Bonnie's Blog: 3D design for K-12 and beyond

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

SketchUp Jack-o-Lantern

Happy almost Halloween! I was just completing the write-up of one of my SketchUp projects of the month, which involves using the Intersect Faces tool to cut a window into a rocket.

You can apply this technique to almost anything. So if I want to make a jack-o-lantern, I can download a pumpkin from the 3D Warehouse (there are many), and create some prismatic objects to represent the eyes, nose, and mouth. It's easier to create these objects in blank space then move them into place. And everything should be exploded first, if needed.

Select everything, right-click on any selected face, and choose Intersect Faces / With Model. This gives you the intersection edges you need to make the cutouts. Then you can trim away all the extra edges and faces. (My cutouts go all the way through, which you might not do with a hand-held knife on a real pumpkin!)

There are already some great Halloween pumpkin models in the 3D Warehouse. These are awesome:

Now, I'd really like to see someone model this one:

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Friday, October 7, 2011

What's Coming in Our October Projects?

The projects going out next week come as a result of teacher requests and feedback. So I hope everyone can find something useful in this batch! If you haven't yet subscribed, you can sign up here.

Google Earth Tours

This project shows how to create an annotated, guided tour around some landmarks of Washington, DC, using buildings that are already in Google Earth. No programming is necessary; all you need is the free version of Google Earth.

Rocket Windows

One of last month's projects showed how to create a rocket. This time you'll learn how to add windows to the front and back, using a cylinder and the Intersect Faces tool.

Torus, and Other Round Things

I get asked all the time how to create objects like a torus, cone, or sphere. These are easy, once you get to know the Follow Me tool. In addition to creating a torus (aka, doughnut), you'll see how to create other shapes using a Follow Me path.

There's no reason not to sign up - it's just $36 for the year (3 projects each month for 12 months). You'll never be stuck for ideas again!

Subscribe here.

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Sunday, September 4, 2011

What's Coming in Our September Projects?

I hope everyone's back from their August break well-rested and ready for school. I took a fabulous vacation with my family to Wyoming and Utah, and it made me wonder why we're living on the crowded, mountain-less, hurricane-prone East Coast. But we do love Washington, so we're staying put.

Anyway, these fun SketchUp projects should get you back to school on a great footing! Become a subscriber for just $36 for a year - that's 36 projects over 12 months.

(And in case you missed, we just released our fourth Project Bundle, 18 projects from March 2011 - August 2011, which is sale-priced during September at just $19.

Rocket Ship

First you start with the fins, then comes the cylinder body and the cone tip. Very easy, very cool!

Onion Dome
I saw this really neat technique on a YouTube video, which combines hidden edges with the very handy Scale tool. You can create just one onion-shaped dome . . .

. . . or create a whole Dr. Seuss-looking town.

Star Patterns

This geometric project shows how you can take a single hexagon and make variations on a star pattern. The seamless look comes from hidden or softened edges.

Click here to become a subscriber.

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Monday, August 8, 2011

What's Coming in Our August Projects?

Even if you're spending your last weeks of summer sitting on a beach, I hope you're stilll thinking (in the back of your mind?) about fun things you can do on your computer! After all, it does rain sometimes, even in paradise...

Anyway, for our project subscribers, here's what's coming out next week:

Box of Blocks

In this project, you start with a box with a single block . . .

. . . And use array copies (first-to-last with spaces in between) to figure out how many blocks will fit in the box.

Stained Glass Window

In this project you start with a downloaded image of an arched stained glass window . . .

. . . And import it into SketchUp to use as an actual window (one that you can see through!)

Snowflake Triangles

This is a nice and simple project, based on something I saw at a local museum. You build a symmetric pattern from a set of equilateral triangles . . .

. . . And make rotated copies of that pattern to see the resulting "snowflake." It's pretty neat, since it's not always easy to tell exactly what you're going to get!

You won't regret signing up for our projects - you get 3 projects per month for a year. And it's still just $36 - $1 per project!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

What's Coming in Our July Projects?

It may be summer, and maybe computer work is the last thing on your mind. But what better way to beat the heat than to sit in the comfy air conditioning working on some fun design projects? (Of course, when you're done, get outside and play in the fresh air!)

On July 15, here's what our Project of the Month subscribers will be getting:

Styles from SketchUp Artists

Displaying your models in the default SketchUp style looks decent enough:

But you can make things much more interesting by changing the style. SketchUp provides a few good ones, and you can download awesome styles for free from SketchUp Artists. This projects shows you how.

Crop Circles

Whether or not you think crop circles are man-made or alien creations, they all have very interesting geometry. This project shows how to use SketchUp to create the famous South Field Crop Circle from 2000.

Wavy Text

The 3D Text tool is quite fun, but it only creates text in a straight line. To get letters to curve, you need to project them, and a free plugin can help you make the letters 3D.

Sign up and have some fun! It's still just $36 for 12 months: that's $1 per project. Cheap thrills!

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Monday, June 27, 2011

Have You Heard of Surya Murali?

If you've ever looked for room models in the 3D Warehouse, you've probably heard of Surya. She's a Kuwait-based engineer who designs living spaces as a hobby in her limited spare time, and she's become quite well-known for her fabulous models and interesting, multi-themed designs.

I contacted Surya to ask her permission to use some of her models in our upcoming book on SketchUp and interior design. Happily for us, she agreed. So not only will several of her room models be used by interior design students, one of her renderings will also appear on the book's cover. "Sunshine Living" is the cover model:

We've also created projects based on "Bamboo Bedroom":

"Modern Living for Two":

"Cantania Loungs":

And several others.

Searching the 3D Warehouse for "surya room" will turn up about 30 of her designs, and these don't even include her gorgeous furniture models. Some of her most interesting models were not included in the book, since we had to keep the projects relatively simple, but if you have some time, look around the Warehouse and see what she's done.

When you download one of her room models, you'll see a rendered image, inserted into the model as a graphic. These are done in SU Podium, where Surya added lights, textures, etc.

I was a little surprised to find out Surya isn't a professional interior designer; she's an electrical engineer. It's a rare person who is both technical and creative, and while I can only assume she's a talented engineer, it seems obvious that her sense of space, lighting, color, and layout are quite amazing.

Here's what she emailed to me when I asked about her background:

This design work (including the visualization in 3D) is just some stuff I do as a hobby when I get free time or when I am in the mood for it. And free time is something I haven’t had for a long while now.

I have done a bit of free-lancing works for a few clients from UK & US… I am not a professionally qualified architect or interior designer so I haven’t really ever carried out a project from design board to construction site on my own. Being an electrical engineer, I have a good enough idea of lighting and such stuff but the civil & structural part of my designs are based on common sense and instinct.

This interest in design started quite early as I loved to make room layouts as a child, but the idea of designing whole structures (not just the interiors) came when I had made a design for a bungalow / villa for my folks in India… and they ran the design by a licensed architect and structural engineer. Those guys would not believe that the design was created by someone with no architectural or civil engineering background. Of course, I had drawn in a pillar too many to make sure the structure won't collapse but all in all it was a structurally sound & uniquely pleasing design according to them. That set me rolling though I still prefer doing the interiors of a house (requires less structural work).

I'm grateful that Surya was willing to lend her models to one of my projects, and I hope she continues to create beautiful spaces.

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Sketchy Physics Catapult

Last week I got an email from Geoffrey Winship, a teacher in Toronto, raving about a model created by one of his 13-year old students. I was blown away, and made this video to show what the model does.

You can download this model from the 3D Warehouse by clicking the image below.

To make the catapult work, you need the Sketchy Physics plugin. It's free and can be downloaded here. Once you get the executable file, the plugin should self-install.

Here's what Geoffrey wrote as background:

I just thought I would share another amazing project from one of my students. It is the reason I teach, to be able to watch and share when students learn these remarkable things. I know you are working on something with SketchyPhysics, so I knew you could appreciate this.

As background, I teach Science and Design and Technology in the Toronto District School board and began using SketchUp this year. I gave my grade eight students an assignment of building trebuchets or catapults that would throw small potatoes at bridge models (which were made by my grade seven students). One of the components of the assignment was to produce a set of orthographic and isometric drawings to complement the physical model submission.

Students could use pencil and paper or SketchUp to produce the drawings. A superior submission would make connections or somehow extend the project beyond the original expectations. Here is what my student submitted; a working model, including a hopper to load the balls into the catapult. She included multiple versions with different angles in the catapult for more force or accuracy. She even included text instructions to tell me how to operate it. I am thrilled that she has taken to this medium so naturally and has explored beyond what we have discovered in class.

Her first two languages are Korean and Mandarin, although now she's quite good in English. As for training, it's only what I teach in class and what she's discovered on her own. I introduced SketchUp to my students for the first time this winter, having discovered it myself, just before Christmas. I took some extra time to show her the basics of Sketchy Physics with spheres, blocks, motors, wheels and servos and also some pistons. That probably amounted to about two hours in total, focusing on Sketchy Physics. I also got into the idea of user interface being able to control the speed or strength of the device, but I did not even know the full extent of what the plug-in could do. I don't know how she figured out the keyboard control, but from speaking with her, the ideas for the sphere loader are all her own. She's quite good in all subject areas and she is the recipient of this year's Science award for our school. She was also part of a four-person team that went to the Skills Canada Technology Challenge in Waterloo, Ontario. The team took home a third place medal for Ontario, building a device (using gears, levers, pulleys and wood) that cleared rubble from a model of the shoreline of Japan's earthquake disaster zone.

On a personal note, as a female engineer, I'm so glad this model was created by a girl!

This model has lit a fire under me to get cracking on a Sketchy Physics project book, once I finish the other stuff on my plate (interior design book, updating other books). But it's high on my to-do list!

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Monday, June 6, 2011

What's Coming in Our June Projects?

Sorry for the light blogging lately - the end-of-school period is always entirely too crazy for me. But I have had time to write this month's Projects of the Month, and here they are:

One-Way Window
Imagine one of those police dramas in which the suspect is interrogated in one room, and detectives are watching the interrogation from an adjacent room. From one side the police can see in . . .

. . . but from where the suspect is sitting, the window looks like a harmless travel poster.

This project demonstrates how material translucency works in SketchUp.

Spinning Circles

All you need for this project are the Circle and Rotate tools, and you can create beautiful round and spiral patterns. My favorite is the intricate-looking (but actually rather simple) red and yellow creation on the right!

DNA Part 2

Last month, Part 1 of this project showed how to create the "skeleton" of the two helixes plus the base pairs between them.

Part 2 will show how to transform the skeleton into the 3D model.

Don' worry - if you sign up this month to subscribe, you'll also get Part 1.

The subscription is still just $36 for 12 monthly sets of 3 projects. And these projects make for some great summer reading! You can sign up here.

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Friday, May 20, 2011

Interior Design Book

No, it's not quite ready yet, but the writing is almost finished! We're covering some important ground, which frankly we've never seen in another book on the subject. Here are the chapters:

Model a Room
Furnish a Room
Basic Furniture: Straight Lines
Advanced Furniture: Curvy Lines
Using and Changing 3D Warehouse Models (includes a kitchen design!)
Working with Color and Materials
Working with Digital Images
Presenting Your Designs (layers, scenes, etc.)
Plans and Working Drawings
Third-Party Products (rendering apps, models, other resources)

My co-author, Annie Elliott, recently blogged about the book, including a model she herself has recently created.

Looks promising, no? I'll keep you posted...

Anyone can design anything in 3D! http://www.3dvinci.net/

Friday, May 6, 2011

What's in Our May Projects?

If you're a subscriber to our Projects of the Month, here's what you'll be getting when the projects go out on May 15:

Baseball Diamond

Spring means baseball (at least for those of us in the US), and laying out a baseball field is a great exercise in geometric thinking. Once you know the distance between bases, the radii of the arcs at the bases and pitcher's mound, plus a few more measurements, you can easily create your field.

DNA Helix

A few people have requested this project, and once I got into it, I saw that it was a bit more involved than I expected (it's been a long time since I took a biology class!) So I've broken this into two projects: Part 1 is included in May and Part 2 will go out in June.

Part 1 shows how to create the "skeleton" of the two helixes plus the base pairs between them.