WWI fighter: Pt. 2 - The upper wing

SketchUp was initially an architectural 3D modelling tool, it has only slowly developed the tools to create more organic shapes through several versions.

Above: The upper wing is made of a series of 26 panels of varying shape. Thick at the curved leading edge, they gently slope back to a shallow curve at the trailing edge. Therefore, the majority of panels were slightly different.

The wing sections really tested my knowledge of getting nice curves in SketchUp, and I had to cheat a little and 'clipped' the wing ends as I couldn't think of an easy way to do the rounded tips.

My Flickr album - showing more construction detail - can be found by following this link: Flickr set - Nieuport fighter

WWI fighter: Pt. 1 - The fuselage

It's funny, I feel like a kid again, making an Airfix kit! Except I'm using SketchUp instead of that very messy glue (and small fiddey parts that get lost).

The above picture shows how the SketchUp construction method co-incidently echoed the real construction method of ribs and spars. Having created these ribs I then used the 'stitch curves' Ruby script to fill them in (or 'skin' them).

I chose a World War 1 fight because of it's -relatively - simple construction. I hoped that this would help with my goal of avoiding over complexity. In this case, the model is loosly based on the French Nieuport 17.

Just like making an Airfix kit, I found this process very relaxing. ;)

My Flickr album - showing more construction detail - can be found by following this link: Flickr set - Nieuport fighter

SketchUp basics - fighting over-complexity

One question I get asked is 'why have you so many unfinished projects?'. The simple answer to this is my over-ambitious nature (and the fact that I'm the design equivalent of a 'tinkerer').

No sooner do I take on a new project than my methodical character immediately starts to over-complicate my initial modest goals.

Take my next 'fun' project; I would like to make a fairly simple model of a First World War fighter aircraft. I decided to start with the engine - a Gnome rotary piston engine, pretty common among early allied fighters.

Above: The Gnome rotary. Mmmmmmm - detail! ('Move away from the over-complexity, Beaty!')

However, no sooner had I found a suitable piece of reference, than I started to research how a rotary engine worked. I started gathering more and more highly detailed reference material, trying to find information on each mechanical function and nut and bolt!

Off I go again!

Matching ideal to purpose
Never shy of being hypocritical, I recently told another SketchUp enthusiast that a major part of the planning process for a SketchUp model is deciding on purpose for the model and then matching the relative complexity of the construction to your goal.

Wise words - pity I don't listen to my own advice! :)

Above: A simplified version of the Gnome Rotary. This took me 3 minutes to make - and can't you just tell! I want my complexity back (boo-hoo)! But then again, as this will be hidden under a engine cowl, does it need to be any more detailed?

So I am using my fighter plane project to try and be strict with myself about simplicity of construction, and with a set goal about when I should finish (which will hopefully encourage me not to elaborate).

This is going to hurt! :(

Nice 2D alternative to Google Earth for SketchUp Flickr users

I've started posting up pictures of my SketchUp models on the online photo album site Flickr. While getting to know this site I found a rather nice mapping function that allows you to place your pictures on a zoomable map for others to see.

OK, so it's not 3D like Google Earth is, but Google Earth has it's drawbacks and isn't the answer to everything. A lot of SketchUp enthusiasts use Flickr to show off their work - in 2D - and the simple and elegant integration between your album and the map is rather cool.

In short, you simply choose a picture from your album and click on the 'place this photo on a map' link on the page Flickr page. This takes you to Flickr's interactive world map, and then you just zoom and navigate your way to the location of the picture, and then drag the picture onto the map!

You can build up a series of views of the location by dragging additional pictures onto the same spot. In this way - and unlike Google Earth - you can have a mixture of shots of your SketchUp model and real photographs of the location.

Terrific!

Here's a link to my Scarborough Campus model on the Flickr map: Click on the pink dot next to the A165 to see my Scarborough Campus model

Scarborough campus: Roof on - level 1 complete

Completed the first level of the Scarborough campus model today. But more importantly I finished the troublesome roof. ;)

SketchUp websphere: Schlunzi's proposed extension

My proposed extension
Originally uploaded by schlunzi.

Came across the Flickr 'Google SketchUp Y'all!' group today. A community of SketchUp users who publish their work on Flickr.

Among the collected work was this superb model by Schulunzi, part of a series about the conversion of his real home!

Scarborough campus: raising the first level

As discussed in an earlier post - Campus geography - this SketchUp model of the Scaborough Campus is on three distinct levels. Today I raised the first level of the model in order to start the second level - the I.T. block.

Above: The red arrow marks the new base level of the model. This is the 'bridge'
between the Theatre and I.T. block.

The above picture shows - I hope - how I have raised the first block of the campus up (about 1.5 meters in actual scale). But, as usual, this wasn't without problems - as I couldn't seem to get the building to move up properly using the move tool on my Mac.

I solved the problem in the end - as you can read in this thread on the SketchUp Help forum - but I have some misgivings about the coordinate entry function on the Mac version of SketchUp. I will report more on this if I can understand what is going wrong.

Mobile recording studio SketchUp project

Came across this today, and it just wow'd me! Tom is converting his RV (camper van to we Brits) to house a mobile recording studio!

He is using SketchUp to design the interior, the placement of equipment and furnishings. What a fantastic project, best of luck Tom.

Follow Tom;s progress on his journal thread at www.gearslutz.com board: Tom's mobile unit build diary

Scarborough campus - problem roof

Building a SketchUp model from photos of a building is great - when you can get shots of all the angles. But I have a sticky problem, I just can't tell from the source photos I have what is going on on that darn roof! LOL

The problem is that there has been so many ad hoc building 'improvements' done to the building over the years that the place is now a bit of a rabbit warren. No more so that the roof - which is a jumble of extensions and modifications.

At the moment my model has a large hole in the main roof, and while I did find a top-down aerial photo, it seems to make things more confusing!

Can you make out what's going on? I can't LOL

Unfortunately, for heath and safty reasons I am not permitted to go up to the roof and simply take some reference photos (the easiest solution). So, I am left with the option of 'winging it', making my best guess from the reference material I have.

SketchUp class online work journals

Quite by accident I found what appears to be a college or university SketchUp assignment online. What makes this extremely interesting for the SketchUp enthusiast like myself is that there isn't just one of these assignment blogs, rather it looks like the whole class has to document thier lessons using a blog as an online work journal.

Above: SketchUp Section Perspective - credit: Kody Nathe

I wish I knew what college or university these bloggers belonged to, and what course they were doing (I presume, naturally, it's a architecture course of some sort).

But what really gets me excited - I'm easily excited! - is that they are using SketchUp in combination with my other favourite graphics package, Adobe Illustrator.

Above: Illustrator Section Perspective - credit: Kody Nathe

Check out some of the assignments:

• Kody Nathe - Assignment 3 - Focus on Section Perspective
• Eugene Locals - Perspective Section
• Molly Petersen - Isometric for subtraction
• Erin - Assignment 3
• 21 Jump St. - Spatial Variations

The last one - 21 Jump St. - is particularly interesting as it relates an assignment brief. The class were provided with a 'kit' of 2D part and then had to create a 3D model out of them in SketchUp!

Some of the 'old stuff' - my first models

Until I sort the old blog out, here's some of my first SketchUp models which I've uploaded as 2D images to my Flickr Album

Scarborough campus: Google Earth problem

I mentioned in my introduction to this SketchUp project based on the Scarborough campus of The University of Hull that I wanted to place the finished model in Google Earth. However, I immediately hit a little snag in my plans…

Above: Scarborough, according to Google Earth! Oh dear, God has smudged us!

It seems that Google Earth does not hold high resolution satellite photography of ALL terrain on earth (maybe we are asking too much!). Certain – less important? –provincial locations, like Scarborough, are only illustrated by low resolution photography which cannot be zoomed in on at the same quality of magnification as a major city.

Above: By contrast, this Google Earth picture is a shot taken above our Hull campus. Far more detail and resolution - I could actually zoom in far closer than this, but I think this proves the point.

A quick check at the SketchUp help board confirmed that this is a known problem which several people have come a cropper with. But the up side of this is that these clever folk have worked out a solution.

It’s deceptively simple really, as what you do is overly a higher resolution photo of your desired terrain on top of the blurry Google Earth version.

The tricky part is finding that higher resolution aerial photography of your location. In my case I managed to find a company – Getmapping.com – who specialise in high altitude aerial photography of the UK. Unfortunately this is a paid for service, and not cheap.

Later on, when I complete my model I will illustrate how this process works exactly, but hopefully this information will be of some use to you if you have the same problem.

Other UK based aerial photography sites:

• Geostore.com - cheaper and easier to use than Getmapping.com
• UKAerialPhotos.com - nice range, including historical archieve!
  
• AerSpective.com - not aerial, but mast photography
  

'Go-2-School' - SketchUp video tutorials

Came across an excellent tutorial resource for SketchUp yesterday. Called 'Go-2-School' it is a series of Video podcasts (Vodcasts) which cover the beginner to intermediate skill sets in SketchUp useage (though I should add that they supply training DVDs too, one of a more advanced level).

What really caught my eye was the 'fresh' presentation done by 'Mike' - I've endured some really dreary video tutorials in my time (I'm subscribed to VTC), but these weren't among them.

The presentation style is very personable, and even included a few little 'bloopers' (quickly corrected) that just made me feel more comfortable with the whole process (there's a good level of humour in there too).

So, check this site out guys - and if you find it useful, please leave them some feedback on thier forum. They really deserve to be encouraged.

Note: These tutorials are in the QuickTime format - if you do not have the Apple QuickTime plug-in - then get it old bean! :)

Link to 'Go-2-School': http://go-2-school.com/podcasts

Marketing my blog - Technorati

This is a little 'off topic' I know, but a very big part of running a blog - about any subject - is getting people to know about it!

Since the very unfortunate series of events which led to the demise of 'Electric Draughtsman' version 1, all the initial marketing I did for this blog has been compromised. So now I have to start again.

The first stop I recommend to any of you who may be blogging too is TECHNORATI - I can't stress how important this site is. I recently took part in a 'Blogging for universities' conference by the British Chartered Institute for Public Relations (CIPR) - and Technorati was thier number one recommended blog registration/search/directory resource.

Part of this registration process is the placing of a small link to Technorati in a post on your blog (which is the real reason for this post!). So here it is...

Technorati Profile

In due course, I will expand this post to include other blog directories that I use.

Steam tank: The story so far...

One of the last Steampunk models I was working on on the old blog was my concept of a steam tank. It was a bit of a tricky project as I was inspired by the crabfu.com website and their work, which promoted the realistic depiction of the steam process in Steampunk artwork (see: 'How to draw Steampunk machines')

I quickly realised that I had probably bitten off more than I can chew - as I am not an engineer or mechanically minded at all. So I had a lot of trouble modelling the steam engine, as you can see from the following screen shots from SketchUp.

However, I am looking at this project once again, in the hope to finish this model as I love Steampunk machines.

Scarborough Campus part 3 - geography

Never having had to build geography in SketchUp before I perhaps got a little more stressed about it than I needed to! Especially as the geography for this model is relatively simple - just three shallow inclines.

As you can see from the above simple diagram, the campus sits on three 'steps'. Unfortunately, my mind-set imagined that I would have to build my virtual model as I would a physical model - from the ground up! This meant - in simple terms - building the buildings around the ground, as a builder would (if you see what I mean).

However, once I thought about it - what would be simpler would be for me to build the land around the buildings!

I would begin by making each of the three levels of buildings on a flat plane in SketchUp - then raise each section up before building the next section on it's own plane (see below).

So, I build the main block, then raise it to it's final elevation, then the next block and so on. Finally, I would create the ground around these buildings - much easier!

Complexity of model...
My next decision would be about how complex to make the model (level of detail).

Because the output for this model would be for print and small scale on a webpage I could not include too much detail. Detail at this scale would just merge together and become a messy 'blob'. So furniture like doorframes and windowframes were 'out' - as they just would not help in what is a 'map' of general locations on campus.

The above picture show just how much detail I will be ommitting - quite a lot! But this is neccessary in order to produce a crisp, uncluttered and easily readable diagram of the campus. However, these simplified models make a good basis for more complex and detailed models, should I decide to elaborate later on.

Finally, my progress so far...

Next: Hopefully I will be able to show you two of the sections in thier 'elevated' position.

Scarborough Campus model: Part 2

I was going to start the diarama for my Scarborough Campus model, but I just wanted to clarify how I quickly 'guestimated' dimensions (mainly because I have been spending a lot of time time today converting my measurements).

Here's a photo of the area of the front of the main building that I'm using as my key sample measurement. In particular, I am concentrating on the bay window sections.

And here's a scan of my rough sketch I did on the day - all initial dimension done in 'BW' (brick width) and 'BH' (brick height), in other words, the number of bricks that make up particular sections of the building.

Finally, I created my first 'building block' in SketchUp based on my brick measurements. This, and a half dozen other 'key' measurements from around the site, will be my measuring rules by which I will infer the respective dimensions of the rest of the buildings on the campsus.

Above: This building block will in turn be used as a measuring stick by which I will create the rest of the building. And, in turn, this finished building will be used to produce the relative measurements for the building next to it, and so on and so forth.

So, for example, the width of the bay window was 10 bricks. Using the guide from my last post - this equates to 1o x 215mm, with 8 gaps (morter) of 10mm each = 2230mm.

This might all seem a little hit and miss, but it suits the needs of my brief which is to produce an illustrative and not an archetectural model of the campus.

Next: The diarama. My very first attempt to model geography.

Sketchup: A new beginning!

Right, started a new Sketchup project today, so it’s a good time to kick-start ‘Electric Draughtsman’ again!

The reason I’ve been holding off – apart from the scarcity of Sketchup projects recently – is that this new project is an excellent opportunity to document an architectural Sketchup model from start to finish.

THE BRIEF
Having already created a Sketchup model of our main university campus, I have been tasked to create a 3D model of our Scarborough campus. This is a much smaller campus, but has a very interesting and picturesque main building and on-site student accommodation halls.

Additionally, an interesting twist is that I will be attempting to prepare this model with ‘Google Earth’ integration in mind.

FIRST STEPS
As with my last architectural project, my first steps in preparation are to do a photographic site survey. These reference photos back up any architectural drawings or schematics I have managed to gather.

NOTE: I use Sketchup NOT as an architectural CAD. My models ARE NOT completely accurate. I use Sketchup just as it’s name implies – as a ‘sketching’ tool, but in 3D rather than 2D. Sketchup’s greatest strength is it's ability to create a quick ‘IMPRESSION’ of an architectural original.

As a graphic designer, I often simplify pictures in order to make them CLEARER and easier to ‘read’. Other purposes might demand other strategies.

Another reason I base my models on – principally – photographic reference rather than CAD drawings is that, on a rambling institution like a university there is almost always redevelopment and ‘improvements’ being made, at the behest of individual departments. This sometimes is not reflected back in the centrally held architectural drawings! Or drawings may be slightly out-or-date.

INITIAL SURVEY
I find what floorplans I can – mainly for orientation – then I survey the campus, taking descriptive shots of architectural details. I take ROUGH measurement of the KEY characteristics of a building using the ‘brick count’ method (see bellow), as often I have to work alone so using a long rule is no good to me.

Above: The 'brick count' method of quick measurement. Thanks to the modular system used in modern brickwork, a fairly accurate measurement of buildings can be made from counting the bricks which make up a wall. Thereafter, you can infer the measurements of other dimensions based on this sample.
Picture credit: A.J. McCormack & Son, http://www.pavingexpert.com/

This sample measurement allows me to INFER relative dimensions for my model, just as I would were I doing a pencil sketch of a building! (As an artist I don’t actually measure with a ruler a subject to determine dimensions – I use rule of thumb, then make judgements about other dimensions based on my sample. In other words, I approximate.)

Obviously, you have to make decisions about how accurate YOUR Sketchup project is going to be – but if, like me, your model is for ILLUSTRATIVE purposes only, you might find my method useful.

PART TWO: In part two of this series I will make decisions about the level of complexity and style of my model and also start to build a 3D diorama to sit my model on.