Posts made by ericschimel

Hey folks, I will be at Basecamp. I tossed up a quick blog post.

http://sketchuptraining.blogspot.com/2010/08/basecamp-2010.html

I plan to do as much live coverage as I can.. If anyone would like a mention, or would like to contribute something, let me know!

So are most people staying at the Best Western or the Marriot? I am staying at both... (Not at the same time however)

I did it as simple geometry, as I used the texture in "projected" mode. You are correct, if I had tried to paint it on a component, it would be all jumbled.

That new CS5 "Content Aware" tool is just amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI

This video is the most compelling use of Content Aware

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ScWu7pG7r0

I was quite happy with how that came out. I have done a fair amount of photo texturing in the past and it works well, but usually results in using multiple images. With these sinks, I committed myself to using one image. I wanted to keep the file size down, and not have extra textures brought into the model to confuse the user.

I did model all of these sinks off of the technical drawing, so they are accurately sized. Because most camera's distort pictures, its not always wise to model directly off the photograph and expect to get the correct size. When modeling for Google Earth on a picture, accuracy isn't as important, because people don't expect GE buildings to be accurate.

Once I had the sinks modeled accurately from the technical drawings, I then stretched the image over the model and painted it on. For the double bowl sinks, it worked with using just Sketchup's native texturing tools. For the single "D" bowl sink, the picture I had as a reference was badly distorted, so I had to take it into Photoshop and use the mesh deform tool to bend it to the shape I needed. If you look at the "D" bowl's texture in Sketchup in the materials browser, it looks "Punched"

There are some faucets that are in the 3D warehouse that I use all the time that are modeled using this same technique, check them out. They are all modeled with one texture image.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=2cb68736970f2e3c4a5d5b6d2c205843&prevstart=0

Thanks! It wasn't meant to be a exact step by step, but more of "Hey, you can do this easily" type of thing.

Hey fellow Sketchuppers... I just created a few undermount sinks from photos in Sketchup to use as Dynamic Components in my kitchen designs. I even did up a blog post on it. Thought you'd be interested in seeing it here.

http://sketchuptraining.blogspot.com/2010/08/sinks-of-steel.html

If you want to go straight to the sink components, check them here on the 3D warehouse:

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=b31bc56becdd90e784283d54542a3ba0

There are some some nice DC options in these sinks as well.

Count me in too! I am not opposed to closing a place down!

I am not much of a Ruby programmer, but I'll bet it can be done. Look at the 3DConnexion input controllers for Sketchup. Its an aftermarket piece of hardware that allows you to control the camera in Sketchup. Its really a neat piece of hardware. That combined with one of the Augmented Reality plugins for Sketchup, and I would imagine that you have the ingredients to make this happen.

Do you have more details as to how this is going to work?

I am not defining the paths, I don't think.

In other words, when I tell Sketchup where to look for the icons, I am simply stating the filenames, as the icons reside in the plugins folder of Sketchup, which is where the plugin is as well. Do I need to define full paths to the icons?

I have a plugin that has two icons for it that appear on the tool bar just like any other one. They are .PNG files, one for "large icons" and one for "small icons"

When the Ruby is in its natural state, and the PNG's are in the plugins directory, they display fine. When I scramble the script with Google's Ruby Script scrambler, the icons no longer show....

Anyone have any idea why?

I think you need to be a LinkedIn member to see that discussion, and possibly even a member of that group withing LinkedIn.

Moral of the story is, if there are any residential designers out there that would like to participate in the contest, I can give you more details, and put you in touch with the right people. Its a great contest, the show is nice, and the awards ceremony is great as well!

Whoops, try this one:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?trk=EML_anet_qa_ttle-dDhOon0JumNFomgJt7dBpSBA&gid=1795703&viewQuestionAndAnswers=&discussionID=24327086

There is a Sketchup design contest at the South East Builders show this year. I am going to be there presenting Sketchup with Kraftmaid. They are looking for more entrants into the Sketchup design contest, any folks out there interested? See this LinkedIn discussion for more info:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1795703&type=member&item=24327086&commentID=19223757&report.success=8ULbKyXO6NDvmoK7o030UNOYGZKrvdhBhypZ_w8EpQrrQI-BBjkmxwkEOwBjLE28YyDIxcyEO7_TA_giuRN#commentID_19223757

Here is a link to the "The Auroras" (the ones holding the contest)

http://www.theauroras.com/

and a link to the tradeshow that it will be held in:

http://www.sebcshow.com/

I have heard the awards ceremony is amazing. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

So a while back, I discovered Profile Builder. As a kitchen designer I found this to be extremely useful. I even did a blog post and tutorial on it!

http://sketchuptraining.blogspot.com/2009/05/profile-builder.html

I have switched to a MacBook Pro (15", Core i7)

I put Sketchup on, and Profile Builder. When I use Profile Builder, it spends a number of seconds between each section of profile to "calculate" it before it places it. I have tried tons of different profiles, even really simple ones. I also tried this on my friends slightly slower MacBook Pro 13", and we got the same result, only it was slower. On my PC's, this plugin flies. Has anyone else out there experienced this?

This video might help you, let it play all the way through and I think it will answer your questions....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaQFpCQS_y4

This happened when Photoshop was not running. Clicking on the KMZ Launched Photoshop.

How would I check to see if Adobe did anything sneaky? There isn't really a task manager on Mac that I am aware of, other then "Force Quit"

Yup!

@unknownuser said:

@wo3dan said:

Is there a correct way for SU to handle flipped components with rotations in DC attributes, better than my (miserable) workaround?

Unfortunately, no. Rotations completely reset the current transformation before applying new ones, so it destroys your flip status. This bug has been recorded for a future fix. So the only workaround is to create a new component where the geometry (or a subcomponent) is flipped.

I have run into this quote often, its very frustrating. If I could have negative rotations, I could have much lighter models for the stuff that I am doing.

I think your best bet for getting something quoted commercially is to look up professional model builders and get some quotes. For each job that I quote, I try to get as accurate of a description as possible from the client, and then I send a written quote.

Each model and component is different, and will require a quote... Let me know if you need some numbers. If its not something that I can do, I can direct you to the right people.