Thanks ecofeco, So how should I go about getting the design onto wallpaper?

No the contractor doesn't have the equipment but they have deals with printing firms that they regularly use. Ideally I don't want to hand it all over to a graphic designer or a printer who will then just reproduce what I have done in the right format and charge the client a design fee. If it is something I can do myself I will.

I recently designed a restaurant and now the client wants the pattern that I put on the walls in the 3d model, but I just made it up in gimp with some free photoshop brushes. I don't have the vector graphics files though, only the brush files. The shopfitting contractor who is building the restaurant has access to vinyl graphics facilities but I don't know what process would be involved to get this image onto vinyl or if vinyl is the best medium to do this. Any ideas?

I'm using Gimpshop on linux and vista. It doesn't exactly clone Photoshop but it is more familiar than Gimp. That said, I don't mind standard Gimp. There is only a couple of areas where Photoshop CS is significantly more capable - alpha channels and perspective/distort tranforms, although the next release of Gimp will improve on this.

If you only need a 2d cad app and you don't have AutoCAD, ProgeCAD Smart by IntelliCAD is free, and pretty much identical to AutoCAD for 2d work. Free version is for non-commercial use only.

http://www.progecad.com/compra/index.asp?left=prodotti/eng_progecad2008smart&abspage=1&lang=eng

I am trying to learn Blender, I know it's complicated but I reckon its worth learning simply because it's free. I'm doing this course, it's free and accredited by M.I.T

http://ocw.tufts.edu/Course/28

The next release is supposed to feature a major gui facelift to make blender more like 3ds max.

Thanks modelhead, sounds very good.

Modelhead

I am very interested in this too. Take-off is a significant issue for me at the moment as I am doing lots of small but fast turnaround jobs.

I love this tool! Thanks for improving my game!

That is a great model!

I've only just read this thread. If I may add my view:

The idea of a junior forum is fantastic IMO. It can only reinforce Sketchup's professional presence in the future as the SU community will be recognised as a software user group that helps to teach school children. I expect in time specially tailored learning materials will come out of this. It will be a great resource for teachers. Microsoft give free software to schools for a reason! In sixteen years time, there will be a large number of people leaving school with SU skills that they will transfer to the workplace.

As for the security risks of attracting dangerous individuals to the junior forum. The risk might be hard to guage but we all know that this sort of thing does happen and is probably happening right now somewhere on the net. It is a credit to Coen that he is taking this so seriously.

Excellent work Coen and Csaba.

@unknownuser said:

Am I the only guy here that can see a use for a personal Google Earth Server??

No that sounds great.

I've mentioned this before but Perspective Pilot is a nice little app for correcting perspective distortion in photos. It does a better job than photoshops distort and perspective transforms because it resamples the image.

Correct perspective on photos with Perspective Pilot

Correct perspective on photos with Perspective Pilot. Two main tools will serve you: reference lines and four-points perspective correction.

Two Pilots - Useful software for everyday needs (www.colorpilot.com)

@unknownuser said:

think if they focus on two areas and forget about the 'advanced user' qualms (I mean how many people actually use SU for that high of a poly-count without having to switch to AutoCAD or Revit to produce some actual working drawings first?) they will have a winner

Rich
I imagine there is a significant proportion of SU pro users who are sole traders and small businesses. There is no Revit license in my office. Yes I do use CAD for working drawings but that's not the point. @Last marketed SU as an affordable simple tool for architectural work, Google are not honouring this. Not all architecture involves high poly models, but you can build big models with SU and the potential is there to improve upon this. I don't consider myself an advanced user, but I am a professional user, so I did the right thing and bought a pro license.

@unknownuser said:

If the earth itself is one big round mesh with thousands of cells and each cell can be divided into cells and those cells again to a fine granularity then what a great collective relational database we have. So then it follows that we can place everything there and it will remain there in geographical context.

There was nothing altruistic about giving SU away for free. As the new SU slogan says "Model the world" and google expect volunteers to do this. But you only have to look at some of the lack lustre models in the 3d warehouse to see that the quality and accuracy of the virtual world that is being created is potentially not as good as the competition and has limited potential as an accurate design tool.

I'm not knocking the 3d warehouse -there are fantastic models in there, I'm talking about the time scale required to populate Google Earth with models of a certain standard.

Google Earth is an amazing tool too, but should it be the focus of SU development?

@unknownuser said:

Yes, Google Earthers may well outnumber architects/designers these days. I'm not decrying Google Earth...if I saw a business opportunity in there for FormFonts, we'd be in there quick as a shot, just like yourself. (We've already looked at and dismissed Second Life)

@unknownuser said:

Personally I believe Google needs to keep the free version as it is and upgrade the pro version with all the meaty bits, that way there can be a free version for populating GE and possibly have a gmax export facility for game modders. And the pro version will then be more enticing for folks who are serious users to take the leap, with the increased sales of the pro version they can develop SU even further and better.

I agree with Pete. There needs to be a clear distinction between free SU and the pro version. It is quite annoying to me (and I'm sure others) that having bought a pro license for commercial work there seems to be little development by Google of the pro app.
On the Google earth side, yes I am interested in the virtual worlds market, I have some Google Earth clients, but as a regular reader of this blog by phd students who do research in this field I think that Google Earth and Second life are likely to be overtaken by the competition such as Twinity.
http://digitalurban.blogspot.com/
Google's policies and restrictions on Google Earth make it very difficult to offer a commercial modelling service but that is the only practical way to populate it!

SU could become irrelevant if its focus becomes all about Google Earth.

Hi Sketchy Kitchens!
Nice Work!

I don't usually but at the moment I'm designing lots of kitchens. They aren't high spec kitchens like yours though, they are all quite basic for a local building firm. I was using KitchenDraw, it's pay as you go software; 120 Euros per 100 hours of use and then it locks up until you buy a new code. It's very good but a bit pricey for this sort of work.

So I'm drawing them in SU. KitchenDraw was faster but I'm much more at home using SU. I'm attempting to render them in Kerkythea. I'm not good with kerkythea but what I've managed to do so far are proving good enough for this type of work. I'm working on my kitchen components library for SU so hopefully the process will get as fast as a purpose built kitchen planning app.
There was talk of a ruby that would output a list of blocks to a spreadsheet, anyone know if that ever happened? It would be useful for this purpose.

When I've got a good set of components I'll post them here.

First one is SU & Kerkythea, second one is KitchenDraw

Wow.

Pete as usual you leave me speechless!