CatchP Edition 16 - Thea, Lumion & LumenRT

catchup sketchUcation community newsletter

2012 JANUARY

16th EDITION

Thea4SU Thea Studio now inside SketchUp! Full Review

PLUS Sefaira - Sustainable Energy Tool 3D Printing for SketchUp Architectural Design for SketchUp Review

Lumion 3

LumenRT 3

Full Review of all the new features from a SketchUp perspective

eon’s latest release gets put to the test

by Dale Stephens

iStar5 Helps children with autism shine using Sketchup www.sketchUcation.com

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Thea Render, Lumion & LumenRT What a way to start the new

3D printing and shows you how

And I had time over the

year. 3 heavyweights of the

to model, texture and export

festive period to sit down with

rendering world all dropped

SketchUp’s new logo.

Alex Schreyer’s new book on

new versions just in time for christmas and we had some time to play with all 3!

3D Printing guru Marcus Ritland spills the beans on

Architectural Design.

Mike Lucey looks at Sefaira Energy Analysis on the cloud

So to all our readers we want

and the iSTAR5 program in

to wish you the very best of luck

Utah where SketchUp is helping

for 2013 and enjoy this edition.

kids with autism shine!

priming SketchUp models for

thea4su

3D printing

looms large

05 Thea4SU gets debunked.

Solis Iris new update for SketchUp brings a heap of new tools to the table.

13 3D Printing a SketchUp logo.

Marcus Ritland’s step by step tutorial in modeling andpreparing a SketchUp file for print.

22 Lumion 3 has just dropped.

Csaba Pozsarko reports on how to get the most out of Lumion and SketchUp.

sefaira concept

Book Review

Lumen rt 3?

33 Energy Analysis on the cloud. Mike Lucey looks at Sefaira latest offering for SketchUp.

44 Alex Schreyer’s Architectural Design in SketchUp. In depth review by Rich O’Brien.

56 Dale Stephens takes LunemRT for a test drive. A thorough look at LumenRT 3 for ArchViz work.

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Rich O’Brien

Thea4SU - Review Recently Solid Iris updated its plugin for SketchUp, Thea4SU, to introduce new features and a brand new UI. If you were lucky enough to attend Basecamp 2012 in October then you would have had the pleasure of seeing Pete Stopppel’s Thea Workshop where he showcased some of these new features. Now you can get your hands dirty too!

First up is the toolbar. This is now reduced to 2 buttons.

The first button launches a dialog box that contains everything you need to set up your scenes for rendering and the second is where the magic happens.

The dialog can be broken down into 4 tabbed areas that allow you to control cameras, materials, lights and tools. On the right you can see the variety of camera parameters that are available from resolution to DOF. It really does give the user total control and replicates a physical setup very accurately.

Anyone familiar with photography techniques will identify with the terminology used here.

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Next up is the Material Tab which launches a secondary window called the Material Lab that you see below. Any material applied in SketchUp can be tweaked and adjusted to nth degree and Thea4SU acts as a bridge to Thea’s materials.

The Material Lab itself is a highly involved system that makes material creation both fun and quick. From the layer stacking and mixing to the procedural mapping Thea gives users the ability to go as deep as they wish. The really strong part of Thea’s materials is that its user community is on a constant creation crusade. The sheer number of textures available that are freeily shared is astonishing and if you run into any issues in trying to create that perfect texture there is always someone willing to help you out.

Solid Iris (Thea Developers) also have an extensive set of material and model librabries available to it’s licenced users. These are created by expert users and optimized for speed.

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In the Light tab users can add 3 types of lights into SketchUp - Point Lights, Spot Lights and IES Lights. Each of these can be adjusted by simply selecting the light in SketchUp and adjusting each parameter as needed. You can change a light’s color by applying a color in SketchUp, increase a light’s brightness via sliders or tweak a light’s soft shadow via numerical values.

The IES light tool allow you to load any .ies file into Thea4SU. These files are available in abundance from light manfacturers so creating that physically accurate lighting is only a few clicks away.

‘...a highly involved system that makes material creation both fun and quick...’

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The final tab, Tools, introduces something new that is a welcome addition to SketchUp. No longer are you limited to SketchUp’s well known poly limit because Thea4SU uses a clever proxy system that places simple box primitives to represent more complex objects.

Adding landscaping entourage is a breeze and because you are able to save your models in Thea Render you can build a custom library of proxies for any project. Couple that with Thea’s own library of high quality models you already have a great collection to begin with.

Below you can see the proxies as they appear in SketchUp and the rendered result in Thea. No more unresponsive orbitting as things remain smooth as silk.

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In previous versions of Thea4SU the plugin served as a bridge to Thea Render Studio. But this latest version removes the need to export your scenes by introducing a new direct rendering window within SketchUp. This means that Interactive Rendering of your SketchUp scenes is now possible. To open up the Interactive Rendering window you click the toolbar icon and it launches an approximation of Thea’s Darkroom. Here you have the same level of control that is available in the studio version rendering modes (biased/unbiased), IBL lighting, camera profiles etc. This now removes the somewhat cumbersome workflow that hindered the previous versions and allows you to remain within SketchUp changing materials, lighting, objects as needed.

To harness the full 64bit power of TheaRender you save your scene and open it in Thea. Now you have the versatility of scene setup in SketchUp and the awesome power of Thea Studio. This new approach has doubled workflow and made Thea even more intuitive for SketchUp users.

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So, to the price and what you get for your hard earned cash. The Thea Render Bundle includes the standard license and 2 node licenses for networked rendering and the Thea4SU Plugin at a discounted price of €320. This offer is currently running until the end of the month. You can also download the trial which allows you render limited resolution and watermarked images indefinitely. It work for Windows, Mac and Linux OS

As a licenced user you also have access to the licenced user forum where there is tons of quality tutorials, materials and support. There’s also the extensive library of models and materials that Solid Iris produce which are expertly crafted.

Overall, this latest update to Thea4SU and the future roadmap for Thea Render makes this are very hard option to ignore. With GPU rendering in the pipeline and Thea’s current integration with Colimo it offers extremely good return for the price. Not to forget that Thea Render also integrates with 3DS Max, Rhino, SoftImage, Blender, Modo and Cinema4D .

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Marcus Ritland

10 Steps to 3D printing your Sketchup Model in Full Color

In this exercise, we’ll recreate the new Sketchup logo and prepare the file for 3D printing in color.

Now you may say, “The logo is so simple, why would anyone need a tutorial?” I kept the modeling simple so you can focus on the steps necessary to make the model 3D printable. There are nuances to modeling for 3D printing that just don’t apply to making a pretty Sketchup render. Throw a professional full color 3D printer into the mix, and things can get complicated quickly.

Draw a 16 mm cube. I chose this scale as it is the standard size for dice, and would provide a good balance between size and cost for a first 3D print. Right click > Divide one edge of the top face into 3 segments.

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Select two adjacent undivided edges bounding the top face, offset using divided endpoints as inference.

Divide vertical edge into 3 parts, push-pull to make the 3D logo. Use divided endpoints as inference.

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(Optional step) Select all, run Fredo’s Round Corner plugin - ‘bevel edges’ option with 0.4mm offset.

This will give a better final 3D printed product, as sharp edges are prone to chipping.

Select and offset the top two longest edges inward by 0.5mm. This thin strip will be painted red in a later step.

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Import the Sketchup logo as “Image” (drag and drop into your Sketchup window works just fine).

Right click > Explode image. Draw a 40mm square nearby, divide it in half with the Line tool, paint one half red, one half white. Use “Match color on Screen” button in material editing options to match colors from the logo to colors on your square. Draw a tiny 1mm square in one corner, color it using the Sketchup logo texture. Select complete 40mm square, right click > “Combine textures”, do not delete coplanar lines.

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Use new combined texture to paint the logo cube the appropriate colors. All faces should be red except the three horizontal faces facing up, which should be white. Right click > Texture > Position on each face to adjust the textures.

Make the model into a group. Ensure its solid by checking the Entity Info window. If not, use the Solid Inspector plugin to find the problem. Tada! ...there’s the Sketchup logo in 3D! With some finessing of the camera angle and field of view, you could recreate the official logo near perfectly, but that’s not the point....lets move on.

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Now we’re going to convert the Sketchup model into a format that Shapeways can use to print our model in Full Color Sandstone.

For Sketchup Pro users: Delete everything in the model except the logo that we’ll be printing.

Go to File -> Export 3D Model -> VRML file. Use the following settings.

Create a new folder to save this model to. The .wrl file plus a texture(.jpg image file) will appear. Zip those up. You can skip the next step, which is for free Sketchup users only.

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For Free Sketchup users you need another free program and a few more steps. Delete everything in the Sketchup model except the logo that we’ll be printing.

➙➙ Go to File -> Export 3D Model -> COLLADA (.dae).

➙➙ Download and install Meshlab (free program for Windows and Mac). Open the DAE with Meshlab.

Save as VRML (.wrl).

Open the resulting .wrl file in a plain text editor like Wordpad (windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Scroll to the bottom of the document and you’ll see something similar to -

texture

ImageTexture

{

url

“Sketchup%20Logo%20for%203D%20printing/

Material _ 1.jpg” } Change that so only the texture name is between the quotes:

texture ImageTexture { url “Material _ 1.jpg” } Save the file. Place the VRML file into the same folder as the texture. Create a ZIP file containing the VRML file and the texture.

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Upload zipped VRML plus texture to Shapeways, using “Inches” as the unit, no matter what units your file was in. Cost should be close to $11.98 ($5.48 + $6.50 shipping). If Shapeways emails you with an error message saying the file is too small, upload the ZIP file again using Meters as the units. Alternatively, if the error message says the file is too large, upload the ZIP file using MM for the units.

That’s it - place your order, and have your model in hand in just a few weeks! The final result will look like this photo.

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Author note: I chose Shapeways because their price is the best, but there are other printing services that print in full color. Some even take SKP files directly which is a real bonus when you have many different textures in your model. Here is a list of other services sorted by price. ➙➙ Sculpteo: just upload the SKP file - textures, colors, or a combination of both work just fine. Cost: $13.60 ($7.60 + $6 shipping) ➙➙ i.materialise: just upload the SKP file - textures, colors, or a combination of both work just fine.

Cost: $17.14 ($6.27 + $10.87 shipping) ➙➙ Ponoko: upload the VRML (.wrl) file, extra texture not needed. Cost: $22.37 ($12.03 + $10.34 shipping)

Marcus Ritland is an independent designer focusing on modeling for prototypes and other 3D printing applications. To ask questions about this tutorial or find out more about Marcus please visit his site at http://www.denali3ddesign.com/catchup-16/

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Csaba Pozsárkó

Lumion 3 Review from a SketchUp User’s Point of View

Lumion by Act3D was released two years ago.

When Lumion 2 was released in late 2011, it

It was a stunning application in that it could

was obvious that it’s already out of its infancy.

create “semi-photorealistic” environments for

Lots of new features were added e.g. the rain and

architectural designs with a snap and export

snow effect (rare to create archviz scenes this

high resolution images in seconds and videos in

way but it’s Christmas time so who knows?),

a couple of hours. However also it was still in its

quality of the rendering started to move from

infancy with lots of missing features. Customers

the initial semi-photorealistic, “cartoonish” to

who purchased the application back then soon

the more photorealistic looking output.

happily realized that development (including not only bug fixes but also adding new features)

A new version (“Pro”) was also introduced

is not confined only to the planned, yearly new

with some additional features one of the most

releases but the Development Team constantly

important of which (in my opinion) is a real-time

“listens” to their customers and they keep

walkthrough export to use on computers

releasing minor subversions during the year,

without a commercial Lumion license (similar

too.

to the SU Viewer). Of course, development did not stop during 2012 and and new features

Along with the “Ultimate” version, they

were added again like different channel output

started to implement a plugin system which

(material ID, alpha channel etc.), videos rendered

allowed more advanced functions on a selective

at 2560x1440px etc.

basis for those who needed them. You can read a review of this version in the October Edition of CatchUp last year.

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And now Lumion 3 arrived a month ago, too.

the final rendering, but the real-time build mode

Not only 3.0 but 3.0.1 and 3.0.2 have also been

so much that the program becomes unrespon-

released indicating that bug fixes and in fact

sive. (N.B. we are talking about “real time build

feature changes are made in a very steady pace.

mode” here!).

So what is “new” in version 3?

New Global Illumination - GI affects realistic There are lots of new features and lots of im-

feeling of interiors the most. Interiors have been

provements on already existing functionalities.

the weaker side of Lumion but with the new GI

It would be a boring, technical list to highlight

engine, they have made a very significant step

all - you can read a “sum-up” and watch a video in

forward. With bounced light in interior scenes,

our news announcement already. I would rather

these will get a much more photorealistic effect

like to concentrate on what I personally find the

than the earlier (let’s face it, rather “flat looking”)

most stunning features.

Lumion interiors. As it is a new feature, we can expect further improvements and enhancements

New Features

in this field based on user input.

Planar Reflection -Lumion, so far, had only had

3D Sound (Lumion Pro only) - A long awaited

a reflection cube to “fake” reflections in the en-

feature first mentioned as “coming” some 1.5 years

vironment. This is cool in itself and for many

ago. Finally it’s here - with a rich sound library

projects, is sufficient - not to speak about that it’s

- and now users can place sounds anywhere in

fast. At some point of the development, the center

their scenes defining the volume, the minimal

of this reflection cube could even be moved to any

and maximal distance these sounds are heard

optimal point in the scene to make reflections

from. As they are 3D sounds, they have the

look more realistic and users able to customize

advantage of becoming a stereo ambient sound

their outputs.

once a movie is exported and as the camera is moving in the scene, they change their direction

This is not enough for many archviz artists

and pitch. There is already a rich collection of

as at a point, they definitely want planar reflec-

these sound effects (more than 100!), a collec-

tions to create realistic reflections (e.g. mirrors).

tion can never satisfy every possible need so the

Lumion 3 introduced this confining the reflec-

ultimate solution would be the ability for users to

tion planes to 5 for the time being. The reason for

import their own, custom sounds. Custom but no

the limitation is that it can slow down not only

3D sound tracks (like music) can also be imported.

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Of course, this review does not have sound so in order to see (ehm “hear”) it in action, visit the video on YouTube.

“...with the new gi engine they have made a significant step forward....”

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Video Textures - This one is probably the spiciest feature for many architects and interior designers in Lumion. For still renders, it is of course okay to apply a simple image to a TV screen, maybe turn it into a light emitting surface a bit and you are done. But these scenes usually look rather blunt in videos - so now here is the breakthrough - now you can apply an mp4 video to any suitable face in Lumion and it will play the video! For the time being however, the soundtrack of the mp4 movie won’t get through to the Lumion movie. Hopefully the developers will hear the users again and add this functionality at some point.

New Sky System - Although when I first saw Lumion, its sky was one of the features that I liked the most and over the time, it has been improved a lot - by adding far clouds, high clouds (those cirrus type) and low clouds (those cumulus type) all with their respective settings. The sky in Lumion 3 is something completely different however.

Now beside the “old” 2D clouds simply “painted” onto the sky, there is a new cloud type: 3D clouds which are not only volumetric (you can fly through them) and you can adjust their height but can do a very important feature which was missing from Lumion: cast realistic shadows (as they move!) onto the ground and all objects.

This is again something that must be watched “in action” but I think the video which was posted as a “preview” of the upcoming feature some three months ago is even more beautiful.

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Further improvements & new features: MOVIE EFFECTS Movie effects can be previewed in the real time build mode. This will probably slow Lumion down in this mode for bigger scenes but for those who wish to examine them in their “full glory�, this feature can be useful.

SNOW EFFECTS The snow effect was completely overhauled.

fog EFFECTS An improved fog system with much better falloff curve.

asset Library Additional package of 3D models including plants with more than 700 for the basic and 2,000+ items for Lumion Pro.

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What’s next?

add sound, plants and clouds that react to the wind whose speed you set up, add animated

Apparently Lumion is actively being developed and users can hope for improvements and new

characters and other models whose libraries are always growing etc.

features any time during the year. Lumion can already create stunning still and video output

There is room for enhancement however. My

at incredible resolutions without having to

highest priority would be the accurate import of

use a render farm or a couple of minute video

terrains. There are two ways of importing terrain

render taking weeks. You can use and save your

ATM: by importing a (max 204x2048 metre)

custom materials, apply Lumion (or your custom)

height map ranging between 0m and 200m in

materials either to the sculptable Lumion terrain

altitude or importing a SketchUp mesh (can be

or what you import as a mesh, save, load, edit and

of any size) which then can be painted with the

flawlessly reload your models - any number of

Lumion terrain materials for seamless integra-

models, i.e. several buildings separately (with all

tion into the surrounding Lumion terrain. This

material settings and alignment retained) either

mesh will not act as Lumion Terrain however

using SU Free or SU Pro - i.e. using Lumion you

which will cause a great deal of troubles if

can communicate with your client in almost real

someone is not careful enough - and we cannot

time as changing something and reloading then

apply certain actions (like quickly populating or

exporting a few shots again is just a matter of

randomizing plants on it).

minutes (in Lumion that is - i.e. the final time will depend more on your SketchUp modelling skills and speed).

Another area for improvement (or rather a new feature) would be parallel projection for architects. We have been given answers regarding

With the already existing features one can

this - and I personally believe that it would have

render animated materials (water fountains, fog,

been solved already if it were an easy thing to

snow, fire and smoke, swimming pools, lakes,

implement - so until then we can just lower the

ocean with the proper waves moving in videos),

FOV as much as possible and export shots “close

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to” parallel projection (for me, this is perfectly enough but I understand others’ concerns).

Also, a more streamlined and improved method to import animated models (characters, technical stuff etc.) would be nice but SketchUp users do not feel the pain as much as users of other 3D

“...communicate with your client in almost realtime....”

modelling software as in SU, we do not have native animation anyway (certainly, exporting say keyframe animation models as animated fbx would be cool).

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Whom to recommend Lumion to?

If you are a product designer - no, Lumion is not for you. You can use other, more physically / optically accurate, photorealistic rendering apps that are geared towards this kind of job with studio setups, accurate lighting conditions and ray tracing rendering methods.

Lumion already offers - yes, definitely. Lumion is for you and I dare say it is a must. Lumion is great at handling millions of polygons while you can easily navigate in its real time build mode which gives you the feeling of the final output (of course, a rendered image or video is of much higher quality) and Lumion is also great at displaying large areas either from birds eye view (ah, the new, 3D clouds, finally!) or in a walk

If you are an interior designer - probably.

You may still need to consider a more accurate rendering package though but with the new Global Illumination and Planar Reflection features, Lumion may be a serious alternative especially if you wish to produce walkthrough videos very quickly and efficiently.

through animation. Far clouds, a hint of fog and a bit of a DOF can easily “hide” what’s generally “not” behind your scene (i.e. empty horizons) but you can also use background images around your scene.

If you are interested, please, visit the full feature list of Lumion or see what’s new in Lumion 3 on

If you are an architect - yes, Lumion is for you especially if you want to create stunning exterior shots or videos in a way that your investment pays itself back in a very short time. You know the kind of clients who want to change every detail all the time until they are pleased or who can never make up their minds - and additionally, rendering a couple of minute-long HD video of an architectural design with a rich environment overnight (or a 30+ Mpx poster in a few minutes as a matter of fact) is always an advantage.

If you work with large projects like urban or landscape designers where you can also make

their website. Lumion also offers a Free / trial version with limited libraries and capabilities like export sizes (AFAIK the max video resolution is 1280x720px HD - at the time of writing this review, the new, free version for Lumion 3 has not been released yet so I cannot check all specifications). It is ideal however to get acquainted with the product - or for hobbyists who do not mind that it’s for non-commercial use only and has a watermark.

*Some images were taken from the Lumion Site while some were kindly provided by M. A. Spaans at Byzantos. com

use of the hundreds and thousands of props

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Csaba Pozsárkó (aka Gaieus on the forums) is a long time SketchUp user and promoted “SketchUp Sage” by the SketchUp Team. He has contributed to SketchUcation from the very beginning. By his “original trade”, he is an archaeologist and uses SketchUp mainly for reconstructing archaeological finds.

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Mike Lucey

Sefaira Concept .... making ‘green’ building design fast and easy for both new and retrofits!

In this edition of Catchup I am looking at a new cloud based system for green building design, Sefaira Concept, now with a SketchUp plugin! This new company, founded in 2009, delivers ‘Sustainability Analysis for Conceptual Design’.

The idea of applications that assist the designer in achieving sustainability is not new, many firms have been providing applications

for

this

aim,

AutoDesk for example but what Sefaira delivers is quite unique in terms of real-time, as you design, you analyze. How does this assist the designer? This graph explains the advantages at a glance.

We can see clearly from the graph where Sefaira Concept comes into play. As the project progresses, even at the design stage, it can become more and more difficult to make changes as they become time consuming and costly. Using Sefaira’s practically instant (Cloud) analysis in areas of energy conservation nails down matters very quickly and easily from the design point of view.

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To get a better overview of what Sefaira Concept

via cloud computing.

has to offer I watched its co-founder’s presentation at AlwaysOn GoingGreenSV 2012. Mads

Sefaira Concept, built on the D3 Cloud Platform,

Jensen, Sefaira CEO explained the ins and outs of

allows support for the various design participants

the application very eloquently indeed.

throughout the value chain of the construction industry. The products / areas are -

Mads Jenson’s presentation started by telling attendees that the company ‘makes software for building energy efficiency’, he goes on to put forward some very large capital figures that caught my attention immediately. Sefaira’s aim is to help the industry unlock a multi trillion-dollar opportunity in energy savings. Today buildings are responsible for 45% of the world’s energy use, a $3trn opportunity.

➙➙ Designing New Buildings - working with architects and engineers designing buildings ➙➙ Retrofit - working with retrofit engineers ➙➙ Scan Portfolio - scanning portfolios and systems for inefficiencies (energy) with the use of Engage, another Sefaira product. ➙➙ Building Materials and Systems - work with material manufactures to calculate the energy efficiencies of their sophisticated high-preforming building materials.

‘...help the industry unlock a multi trillion-dollar opportunity in energy savings...’

While its relatively easy to make energy savings in the region of 10% with just the use of low energy lighting etc, its a different matter when it come to achieving savings above this figure. The

Jenson advises that the above four applications give Sefaira access to a six billion dollar SaaS (Software as a Service) market opportunity. The advised breakdown is as follows ➙➙ Design New Buildings - £1.2Bn ➙➙ Retrofit - $1.1Bn ➙➙ Scan Portfolios - $0.9Bn

➙➙ Building Materials and Systems - $2.9Bn.

answer according to Jensen is unlocking ‘deep savings’ (+50%). This requires the calibration of thousands of variables. These are computationally intensive and the only realistic way to achieve a quick and accurate result is currently

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Sefaira is the only company that currently

producing the Castillo de San Marcos National

offers high speed real-time new building and

Monument Visitor Center - Communicate the

retrofit analysis. The company claims it is also

sustainability implications of early design. This

has the most mature cloud architecture to address

is a case study of the Lord, Aeck & Sargent’s

computational complexity that rapidly under-

design targeting LEED Platinum certification and

stands and optimises building design options.

Net Zero Energy performance.

Compared to others in the field, Sefaira delivers 700 x faster with 90% less effort from the user!

Cloud analysis can complete paralleled complex calculations thus analysing thousands of design

For those interested in watching Mads Jenson’s presentation, it can be viewed below.

options at any given time during the design process and provide quick and accurate feedback so the designer can make his / her decision and move on to the next stage of the design.

I would also recommend viewing Russell Henley’s (VP Business Development at Sefaira) demonstration of Sefaira Concept at Ecobuild 2012. Russell demonstrates Concept’s ease of use to

a

viewing

audience

with

great

flair.

‘...Sefaira delivers 700x faster with 90% less effort...’

There is no better way to fully understand how an application works and with this view I am re-

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CASE STUDY: LORD, AECK & SARGENT

Communicate the sustainability implications of early design The Customer Lord, Aeck & Sargent (LAS) is a full-service, award-winning architectural firm with over 3,000 projects completed. LAS has five practice areas: science/research, higher education, arts/culture, historic preservation and housing/mixed-use. LAS strives to create buildings that have a restorative, positive impact on the building’s inhabitants and to reduce the negative impact of construction on the environment.

LAS has practiced sustainability in architecture since the early 1990s and believes in using an analytical approach to optimizing building performance.

The Project – Castillo de San Marcos National Monument Visitor Center Castillo de San Marcos National Monument is the oldest masonry fort and best-preserved example of a Spanish colonial fortification in the continental United States.

While the fort is well toured, it currently includes no visitor center. LAS was contracted by the National Park Service to create three design alternatives for what will be the Castillo de San Marcos Visitor Center. The provided design services included analysis of the revised building program, study of the site utilization, and attainment of highly ambitious sustainability targets - LEED Platinum with Net-Zero status. In addition to Net-Zero ambition, other specific and measurable sustainability targets included 30% energy savings below that required by the IECC 2006 and ASHRAE 90.1-2004 code standards as

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mandated by the federal government on federal buildings (a codified version of the Architecture 2030 challenge), and 35% carbon savings, 30% water savings, and 50% waste savings from the baselines set by the USGBC for LEED accreditation.

The Challenges The ability to understand and explore each of the three architectural design alternatives in real-time across the interrelated dimensions of energy, carbon, water, and renewables is inherently difficult. The traditional approach includes rule-of-thumb calculations or time consuming modeling processes. It is common, however, to leave modeling and quantitative analysis until much later in the design process, when it can be too late to make changes to the project as a result of the analysis.

Independently investigating the various sustainability goals of energy, carbon, water, and renewables leads to an unrealistic interpretation of each design alternative and its relative advantages and disadvantages. Using a software solution that can interrelate these aspects, and can do so in real-time at the earliest stages of design, is a key requirement in breaking the traditional energy modeling paradigm. For this reason, LAS chose Sefaira Concept to help assess their design alternatives and identify the one that will help meet their sustainability targets.

The Solution – Sefaira Concept for Real-Time Sustainability Analysis Using Sefaira Concept, LAS was able to gain a deep understanding of the energy flows from each of their three design alternatives. This information enabled LAS to investigate how different strategies and bundles of strategies impact their design. LAS was able to quickly test various design alternatives including: external shading, insulation quantities, glazing properties, HVAC system types, fan

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power changes, lighting improvements, and renewable technologies. Using Concept’s strategy bundles feature, the firm was able to understand the impact of combining the best individual design alternatives.

LAS also gained an understanding of how their solar photovoltaic

renewable

strategy would offset the electrical demand. All of this was accomplished

in

real-time

with Sefaira Concept’s cloudbased whole building physics engine, allowing the input of as many design alternatives as desired to be tested in parallel with no degradation in analysis time.

‘...quickly test various designs in real time...’

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About Sefaira The Result

Sefaira was founded in 2009

Sefaira Concept allowed LAS to gain a deep understanding of the energy flows through each of their building designs. The firm was able to visualize which aspects of the three designs required additional work and which aspects could be left alone. Armed with this information, LAS was able to achieve their key design objective: energy and carbon savings of approximately 30%. Concept enabled

with a mission to promote more sustainable buildings by helping the building industry design, build, operate, maintain and transform all facets of the built environment.

LAS to produce a comprehensive Schematic Design report that

Sefaira’s proprietary cloud-

contained the results of dozens of design strategies and bundles,

based technology, built upon

including energy and water efficiency targets and strategies. This

deep building physics expertise,

report was delivered successfully to multiple stakeholders at the

offers an integrated approach

National Park Service.

to sustainable design analysis, knowledge management, and

Other key benefits of Sefaira Concept include:

decision support. Sefaira helps designers analyze and compare

➙➙ Rapid feedback on whole building energy and water use, carbon emissions, utility costs, and renewable energy potential

sustainable

building

strate-

gies for new build or retrofit projects in a fraction of the time

➙➙ An intuitive web-based interface and intelligent default assumptions that allow designers to get started right away

and cost previously required.

By

providing

sophisticated

analysis via an intuitive web ➙➙ Simultaneously analyze multiple design options, explore strat-

interface, Sefaira helps users

egies parametrically, and compare massings side-by-side in

define, quantify and optimize

order to make fast, data driven decisions

the energy, water, carbon and financial benefits of relevant

The design team now has the confidence to know that the Castillo de San Marcos Visitor Center is on target to meet LEED Platinum with Net-Zero status. As of this writing, the Castillo de San Marcos Visitor Center project has completed Schematic Design, and is now awaiting design development and construction.

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design strategies.

Sefaira’s offices in London and New York have supported projects across the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

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Rich O’Brien

SketchUp Plugin Preview Thomthom’s Bezier Surface

Vertex Tools pretty much changed that way we manipulate points in SketchUp by adding a Gizmo to SketchUp. Now Thomas Thomassen is taking this one step further by using this same system on meshes! I had some time to play with what Thom is calling Bezier Surface and so far so good.

Bezier Surface is quite unique in that it allows you to draw a flat plane, called a Patch, and then manipulate the patch via a Gizmo. These manipulations are then given some Bezier smoothing and the end result is instant organic forms.

Above you can see quite a busy UI but it is very forgiving. On the opposite page you can see how this is broken down further. The red points are highlighting a patches corner, the green handles control the subdivision scaling and the orange indicates when you have an edge selected. Moving, scaling and rotating are all handled by the Gizmo and during the translation Bezier Surface temporarily ‘dumbsdown’ the mesh resolution so as to not drain on SketchUp resources and to keep things zipping along.

This is really looking like another high-end plugin from Thomas that pushes the boundaries of what is possible in SketchUp. Watch the YouTube video I posted last month to see it in action. Bezier Surface is slated for release this year.

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Rich O’Brien

Architectural Design with SketchUp - Review

I

f

you currently use SketchUp for architecture/

design, drafting, drawing and presentation then

Alex Schreyer’s new book, ‘Architectural Design with SketchUp’ might be for you. Released late last month by Wiley it is primarily aimed at those looking to expand on a basic knowledge of SketchUp in the fields of design, component-based modeling, plugins, rendering and scripting.

The author, Alex Schreyer, is currently a Lecturer in the Architecture+Design and Building and Construction Technology programs at the University of Massachusetts where he teaches AEC CAD/BIM modeling and visualization. Alex has been a long time advocate of SketchUp and a major contributor to extending SketchUp’s abilties through various plugins.

It is worth mentioning at this point that the book is wonderfully illustrated with full colour and descriptive images that complement each tutorial or exercise. Alex’ teaching background really rings through as every item is nicely structured and very informative. Though the book is titled to be aimed at architecture it contains material that can be applied to any discipline.

The book itself is 300+ pages of tutorials, concepts and exercises that introduce common to advanced processes and these are tackled over 6 chapters. Rather than invest time and pages in teaching the basic principles of SketchUp Alex devotes a chapter to ‘Refreshing your skills’ which overviews the more involved SketchUp functions and features to help understand the latter chapters.

By chapter 3 you begin to get to the meat of things with a topic devoted to ‘Informing your models’.

Here you learn the importance of groups and components and begin to leverage SketchUp Pro features to ‘Generate Reports’ effectively and scenes to animate the assembly process.

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Dynamic Component creation is excellently presented to show users how to use SketchUp Pro features in space planning and integrate into ‘Generate Report’ to pull out the info needed during the design process. Whether it is the number of studs contained within a wall or floor space planning you are brought through the techniques Alex uses to quickly assign attributes to SketchUp objects.

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N

o SketchUp book would be complete without mentioning plugins and in Chapter 4 ‘Using Plugins Effectively’ Alex details some of his favourites. Rather than explain each plugin Alex lists them

by use and show examples of how they are used in various fields. This is a really invaluable piece of information for anyone trying to establish a ‘best practice’ approach.

Alex breaks it down into 6 main areas - Modeling, Architectural Modeling, Digital Fabrication, Data Integration and Exchange, Animation and Presentation and Analysis. Each section then lists and gives quick examples of most of the tools needed to perform anything from modeling trusses to interactive 3D panoramas.

What is really great about this chapter is that examples Alex uses are all very practical. There is a very good sequence which involves using GE Terrain, TIG’s Slicer tools and later the Unfold plugin. It is very much geared towards using SketchUp to help with physical builds for presentation by applying various techniques and tools to help the design process. While tutorials for using plugins are inabundance on the web this is the first that compiles them by category and use for various fields.

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C

hapter 5 covers photorealistic rendering in SketchUp and begins with a general overview of

the terminology and science behind this dark art. It will give anyone looking to add this to their workflow a firm grounding in the basics.

Alex then goes into incredible detail on the process and leaves no stone unturned as 1/3 of the book is devoted to this topic and it is far from boring to read!

The examples and exercises are fun and challenging with some top tips shared to really make your rendered images pop.

If you are looking for an introduction to rendering that doesn’t need a PHD to decipher and isn’t application specific then this is a great resource.

A

s mentioned earlier Alex is known for his contribution to the Ruby community so in Chapter

6 - ‘Creating Geometry Using Ruby Scripting’ Alex

demonstrates that scripting can create geometry quicker and easier than modeling by hand.

It certainly is an interesting topic to choose to place in a book about architectural design and it covers a wide and varied range of topics. But there is method to this madness. Each example is geared towards showing that a few snippets of code is quicker than repetitively modeling by hand. Whether it is simply changing the height of buildings to be random (extremely slow to do by hand) or creating patterned panels (another laborious task) Alex demonstrates that even a basic understanding of ruby is only needed to achieve results in SketchUp. It is not going to make you a coding genius overnight but it will give you the knowledge on which to build upon.

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O

verall Alex’ book on Architectural Design with SketchUp is a winner. Well structured, illustrated and most of all easy to read and understand. While the overall theme is based in architecture

the techniques can be applied to any discipline and the wide range of topics covered are excellently delivered.

The book is also accompanied by a companion website where you can enter into discussions and keep up to date on all things SketchUp. There’s a 3D Warehouse collection that has sample files from the book and also a really informative tutorial section that covers some of the techniques Alex uses in his design process.

You can buy this book in paperback or digital formats (including Kindle, ePub, iBooks) through Wiley or Amazon for less than $40 which is great value for money.

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SketchUcation Affinity Deal SketchUcation has just entered into an Affinity Site Deal with Lenovo, the number one computer when it comes to reliability, to offer great savings to its Premium Members! The ThinkPad laptop with Professional Operating System’s Web price is $1,579.00. The same item costs $1,310.57, a 17% saving of $268.43 via the Lenovo - SketchUcation Affinity Site.

We are making this new discount service available to our Premium Membership as on top of the great value computer deals to be had at Lenovo, the SketchUcation Affinity site offers further great savings and free delivery.

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Online Video Tutorials Plugin Tutorial - Select Edges/Faces Learn how to use Sahi’s Select Edge/Faces plugin to toggle how the select tool operates in SketchUp. Download Plugin

Watch Video

Plugin Tutorial - Create Hatch Faces Jolran’s HatchFace plugin makes hatching in SketchUp quick and easy.

Download Plugin

Watch Video

Plugin Tutorial - Smart Offset Offset got you upset? TIG’s latest Smart Offset plugin might the medicine you need...

Download Plugin

Watch Video

Plugin Tutorial - Step Extrude Step Extrude allows you to extrude faces at set intervals.

Great for creating stepped terrains in SketchUp. Download Plugin

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Watch Video

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Mike Lucey

iSTAR5 Program with SketchUp

Many readers may be aware of SketchUp’s Project Spectrum - ‘Strengths of autism shine through in 3D’. It was discovered quite soon after SketchUp was launched back in 2000 that certain kids with autism took to Sketchup like, ducks to water and started producing some really impressive models after very little training. Under @Last and then Google, Project Spectrum continued to offer great assistance to autistic students and their parents worldwide. This work has been nurtured by Tom Wyman and his team for the past twelve years.

On a personal level I am involved with a small group of parents and students here in my hometown but I have often found myself at a loss when it comes to offering anything other than straight SketchUp training / coaching, mostly to the parents so they can pass on the skills. Recently I learned about iStar5, a University of Utah project that is doing great work with autistic students in a workshop setting and I made it my business to check out exactly what is involved. I was quickly brought up to speed by Prof. Scott Wright and Prof. Cheryl Wright of the iSTAR5 Team.

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‘...helping to strengthen and develop the social and occupational skills of youth with neurodiversity ...’

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The iSTAR5 project is a ‘strength based and family focused technology education program’ aimed at students with autism also their families. The objective is to develop technology talent in high functioning students on the autism spectrum taking advantage of their often natural spatial visual skills and their interest in computers and technology. The program is researched based and has seen significant increases in the social, creative and technology skills levels of participating students.

The foundational software program used in the iSTAR5 workshops is none other than SketchUp. This is used by the student to develop their projects during the workshop period and afterwards present their work to attending family members and fellow students. The participating students in general tend to be quite and isolated in their everyday school classrooms but after they develop and demonstrate their new found skills using SketchUp their family members and fellow students are often gob smacked on seeing their new 3D modeling skills and professional levels of presentation.

I also learned that the student’s grand-parents where most active in the day to day activities including participation in the workshops. In my experience grandkids and their grandparents often develop very special relationships. I think this could be because of a less pressurised environment. The workshops boost the student’s confidence to the extent that they can’t wait to attend the next workshop and meet with their fellow students. Also the students often gain a new standing with their siblings and they quickly become looked on as as experts in 3D!

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The student’s siblings are also encouraged to get involved in the workshops as they often have to be closely involved on a day to day basis with the students throughout their lives. It has also been noticed that once often contentious relationships are no longer the case and more positive relationships develop between the students and their siblings.

Laura Linnell a Research Associate with iSTAR advises that a student’s sister found she was somewhat embarrassed by her brother because of his autism. This changed once she got involved and saw first hand how her brother had become an expert in 3D modelling with Sketchup. Her embarrassment became pride and she now thinks of him as ‘cool’ and so I imagine do her friends!

The long-range objective of the iSTAR5 project is to develop job and computer skills for future employment.

This is particularly important in the case of autistic students as there are high rates of unemployment, underemployment, heavy dependency on families, social isolation and real difficulties in seeking post secondary opportunities in the sector.

iSTAR5 would like to reach out to corporate partners and the business community at large and see if they would have an interest in forming partnerships so internships can be established.

They are now planning to expand the outreach, scaling up and out and want to create extensibility with the project.

It is planned to build virtual community activities, videos and online demonstrations.

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Dale Stephens

LumenRT 3 Review

I

f you have worked in the field of Architec-

LumenRT is an e-on software plug-in based

tural Visualization, then you will be used to

visualization solution for SketchUp, which runs

the huge range of demands your clients, and

on both the free and Pro versions. The program

their individual tastes, place on you. You will also,

has features which allow real-time rendering,

most likely, have had to develop a whole bunch

with accurate lighting, reflection, shadows and

of new skill sets along the way in order to just

motion blur. It runs on either 32 or 64 bit PC or

stay current. I would also imagine that, you will

Mac platforms. Recommended specs are:

also have spent time following the huge array of new software being released, and speculating on

PC - XP, Vista or Windows 7

which to choose.

Mac- any OSX with Intel based systems nVidia GeForce 8800 or newer

Well, in my particular case, when I first saw the

ATI Radeon 4000 or newer

amazement on our clients faces as they watched

Minimum 512Mb VRAM

their project, a SketchUp model, going through

2GHz Intel processor

the motions of a simple set of animated SketchUp

2Gb Ram minimum, (4Gb recommended)

scenes, I had the feeling that I would have to get

4Gb of free hard drive space.

much better at this.

Needless to say, I didn’t hesitate when offered the chance to put Lumen RT through its paces.

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LumenRT creates what e-on calls “Live Cubes”.

motion.

Live Cubes are generated from directly within your SketchUp model, and will create an animation based on the scenes you produce in SketchUp, with each scene acting as a keyframe in the animation.

But Live Cubes are capable of more that. The Live Cube you generate can be saved an packaged as completely independent executables. These can be used by anyone you share them with on their computers (PC or Mac) without requiring them to have any additional software.

Those you share with can choose to simply watch your keyframe animation, or explore the model in real time (the RT in LumenRT) using the walk through or other commands contained within the Live Cube.

The export process is a little disconcerting at

Export, Pre-Process, and Share When you start the Export (Plugins/LumenRT/ Export Full Model) a new window opens, which gives options for the Sky, Horizon, and Quality you will generate in the Live Cube. Other options in this window allow you to have an adjustable time of day, and under the wrench icon, you can choose the “pedestal” on which the model will be placed if you haven’t modeled a ground plane.

Finally, it also lets you set the smoothness of

first, as it appears nothing is taking place. e-on states in the manual that there is a progress bar that will appear in the bottom of the SketchUp window, but I have actually only seen this once, and only very briefly. The process usually only takes a minute or so, (so be patient) and when complete a new window opens (with a progress bar) that processes the model and settings you have chosen.

When this process is complete, the Live Cube opens on your desktop, with

simple control

buttons at the bottom of the window.

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By pressing the F1 key on your keyboard, another

Materials.

window will open showing keyboard shortcuts.

window. The first dialogue box holds the names

This window also has a video tutorial, and online

of all the materials in the SketchUp model, which

help section. There is also a more controls button

you can scroll and choose.

Once again this will open another

which will generate a pdf with the entire set of programmed keyboard commands.

The second box is where you chose the option of the type of material, Standard, Mirror, Glass, or

Most importantly though, this is where you save

Water. For the first three you can alter the bump

or publish your animation for sharing.

and specular amounts using sliders, only the water has a predetermined material which relies

That in brief, is the process, which to the devel-

on the material name string containing “Water”.

opers credit has been kept quite simplistic.

There are limitations, which are well discussed in the User Manual. Models which contain over 500,000 faces are not recommended, but the limitations here may be more in the capabilities of your graphics card. LumenRT will process them, but without a very high end graphics card the results will not be smooth.

Very large models may cause SketchUp to crash unless the “Fast Export” option is disabled. Unfortunately for Mac users (at the time of this writing), this option is only available in the Windows version. Disabling it will mean a much slower export, but with much better results.

Materials in the model can be altered by going to the sub menu under Plugins > Lumen RT > Edit

So you could create your water material and include “water” in the name, and then LumenRT will apply its water effect, including reflection and ripples.

It is a really good idea to have a look at the suggestions made in the manual titled “Improving

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Your Live Cubes”. Many of the suggestions are common sense ones that should be included in all your workflow, especially if the model is intended for any rendering software, but paying attention to these small details will make the“Live Cube” you generate, much improved.

Of course, e-on is noted for software that creates stunning natural environments, so the icing on the cake for LumenRT is the availability of the LumenRT content pack. which can be purchased as a bundle with LumenRT, or individually at a later date. The content pack contains plants, people,

animals, vehicles,

buildings

and cyclorama backgrounds, many of which (including the vegetation, animals and people) are animated.

The content is a accessed via the component browser in SketchUp, and so like any SketchUp component can be brought in and placed within the SketchUp scene. The high poly content particularly the vegetation, is brought into SketchUp as much simpler instances, complex enough that you can see a simple version of the tree you are setting in the scene, but you don’t have to worry about bringing SketchUp to its knees when landscaping with abundant plantings.

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So, aside from the technical aspects, how did it perform?

I just happened to be in the middle of a very large sustainable neighborhood project when the chance to use LumenRT3 came along. In fact I had 3 days to prepare a set of visuals for the Developers who were coming to town to meet and be briefed on the project.

with this type of development, and although supportive, needed to fully understand the neighborhood we had discussed and envisioned.

I was a little concerned, as because of what I was asked to visualize, I had a SketchUp model well over the 500,000 faces recommended, but if your going to test something, why not push it to the limits. So I set the quality to extreme, and let it cook until the next morning.

It wasn’t just a standard update meeting, as the

The Live Cube was ready in the morning. I had

Regional District in which this neighborhood

done a simple fly over, to give the clients a sense

was to be built had written into their Official

of scope. Other than the fact I flew them through

Community Plan the extensive sustainable

a few tree branches at one point, the result was

measures that this property would have to adhere

quite impressive.

to in order to move forward. We had already met with and convinced the Regional District. The

I then decided to use the walkthrough controls

Developers on the other hand had no experience

to get a better sense of how the software worked,

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New Features coming soon LumenRT Advanced is released at the end of January/ beginning of February. There are a huge amount of changes and improvements to the product including the addition of full lighting - point lights, spot lights, day/night lighting, a full animation editor to create and composite videos and images, enhanced content such as the new Pine Trees and improved water materials, integrations with MicroStation, Revit and ESRI CityEngine and a complete settings menu inside the LiveCube to control lighting, time of day, depth of field, camera blur, etc.

The price is now $795 for the base product and an additional $995 for the publisher

New navigation controls in LumenRT Advanced work very much like Sketchup in terms of the basic panning, zooming and rotation controls.

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Click to watch on YouTube

and also a closer examination of the extent and quality of the rendering. I found the mouse control quite difficult, but when I switched over to using keyboard commands I was able to manoeuver my way through the entire neighborhood scene, stopping along the way to take png’s of the scene. In the end, with a little post pro work, I was able to put together quite an extensive folio of stills, and a simple flyover. Not bad for the first thing I had done in the software.

And, in my opinion, therein lies the strength of this software.

It is almost SketchUp like in its simplicity of use. The process is straight forward, and the controls and options are all visible, simple and easy to use. If you have set your animated scene up

Click to download Live Cubes

well in SketchUp, LumenRT will give admirable results. The images have a dream like quality, certainly not as highly defined as you would get from good quality rendering software, (but they usually have limited animation abilities). This isn’t really a criticism as the images have a real presence of their own.

My critique would be , the control when using the mouse is very awkward, sometimes even quite frustrating. I have had to resort to keyboard commands, and with these, although they are effective, there isn’t the smoothness you would get if the mouse was getting proper response. This makes me hesitant to send the Live Cube directly to the client, which is a big part of the beauty of this software.

Otherwise, I think for the price of $295.00 US for the standalone, and $395.00 US bundled with the content pack, LumenRT3 delivers what it says it will, and can be a very useful too in the arsenal.

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Twitter in Construction Modeling Construction models have found a new home in rapid project related communications, offering 3D support to clarify and communicate ideas in immediate project exchanges using shorter, almost haiku like Tweets, based on a catalogue of 3D images and You Tube videos.

The model images are SketchUp Exports accessed on-the-fly via smartphones, tablets, and online readers from cloud based file storage systems.

Construction Models are not BIMs

Because a construction model is built for management and collaboration, its intent is to illustrate, simulate, and communicate ideas. As such, its not a tool used to produce construction document or support quantity surveys. Instead, construction models are assembled from a collection of common materials found in almost all structures and used to simulate the actual construction process. The trick of course, is that the model can only be built by builders (or designers) who understand how a building is built.

Once completed, illustrations extracted from a SketchUp construction model are much faster to load and transfer than BIM files or PDFs. More importantly, these images are not confused by layers of unnecessary and distracting data, making it possible for project managers to communicate quickly with directed, point-based information.

We pointed this out before. BIM is only a small part of the design services provided by professionals earning an ever diminishing fee for their work.

And though BIM models may have a place in coordinating the production of 2D bid documents, they are way too big for real-time collaboration and quickly dated by changes and upgrades - sometimes before a project is even finished.

If you follow the money, in the real world, upwards of 95% of the focus for project managers is on what is happening on the jobsite and not on a BIM model.

A SketchUp construction model is a life-cycle model, producing a catalogue of illustrations that can be used from concept to facilities management because they are built with a simple, intuitive and freely available modeling program.

Simple Ten Step Construction Models We assemble construction models for multimillion dollar projects following the same simple Ten Step Process outlined in earlier CatchUp newsletters. Just at a different scale.

1. Scale the jobsite with the Measure Tool 2. Excavate with the Push Pull Tool 3. Assemble materials from libraries 4. Stage and place materials for Exports 5. Fast framing with the Outliner 6. Scale to fit with the Scale Tool 7. Templates and trimming with Lines 8. Massing sequence animations as videos 9. Fly overs and walk-through orientations 10. Motion captures to coordinate safety

Images are staged with scaled equipment and extracted using the dataWORLD outlined in CatchUp Newsletter 12

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Social Media and Construction Models Social Media Networks: include blogs, collaborative Wikis, and sites like Linked In, MySpace, and Tumblr.

They generate opportunities for business in marketing, research, sales, and customer relations. However, these programs are by definition social sites and not easily adapted to project communications and management.

Project Webpages: are important for posting scheduling and budget details along with other project information, as well as reference links to suppliers, subcontractors, and client information. Unfortunately, this early cloud based management tool, is now antiquated by a range of formats, broken links, information duplicated by daily reports, and webmasters with limited project experience.

Facebook: is much more suited to marketing and self-promotion than it is for project management. And though it is being used by some companies for project related data, after a week or two, the scrolling timeline for even the simplest residential project will soon overwhelm both the Facebook interface and any Friends bothering to follow its linear format.

Mobile Apps: include simple camera shots and video sent immediately from smart phones or other hand held devices via e-mail or direct messaging. Enhanced images and videos can also be labeled and posted to You Tube, Instagram, or Tumblr where they can be searched and archived for future reference.

And though they are great for fast communication, the visual information they carry is soon buried in unsorted and remote data files after a few days of normal project coordination.

Mobility is the New Social Norm With 4G and high bandwidth wireless networks on jobsites today, the ability of smartphones, tablets, and cameras to access the Internet means its possible to access an unlimited combination of resources as a fundamental part of project communications.

This means managers have immediate access to project information, web searches and bookmarks, as well as networking platforms for marketing and background information and cloud-based databases of illustrations and animations for process control.

Important is that global resources and detailed project specific information can now be accessed, reviewed, and transferred on ordinary hand-held devices like smartphones, tablets, survey instruments, and machines and equipment. This makes it possible to capture images, download files, and communicate with team members anywhere in the world while standing on the jobsite, working in a job trailer, or traveling to another project.

“Social media differentiates from traditional/industrial media in many aspects such as quality, reach, frequency, usability, immediacy and permanence.

The internet usage effects of social media as of 2012 are, according to Nielsen, that internet users continue to spend more time in social media than any other site. At the same time, the total time spent on social media in the U.S. across PC and mobile devices increased by 37 percent to 121 billion minutes in July 2012 compared to 88 billion minutes in July 2011.”

Twitter as a Construction Model Management Tool

GroupTweets uses a homepage as a group messaging board, helping team members to interact while making it easier for all group members to keep up with the latest communications.

Probably the best group management app (at least for now) is Posterous. The app uses Posterous Spaces to make sharing information like photos, video and ideas simpler and more intuitive. It also has controls that correlate project information into separate galleries for specific groups of users.

TweetDeck is also used to create groups and manage Twitter communications. Now owned by Twitter, it was one of the first project organizers to use a dashboard as a kind of dedicated webpage that allows users to receive and send tweets, view profiles, and photo attachments.

Twitter is a promising new tool for construction communications and management. It allows project managers to interact quickly with immediate messaging that by its very nature is limited to specific topics.

Twitter organizes teams of followers into groups and lists, transferring images, while sorting and categorizing exchanges into archives that can then be searched and accessed as an integral part of project information.

Important is that Twitter is a short-form messaging tool, what we referred to earlier as a micro-blogger, used commonly as a personal advertising media, it also has real potential as the heart of a real time network for team members.

Along with apps like Tweetdeck, Seesmic, and Twubs, three programs add particular management value to this simple communications tool: GroupTweets, Posterous, and Tweetdeck -- since we’ve run out of space again, we’ll get to these next month.

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O n ly exc l. VAT

Discover the world of 3D scanning!

The new DAVID-SLS-1 scanner employs the innovative “Structured Light“

• Scan size: 10-500 mm

technology, which allows precise 3D scanning in a matter of seconds.

• Resolution: Approx. 0.1% of object size

The scanner is mobile and can be placed easily in front of the surface

• Scanning time: 2-4 seconds per scan

to be scanned. The results can be exported into common 3D file formats

• Mesh density: Up to 1,200,000 vertices per scan

and processed in other applications, e.g. for rapid prototyping, inspection,

• Export formats: OBJ, STL, PLY

product presentations, works of art, computer animations, video games...

• Compatible with Google SketchUp!

www.david-laserscanner.com

www.sketchUcation.com

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RoundUp With the launch of the new site in September we also launched our Premium Subscription service.

We would like to thank everyone that has subscribed so far and we plan to rollout even more bargains this year.

Currently Premium subscription entitles members to 20% discounts on all shop items along with tons of free content from models to textures.

As you may have read earlier we have now added Lenovo products to our discounts which is a great saving for Premium members.

To see what you can currently download from the SketchUcation shop just click here.

If you are interested in selling items or plugins on our store just email us.

Go Grab Your Goodies.... www.sketchUcation.com

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