skins:
http://www.hypercosm.com/products/teleporter/sketchup/pro/features/applet_skins/how_to_use/index.html

There's also an online "skin repository" that we've started where you can download new skins:
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/skins/index.html

Since the skins are all just HTML and Javascript, any web developer could make new skins. In fact, if you kept the funtionality the same, you could just make new skins by changing the graphics and HTML of existing skins and you wouldn't need to even worry about the Javascript. Ideally, I'd like to see some artistically minded user interface designers building different types of new and improved user interfaces (and hopefully letting us upload them to our public online repository so others could use them).

As far as building exporters for the free version of SketchUp, I would certainly love to be able to do this, but unfortunately the free version of SketchUp doesn't support exporters (or importers) or any kind. So, we can't do much about that - you'll have to take that issue up with SketchUp!

Best,

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

For all of you phone fanatics eagerly awaiting the arrival of the
iPhone, there's a nice interactive 3D iPhone model online that was
created from a SketchUp model. You can view different "pages" or
"scenes" to see the different user interface screens and to view
markup annotations of the hardware features.

Here's the link:
http://www.hypercosm.com/showcase/models/sketchup/machines/applets/apple_iphone/index.html

Enjoy!

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Thanks all!

It's funny, I don't feel much different than when I was 25 - the worst thing is that when I say up until 1:30 or 2:30 in the morning coding, I really feel the effects the next day. Of course, when I was 25, I could sleep in late and now that doing my best to impersonate a respectable adult, that seems to be frowned upon... Anyway thanks to all.

A friend of mine just turned 40. I told him that John Lennon wrote a song called "Life begins at 40". Of course, that was just a few months before his death...

-abe.

Pixero,

The only thing that comes to mind right off hand is checking to see if you have permission to run ActiveX controls. If that's not the problem, then I was wondering if you could zip up your PowerPoint and applet and send them to me to check out (my email address is listed below). I'm sure that we can work this out, I just need more information to go on.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda <AT> hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Spence,

Hi. One other note: you need to make sure that you're using Hypercosm Player version 3.36 (the latest). If you have an old version of the Hypercosm Player previously installed (or installed from an older version of Hypercosm Teleporter), then you'll need to update it.

Here's the link to the latest Hypercosm Player:
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/player/index.html
And here's a link to the latest (free) Hypercosm Teleporter:
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/teleporter/sketchup/index.html

Please let me know if this does the trick for you. If not, contact me directly and we'll work this out, but this ought to solve the problem.

Best,

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda <AT> hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Ron,

Hi. The Free version of the SketchUp exporter doesn't support layers - it exports all of them regardless of their visibility.

The "pro" version of the SketchUp exporter exports the layer and other auxilliary scene information such as pages or "scenes", layer visibility for each page, rendering and options for each page etc. etc. When you export a scene with this version, by default it will only display the visible layers. If you're ambitious, there is also a mechanism to allow you to toggle layers on and off through scripting, so you could add a couple of buttons to toggle layer visibility.

If you'd like to see an example using your own model, you can send me a model at my email address below and I'll export it and send it back to you. If the model is over about 5 MB, let me know and I'll send you information on how to FTP it to me.

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda <AT> hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Hi. If you have ever wanted to add your interactive 3D SketchUp
models directly to your PowerPoint presentations, there is now a way
to do it (and it's free).

First, you'll need to download and install Hypercosm Teleporter - a
free exporting tool that exports SkechUp scenes to "3D Hypercosm
applets":
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/teleporter/sketchup/index.html

Once you've exported your model to a Hypercosm applet, you can link it
directly into your presentation following directions listed here:
http://www.hypercosm.com/support/documentation/player/powerpoint/index.html

As soon as you run your presentation and open up a slide with a
Hypercosm applet embedded, the 3D applet will load and run just as if
it were a video file or an animated GIF.

Enjoy,

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda <AT> hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Krisidious,

Being half Egyptian myself, I feel compelled to comply to your request. Using Hypercosm Teleporter, I put together a little interactive 3D online guided tour of the pyramids of Giza:
http://www.hypercosm.com/showcase/models/sketchup/monuments/applets/pyramids_of_giza/main/index-large.html

Here is a link to a screen shot:
http://www.hypercosm.com/private/sketchup/pyramids_of_giza.jpg

In particular, I kind of like the view from the virtual summit of the pyramid of Cheops since I was never able to climb all the way there when I visited (hit the "Cheops Summit" tab to zoom there):
http://www.hypercosm.com/private/sketchup/cheops_summit.jpg

I encourage you to go on the interactive guided tour. You can hit the "slide show" button and it will automatically take you on a little tour of the pyramids. You have to install the Hypercosm Player first before you go on the tour or travel around the pyramids interactively:
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/player/index.html

I was there a few times as a child and I must say they are truly amazing. They are like man made mountains - taking up your entire field of view as you stare up at them. At the time, we were allowed to climb them (you can't anymore) and after climbing to what we thought was an amazing height, we climbed back down and realised that we had only made it maybe a third or a fourth of the way up the great pyramid. Each stone is immense.

When you look up at a modern skyscraper, you can never quite get a sense of the size because of perspective. However, with the pyramids, you don't have this effect at all. They just seem immense. Truly wonderous. They are one of those few cliche tourist destinations like the Eiffel Tower that never fails to disappoint in person no matter how many times you've been exposed to images of them.

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda@hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829

Hi. If you have ever wanted to add your interactive 3D SketchUp
models directly to your PowerPoint presentations, there is now a way
to do it (and it's free).

First, you'll need to download and install Hypercosm Teleporter - a
free exporting tool that exports SkechUp scenes to "3D Hypercosm
applets":
http://www.hypercosm.com/download/telep ... index.html

Once you've exported your model to a Hypercosm applet, you can link it
directly into your presentation following directions listed here:
http://www.hypercosm.com/support/docume ... index.html

As soon as you run your presentation and open up a slide with a
Hypercosm applet embedded, the 3D applet will load and run just as if
it were a video file or an animated GIF.

Enjoy,

-abe.

Abe Megahed
CTO, Hypercosm
megaheda <AT> hypercosm.com
(608) 229-2829