I have never used it, but there is a freebie program out there called "Wink" that does things like Camtasia does.

Here is the link:

DebugMode Wink

(www.debugmode.com)

Please remember, this is only according to what I have heard. Check out that website for more information.

I saw this in a furniture catalog. I am guessing that it can be placed underneath a set of stairs or maybe right up against a wall in your living room.

Looks kind of new wave to me. I've never seen anything like it before. So that means that I am either very old or very out of it. I don't like either of those two choices.

It's available at my website on the "Download 3D Models page."

Enjoy..........

Hello All:

Although this has absolutely nothing to do with SketchUp, I thought it might be worthwhile to mention it. Way back when (so long ago I can't even remember), I had an AutoCAD class where we did basic animation. We had to draw a computer circuit board and show various components dropping out of the sky and landing on the board. By today's standards, it was fairly cheesy, but it goes to show you how far animation has come within the past 16 years or so.

Anyway, I have this little example on my website pretty much for that purpose. You can find it here:

http://www.chrispicciano.com/3danimation.htm

Please let me know if anyone has problems getting it to work. I have tried it on my machine and a couple others and it seems okay. (It only runs under a Windows machine - Sorry Mac people).

I hope that others get a bit of a kick out of it too. Someday when I figure out how to use Antics Software, I will try to publish some SketchUp animation examples as well.

Has anyone heard of a program called "Antics 3D?" I forgot how, but somehow I stumbled across it and it looks pretty nifty. I haven't tried it out yet, but it uses SketchUp models to create some pretty cool looking animation.

It even has a free version available like SketchUp does. For more info, here is the link to the website http://www.antics3d.com and for an example of how it works, check out this YouTube video:

In regard to the following from basic.woodworks
@unknownuser said:

"I don't mean to sound rude or pushy but the time I spent here could have been spent helping someone who had a legitimate question."
I don't understand what he means. Did I ask a question?

Yes, everything is FREE and I serve these models from my own private site to build up hits and/or publicity. (Building a name for yourself never hurts.) Maybe someday I will decide to sell some of my models? I don't know yet, but I like having my own site so I can do things my way. If basic.woodworks doesn't agree with my choices, he doesn't have to visit my site.

I just don't understand what his beef is? Can somebody please explain it to me?

Here are two more models.

You can get them here:

http://www.chrispicciano.com/3dmodels.htm

That is most likely because I drew some of it in AutoCAD. I'm still in the process of learning SketchUp, so because I am way better with AutoCAD, sometimes I create part of my model with that, and then bring it into SketchUp for tweaks, materials/textures, etc.

Now that I have a boatload of time on my hands, I guess that I should spend more of that fiddling with SketchUp to get really good.

Does anyone else around here use AutoCAD at all? I know that SketchUp's learning curve is minimal, but sometimes I feel more relaxed using AutoCAD for the things I am not yet skilled enough to do with SketchUp.

I hope that you guys don't think that I am a fraud. That would really kill my self-confidence.

The following message is for Mike Lucey. I tried to PM him, but since I hardly ever use that option on this board, I don't know if it took. After I hit the "Submit" button, the message is still sitting in my "Outbox" instead of the "Sent Messages" folder. I just want to make sure that he gets this message, so I am going to have to send it publicly. I apologize if I am posting this in the wrong area.

Mike:

This is Chris Picciano, also known as "cadmastr" on the Sketchucation Forums. I want to thank you for introducing my website to Aidan Chopra of Google. He had emailed me and told me that you told him about my site, and that he liked it and wanted to link to it from the "Official Google SketchUp Blog."

I was totally blown away when I heard from him. I have his "SketchUp for Dummies" book and I have also watched all of his YouTube videos related to his book and the program.

Thank you so much for doing that. Lately, with my diagnosis of cancer and all of the not so nice things that have happened to me because of that, what you did was definitely a "Pick Me Up" and helped to make my day.

Thanks again.....

Chris Picciano

Thanks Jim......

Even though Aidan's link to my site didn't stay on top for too long, my website has been getting hits like crazy!! I have logged more hits in a few days than I would have ever received in one month's time or better.

I also noticed that there is a link to your blog. How has traffic been to your site?

I need to PM Mike Lucey for referring my site to Aidan Chopra. That was really nice of him.

Okay.... Here's one with one of the glass panels shattered.

Someone else has to do the graffiti, I'm just not that talented.

SHATTERED.skp

Hello All:

I was watching tv this evening and in one of the scenes there was this little metal and glass building for people to sit down and wait for a bus. I said to myself "I can draw that." And I did.

You can find it at my website at:

http://www.chrispicciano.com/3dmodels.htm

Scroll down to the bottom of the page where the "Individual" models are. I am in the process of creating a bunch more but decided to list this one now as I really like it.

Thanks Guys........

I'm hoping that I can get myself immersed with SketchUp again and forget all about the things that have been bothering me since I was diagnosed. It was definitely way more than I would ever have bargained for.

Hello All:

I have been away for quite some time. I had been in and out of the hospital since April of 2008 and in May of this year I was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach. I have had to make a bunch of changes in my life which prevented me from working with my beloved models and participating in this forum.

Although I am still in the process of being treated for this illness, I have found that I have a large amount of free time on my hands, which I am now using to get back to the things that I love, 3D Modeling being one of them.

Anyway, I have found a web site for anyone out here who does work within the laboratory furniture arena. A company called Hamilton (formerly Fisher Hamilton), now has free AutoCAD 3D (and Revit) models on their website which can be downloaded and used within SketchUp.

Here is the link:
http://www.hamiltonlab.com/fisherhamilton/information+center/standard+product+library+autocad+and+revit.asp

As mentioned above, I have just recently started to create more SketchUp models and hope to have some posted on my website just as soon as I can.

Every .skm file is similar to a .zip file. If you have a program like WinZip, you should be able to open them. Of course, you will have to tell your unzipping software that you want to associate a .skm file with it.

If that option is too much for you, then simply copy your Wood .skm files into the Materials folder under SketchUp. Fire up SketchUp, open the Materials Browser, navigate to the folder that the wood .skm files are in, and you should be able to see all of the different types. (See graphic below:)

You can get the floor tiles here http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2007/09/blog-post.html courtesy of Jim Foltz, and you can get the other materials at my website at http://www.chrispicciano.com. Go to the "Other Downloads" page.

Hope this helps.

I myself have Aidan Chopra's book "Google SketchUp for Dummies." It is quite informative and as an added bonus, Mr. Chopra has created video tutorials at YouTube.com as a companion. I had downloaded the videos prior to purchasing the book and they have been a great help. I believe that viewing the video tutorials without having the book is as good as having the book, if that makes sense.

Reading is one thing, but seeing is another. I applaud him for taking the learning process one step further.

Mr. Chopra's video tutorials are available here (as noted in a previous post):

Also, Google has some video tutorials at YouTube as well:

For those of us that are visual beings, seeing SketchUp in action (as opposed to reading about it), really helps to smooth out some of the humps that the written word can sometimes create.

In another post, I had explained how to download these videos for convenient offline viewing. I originally downloaded them in December of 2007. For some reason, YouTube always seems to be changing their restrictions on downloading videos from their site. Just about everytime I load up my favorite YouTube downloader, I find out that it no longer works.

In order to spare my fellow SketchUp users this occasional frustration, I would like to make available the video tutorials which I have in my possession. However, the file sizes are quite large. The Chopra videos are 575MB and the Google videos are 334MB. The bandwidth for my website's server would probably choke on that. If anyone in our community knows of a large enough FREE server with plenty of bandwidth available, I would be more than happy to upload these most helpful videos, thereby saving everyone else the time required to collate and download them, as well as getting them before YouTube changes their download restrictions for the umpteenth time.

If this sounds like a good idea. please PM me with your ideas.

Thanks..........

Here is the direct link to downloading the "Save2pc" program (their website is a bit confusing).

http://www.save2pc.com/files/save2pc_light.exe

This program is a standalone .EXE file. It immediately runs when you click on it, no need to install anything. The only bad part is that you can only download one video at a time.

Regarding downloading videos from YouTube, I recently came across yet another freebie program that will do the same. It is called "Save2pc" and is available at http://www.save2pc.com I had been using "Ultraget" but found that sometimes I was unable to download a video, most likely due to the fact that every so often YouTube changes their restrictions on downloading videos.

I don't play the downloaded video with Ultraget. I use a freebie player called "Any FLV Player". You can get it here http://www.any-flv-player.com/ I like this much better because you can go into the "View" pulldown menu and select "Double Size" and see it in all it's glory.

If you don't want to watch the videos as .FLV files, you can use the "Save2pc" program to download the video as a .AVI or .MPG file. These file formats are bigger than the compact .FLV format, but are easily played using Windows Media Player, which most computer users probably already have on their systems.

Regarding Macs, I have no idea what can be used, as I have never used a Mac before.

I hope this information can help someone.

Eric:

I see that you are now a Form Fonts artist. How did that come to be?

Is there a way that I can view your work without actually having to join?

If anyone here needs 3D AutoCAD blocks of Laboratory furniture, Hamilton Lab (formerly Fisher Hamilton) has just started offering them on their site. They have Revit files too.

http://www.hamiltonlab.com/fisherhamilton/information+center/standard+product+library+cad.asp

After getting to the site, click on the "Standard Product Library" link, then click on the "Downloads" link at the top of the page. You'll then be able to choose either AutoCAD 3D or Revit.