Creating laser cut 3D forms super easily

Ponoko.com blog has posted an article with some ideas for easily creating parts for laser-cutting using SketchUp and the svg export plugin by flightsofideas.com, and the non-free slice modeller.

Via sketchup Plugins

Augmented Sculpture – Grosse8 & Lichtfront

In January 2010 the Cologne based design agencies Grosse8 and Lichtfront presented their cross-media installation titled Augmented Sculpture. The core of the installation is a 2.5m tall wooden form that builds the screen for a 360° projection.

In constant transformation over a score by Jon Hopkins, the 2:32 minute performance is described by Svenja Kubler of Lichtfront as a “mirror of changing realities… a kind of real virtuality arises to confront virtual reality.” I’m not sure what that all means but I really like it.

www.lichtfront.com
www.grosse8.de

Via interactive architecture

Highlights from South India

Some of the highlights from my trip to south india: Mysore, Ooty, Kodaikanal:

Marilena Skavara – Adaptive Fa[ca]de

Here’s a great project that came out of the Adapative Architecture and Computation programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture. ‘Adaptive Fa[ca]de’ by Marilena Skavara explores the functional possibilities and performative characteristics of cellular automata (CA). In addition to the unique emergent behaviour of CA, a neural network enables a further computational layer to evolve CA behaviour to the context of its surrounding environment.

Building upon the early work of Conway’s ‘Game of life’ and Stephen Wolfram’s extensive research on the wider implementation of CA, ‘Adaptive Fa[ca]de’ becomes a living adapting skin, constantly training itself from the history of its own errors and achievements. For a more detailed description of the project, read Marilena’s article for Vague Terrain.

Via interactive architecture

Export Revit to EnergyPlus via Ecotect – Video Tutorials

workflow mthod is mentioned in earlier post here: “Export Revit to EnergyPlus“, now these video tutorials are up on the openRevit YouTube channel:

Introduction

Room Bounding Objects and Material Construction

Zones, Model Review and GBXML Export

Ecotect Import, Model Review and Prep for IDF Export

Exporting IDF for EnergyPlus

Importing IDF into OpenStudio/Sketchup for Review

Construction Verification and Review in IDF Editor

Via blgsim

The future of architectural visualization

Zebra Imaging 3D brings the future of 3D visualization, thanks to this thin holographic sheets.

Zebra Imaging makes digitally-mastered, actively-animated, true-color, full-parallax holographic images. These holographic images are available in full color, or in monochrome (green). Zebra’s holographic images can be scaled to any size, large or small. By tiling together multiple tiles, it is possible to create large city maps, full sized cars, humans, and machinery. The minimum you have to do is supply the digital data set–Zebra can do the rest.

More info here. Via Arch Daily.

Realistic Architectural Viz with max second edition

he 2nd Edition of the book "Realistic Architectural Visualization with 3ds Max and mental ray" is now available.

The book was co-authored by Roger Cusson and Jamie Cardoso. It features sections on the basics of mental ray, and project based sections where you develop materials and lighting for real scenes. These scenes include; an interior of a living room, a photomontage of an exterior of a building, an interior atrium, and a harbor.

You can order the book in the US on online sites like Amazon.

Here are a few more images from the book, which are based on the projects you work through in the chapters.






Via Roger Cusson's blog

Water Drop at 2000 Frames Per Second

Stunning video from “Discovery Channel’s series ‘Time Warp’ where MIT scientist and teacher Jeff Lieberman and digital-imaging expert Matt Kearney use the latest in high-speed photography to turn never-before-seen wonders into an experience of beauty and learning.”

It shows an experiment in which a water drop is filmed at 2000 frames per second, revealing something you probably never knew about the behavior of water.

Via petapixel and Derren Brown Blog

Video Made with Sketchup: James Bond Lego

here's a video made using SketchUp and SketchyPhysics. Nicely produced:

Via sketchup plugins

Google Granted the Right to Buy and Sell Electricity

Google’s ever-expanding empire has added another branch: subsidiary Google Energy has been granted an order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to buy and sell energy at market rates.

Does this mean Google is set to become your power company? Not yet — instead, Google wants more control over the high energy costs of its many data centers, and also aims to become carbon neutral. A Google spokesperson told CNET: “Right now, we can’t buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets. We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits.”

There’s the possibility, however, that Google might become an energy provider. The same spokesperson said to CNET in January: “We don’t have any concrete plans. We want the ability to buy and sell electricity in case it becomes part of our portfolio.”

Via Mashable

SU Podium V2 beta 2

This is an interim release with another beta coming after in about 2 weeks. This beta is Windows only.

The V2 engine is multi-threaded. You also need a reasonable amount of RAM to hold 3d scene data. The more RAM you have, the more complex models you can render.

This build represents a stable code base where as far as we are aware, all features are working, although some may need some modification before final release. There will be additional features as well. V2 uses a new, higher-quality render engine. As a result, scenes set up in V1.x will not look the same in V2.


What's New

• In beta2 there is an options dialog box which allows you to choose presets, resolution size for the rendered image, image file format (JPG/PNG/HDR) and Physical Sky vs SketchUp Sky. Point light soft shadows have also been added. Sun turbidity and exposure are controlled in the presets.
• There are several pre made presets that have been crafted for certain rendering environments
• With Beta_34you have the choice of resolutions size or matching the resolution size to the your SketchUp's viewport. You also have the option to choose PNG/JPG/HDR as image formats. We will be adding a option to allow you to save your images to a folder of your choice. Currently the images are saved to where the SketchUp model being rendered is located.
• The Environment option allows you to choose between SketchUp background which could be plain background style or SketchUp Sky color or Podium's Physical Sky. When your SketchUp shadows are on, Podium Sun is on regardless of what background option has been chosen. Clay mode is currently not implemented. Sky turbidity (haziness caused by particles suspended in the atmosphere) and exposure are configured in the presets you choose. The preset files are plain text files which are editable. We will release a preset configuration guide.

Download and more @ su-podium.com

Useful Sketchup Plugin: HideAll

If you work with large or complex SketchUp models, this is a handy and easy plugin that will make your life easier. It's called HideAll, and you can use it to hide everything in your model except what's selected.

HideAll is by Todd Burch of Smustard, and you can download it for free. Once you get the "hideall.rb" file, place the file in your Plugins folder where SketchUp is installed.

Via 3dvinci

Sketchup Virtual Builder by Dstudio out of Beta

Sketchup Virtual Builder Light plugin makes it possible to add Planning-Scheduling information to any Sketchup model and see the model being constructed in time, in Sketchup.

Sketchup Virtual Builder Light plugin can be used in any project as a way to determine and analyze an initial scheduling in an early phase.

"Beta-testing is closed. The plugin will be released soon."

Via sketchup plugins

Lumitectura: Light, Music and Architecture

Lumitectura is a music video by barno about the relation of light, music and architecture. Check it out:

The clip is defined by 3 elements.

-One videofile, shot between 2 and 6 pm.
-The speed of playback of this file, which is synchronised manually to the music.
-Approximately 50 different masks, which define where the underlayed movie is going to appear on the screen. This makes it possible to have multiple light situations in the same moment.

Via Digital Urban

Metropolis: City Animation made entirely from Images Printed on Paper

Metropolis by Rob Carter is a quirky and very abridged narrative history of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. It uses stop motion video animation to physically manipulate aerial still images of the city (both real and fictional), creating a landscape in constant motion.

Starting around 1755 on a Native American trading path, the viewer is presented with the building of the first house in Charlotte. From there we see the town develop through the historic dismissal of the English, to the prosperity made by the discovery of gold and the subsequent roots of the building of the multitude of churches that the city is famous for. Now the landscape turns white with cotton, and the modern city is ‘born’, with a more detailed re-creation of the economic boom and surprising architectural transformation that has occurred in the past 20 years:



Read More at Digital Urban

see http://www.robcarter.net/ for more of his work.

Graphisoft EcoDesigner Evaluation

Developed by Graphisoft, EcoDesigner is a plugin that allows the energy efficiency performance of a building model to be analyzed within the ArchiCAD environment. It is a relatively new plugin, launched at the AIA 2009 Convention alongside version 12 of ArchiCAD. At the core of EcoDesigner is the VIPCorecalculation engine, developed by Swedish company Strusoft. This is the same engine that is used by Strusoft’s standalone analysis program VIP-Energy, and is certified in accordance with recognized analysis standards, such as the ANSI/ASHRAE BESTEST Standard 140-2001.

Click HERE for the full article

Google Buzz Profile

here's my google buzz profile:

http://www.google.com/profiles/ankit.surti06

Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture

A unique opportunity to tap into one of the most creative minds in modern landscape architecture representation, Brad Cantrell, via an online webinar/interview on Land8Lounge conducted by Drew Maifield of The LANDWIRE.

Cantrell is author of Digital Drawing for Landscape Architecture (Published by Wiley, 2010) which promises to be the most complete resource of landscape related techniques captured to date. A must read for anyone looking to get the most out of the digital tools in representing design solutions. As Maifield mentions: "...imagine being able to listen in and hang with the expert who wrote the book on this pivotal topic! "

The event is happening February 18th, 2010 at 8pm CST, so be sure to sign up today, and also check out more of Brad's work via his portfolio on Land8.

Via landscape and urbanism

Made With SketchUp: Pixar Video

Here's a cool video made in SketchUp and SU Podium.

Read About the Process which is far more interesting:

New V-Ray for SketchUp Released

New V-ray for sketchup is now available for Mac and Windows.

New features include the following:

* NEW! Ward Reflection Shader Type
* NEW! More than 10 new Procedural Textures, including Dirt (to create ambient occlusion per material)
* NEW! Ambient Occlusion
* NEW! IES Lights and Spotlights
* NEW! Material Layer Arrangement
* NEW! Faster Parsing Times
* NEW! Support for SketchUp Transparency and Alpha Transparency

SketchUp is one of the most widely used and easy to learn 3D Modeling software on the market today. With V-Ray for SketchUp, users now have one of the most powerful rendering tools available to visualize their models with the upmost quality and realism. V-Ray works within the SketchUp environment allowing users to be able to efficiently incorporate the task of rendering within their current workflows.

Via sketchup plugins

Extracts of Local Distance: A Unique Take on Architectural Photography

Below is a video showing an interesting take on architectural photography:

Countless fragments of existing architectural photography are merged into multilayered shapes. The resulting collages introduce a third abstract point of view next to the original ones of architect and photographer.

Digital scans of analogue architectural photography form tiny pieces of a large resulting puzzle. The original pictures are being analysed and categorised according to their vanishing-points and shapes. Based on this analysis, slices are being extracted from the source image. These slices retain the information of their position corresponding to their original vanishing-point and thus form a large pool of pieces, ready to be applied to new perspectives and shapes.

Using the extracted image segments, it is now possible to form collages of originally different pictures with a new common perspective. In order to compose a collage, a perspective-grid is defined and a lining of matching image segments is being applied. The segments are not altered to match the frame but fitting ones are chosen from the sheer mass of possible pieces. By defining additional keywords which describe the content of the original photographs, the selection of segments used for the final composition can be influenced. Thus a contextual layer is added through the semantic linking with the source material.

The recompositions mix and match the views and perspectives of both the architect and the photographer with a third, newly chosen frame. The resulting fine-art prints are entirely unique each time.

For further info visit: http://www.localdistance.org/

Architizer

Architizer is a new way for architects to interact, show their work, and find clients. It is an open community created by architects for architects. One architectural project has dozens of contributors, from the intern who made the conceptual models to the construction administrator. A project on Architizer links all members of the architectural community.

Click here to visit Architizer.com

Highlights from Udaipur HD version

Some of the highlights from my trip to Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

Take a virtual tour of the Winter Olympics in 3D

The countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics has begun, and the Google Boulder office has been busy modeling the Olympic venues in Vancouver, BC using Google SketchUp.

Last month, we introduced photo-realistic 3D models for eight of the nine venues hosting the games.

Today, we released updates to many of the models using higher-resolution imagery, and, the last venue for the Olympics: the Bobsled Course!

Olympic venues (click to enlarge)

With today's release, all nine venues (54 buildings in total) are completely modeled in 3D and available for viewing in Google Earth's "3D Buildings" layer (or view the collection in the Google 3D Warehouse). The collection includes 3D models that range from downtown event centers to ski lifts and spectator bleachers.

In addition, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games incorporated the models into the Official website using the Google Earth plugin. To see the models, simply click on "Spectator Guide," then "Venues." You'll find a "3D View" tab that loads the 3D model.

So wax your virtual skis and take a tour!

Via Google

New Version of Green Building Studio – Enhanced UI and New Weather Data

A new version of Autodesk Green Building Studio has gone live. Version 4.2 has a nicer user interface as well as new weather data for more parts of the globe (Central and South America, the Caribbean, Indonesio and eht Southwest Pacific, the Middle East and Africa have been added). The GBS weather data now covers most of the World.

Via blgsim