Solid color, by AR:2

 Osman Insurance by AR:2

M199 by AR:2

Commercial Road by AR:2 

I believe you and I like to use solid color for your SketchUp model, as opposed to mono tone mentioned in early post, this is good especially when you have material idea in your mind during the design process. Here are some samples designed by Australian architect AR:2, their design is contemporary, clean and bold.

Also visit their website for other related projects built by SketchUp.

Images © AR:2

Mono tone, by PHAB architects

Camp Hill Residence, Brisbane

Bardon Residence 2, Brisbane

Bardon Residence 2, Brisbane

Windsor Residence, Brisbane

Here are the few beautiful single house projects by Australian firm PHAB architects, they are presented in mono-tone, this method is most of architects' preferred presentation style in conceptual stage for formal expression. If you noticed, there are a wire frame next to the objects, it is good that if you wish to show its surrounding situation in relation with your house, while still keep the house as the main focus point in the drawing.

Some designers build white base for surrounding (which is in white solid), if your house design has striking color, then you can go ahead with this contrast method. Otherwise you will lose the design.

Hope this helpful.

Images © PHAB architects

Water color effect, by Heterarchy Ltd

If you get bored of the SketchUp default effects, you can try this sketchy yet presentable effect by Heterarchy Ltd, it looks like watercolor effect, very soft, and feeling comfortable.

You can achieve it in 2 ways, either going to built-in plugin where is available from the top menu in window > styles >, there are few options that you can play with, and of course it is able to edit to your preferences, but some mapping you may need to do it in photoshop.

Or

Touch-up in photoshop after exporting from your SketchUp, you may need some photoshop skills.

For me, I would prefer using built-in effect because it would save you a lot of time in photoshop if you have a lot of images to present, however, if you only have few nice images to show, please do not hesitate to do it in photoshop, it is a very powerful tools to enhance your presentation style and overall effect.

Have fun!

Images © Heterarchy Ltd
via

How to divide a line or arc into equal segments?

It is so embarrassed telling the truth here, although I have been using sketchUp for quite a long time, but recently just noticed that it's a very useful command, which is to divide a line or arc into equal segments.

So, from now on, I can throw my calculator away from and desk and say bye bye.

Here is the demonstration step by step. Let's feel free to test it out.

1. First, you need to right click on the line or arc to display the menu (blue arrow, click on the "divide"), 
2. you will see some red-spots, moving left-right or key in the number of segments you would like to have.
3. Draw lines to split the surface.

That's it, easy huh...

MAGLIN sketchUp outdoor furniture components

Well, let's talk about real product designs which are available in the market, sometimes when you put some of sketchUp components to your design model, would you be experienced being asked by your client how to get that products? Then how was your answer? "opps, I get those from component library, but I might try to get the similar product for you" or "......" I think this gonna be your answer?

But now, I recently discovered one of the outdoor furniture design & manufacturer in USA & CANADA - MAGLIN SITE FURNITURE INC. MAGLIN supply outdoor furniture ranging from Ash Receptacles, Trash Containers, Recycle Units, Benches, Bike Racks, Bollards, Cluster Seating, Planters, Patio Enclosures to Signage. All of these products are available in sketchUp component for you to download. 

You can register Now to gain immediate access to Maglin's CAD, PDF, SketchUp files and instant quotes.

Please click here to the MAGLIN website.

Presentation style by Irishplans.com

Recently when I browsed through the internet, I've found this interesting website irishplans.com which produce and present their design mostly in SketchUp. Some are touch up with photoshop in the final design process. They are sketchy and presentable.

Images © irishplans.com

Sketch up video: How to create for Google Earth 3D modeling

How to create for Google Earth 3D modeling... I believe some of you are expert in modeling sketch up for Google Earth, but some are not, if you are the one who is new to this field, please click the link for your practice.

Besides, in Google sketch up tutorial site, it ranges from basic to advanced topic, which include,

1) Beginner
2) Intermediate level
3) Expert level
4) Working with Google earth
4) Creating layout for presentation

How to draw egg in Sketch up?

"How to draw an egg?" is an interesting question that I received recently, I've done a demonstration and post it here to help those don't know how to draw an egg in sketchup.

First, you need to draw an 2D egg shape by using "arc" tool, then draw a circle which control the size of the egg, put it at the center of egg shape. Now you can use the "follow me" command to build your egg.

Have fun!

Sketchy effect, by BEHNISCH archietcts

Anting New Town Sports Complex

Millenium Biologix - Headquarters & Research Facilities

I like Behnisch archietcts's presentation style, because the way they present their works is very clean and sketchy.

Millenium Biologix proposal, one of the Sketchy model, the effect can be achieved by extending the edge lines which can be set in the 'Edge style - extension' option.

Images © Behnisch archietcts

SketchUp component compatibility

"I am using sketchup 4, but most of the components in Google warehouse are in sketchup 6 version, it would be appreciated if you send me the sketchUp 4 version component to my email xxx@gmail.com."

"where can I get older version of sketch Up component?"

"I am very hard to find sketch Up 4 components from internet, can you send me some link to refer? thanks so much."

Recently I've received a lot of queries of the sketchup component compatibility, we know after Google bought over the sketch up software, it seems to us a frequent launching 3D software, a lot of older version user, cant really find a suitable component.

Today, I just wanna have a post of helping you guys for the component compatibility issue. I have always featured the Google 3D warehouse in my previous post, no worries, lets see the picture below, what do you think?



yea... you are right, if you are sketch up 3, 4 or 5 users, please go the google sketch Up page to download a free sketchup 6 or 7, then you can open the component in where you have downloaded from if the component is not in 4 version, and save it as [sketch up 3] , [sketch up 4] or [sketch up 5], it depends on what kind of version you are currently using. Done! you can now insert your saved component to your older sketchup version. Easy, isn't it?

please click here to download a latest sketch up version.

SketchUp video tutorial

As promised, I've found additional SketchUp tutorial videos. I think these SketchUp tutorial videos are very helpful for those are new to SketchUp. The tutorial video featuring how to apply the texture to the model, how the components work, how to create terrains from contour, how to build model from a photo and etc.

Please click here for more your enjoyment.

SketchUp garden design

I've just have a quick study of designing a home garden landscape design by testing the various size of concrete pieces in relation with concrete seating (white color).

Some has emailed me regarding first time using 3 dimensional program. If you're wanna do your own home garden design, I'll suggest you using sketchup, it is friendly user, free and available from google SketchUp. Once you've known the basic tools> draw, pull, turn, move, copy..etc, you'll be soon get closer to the SketchUp.

Here is a video tutorial for those are new to sketchUp. Let's enjoy!



Need more? Please check it out our tutorial page or to google sketchUp official page for more sketchUp tutorial information.

Clean presentation style in Sketchup, by Pott architects

This is an art campus design proposal in berlin, designed by Pott architects. I personally like this kind of presentation style as it is simple, nice and straight forward, no any unnecessary work required that spending time in full rendering. The design and images are copyrighted to Pott architects.

Google SketchUp 7 has launched with new feature!

Further to sketch up pro 6, the Google Sketchup 7 has released! You can take a look at What's New in 7 page and also download for free available for Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X (10.4+).

There are some special new features that I would like to highlight in Sketchup 7 are as below,

You can draw a free-line polyline to create a irregular shape of form, you can even edit the line with a path edit command.

Beside polyline, there are no more stretching and distortion when you Scaling an object.




Here are some videos of Sketchup 7 demonstrating the new feature in SketchUp 7 version.







Official Google Blog: Introducing SketchUp 7

Soap Skin & Bubble, Tensile Structures for Sketchup

Archdaily has a post regarding how the sketchup does the flexible form, for instance, before, we can actually only use sketch up to build simple form, but NOW...Tensile-structures has launched a plug-in associated with sketchup that enable the program to build a better and flexible form as samples below.

You can go the their website to download the sketch up plug-in for free! and also the video tutorials and demonstration all are available in YOUTUBE.

Tensile Structures for Sketchup (image © http://www.tensile-structures.de)

Soap Skin & Bubble (image © http://www.tensile-structures.de)