My Reaction to, “Revit is Too Limiting for Conceptual Design Work.”
Feb 13, 2009 3DS MAX, AutoCAD, BIM, Commentary, Revit, SketchUp, latest
I was asked this question in my class last night as I delayed starting in an effort to convince my students that Revit was the most important next thing for them to learn. The quick answer is, “just wait until Revit Architecture 2010. Things are about to get a lot more interesting.” The long answer is this, however, “so don’t use it for conceptual design work.” Autodesk owns enough software that it won’t be insulted if you use one piece of its software for one thing and another of something else. That being said, if you want to use non-Autodesk software, use it! We need to remember that the end goal here is good design and not loyal software use. When I was in grad school we had several computer labs whose workstations has differing specs. My department’s IT staff would continually say, “the right tool for the right job.” In other words, don’t use the fastest, most powerful computer in the school to write a document in Microsoft Word. In a recent meeting of Revit specialists, this concept was agreed upon, but one other point was added: all data must end in Revit.“ The reason for this, which I also agree with, is that Revit can calculate, quantify, coordinate and document. It’s relatively easy to bring data from most other pieces of software into Revit. In fact, SketchUp, for example, can be brought into Revit in it’s native form (ie. it requires no conversion). When I’m working, I like to think of what I’m using as a simple piece of software called, “Design.” It happens to have all of the individual pieces of software I use within it (Revit, AutoCAD, 3DS MAX, SketchUp, etc.) and they all have their own windows and icons. As an example, I often tell my students that 3DS MAX is not a drafting program. If you need to draw a two-dimensional shape with a high level of accuracy, and you’re familiar with AutoCAD, draw the shape there and bring it in. With an end goal of good design, use software that does two specific things, (1) offers you sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, tools that stimulate your creative juices and help you advance your design process efficiently and, (2) allows you to organize, analyze and document your data for easy recall and presentation.
What do you think?
Getting SketchUp Models into Google Earth
Dec 24, 2008 Google Earth, SketchUp
Since, I believe, SketchUp 5, a Get Current View (from Google Earth) button was available to import an image of what was currently in view within Google Earth. Since then, the same feature has been built in to plugins for both AutoCAD and Revit. In this post, however, I’m going to show how to bring a Google Earth image into SketchUp, model on top of it, and then export it back. A question I get often is whether or not everyone in the world can see the models you’re importing. The answer is no, however if you’ve made models that you’d like to share with the world, you can use Google’s 3D Warehouse (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/). Anyway, let’s begin:
1. In Google Earth, find the location the you want to build on.
2. Once you’re zoomed into it, you’ll need to be looking at it perfectly straight on as well as have North pointing up. Middle-mouse click within the view and drag you mouse upward until the view stops moving.
3. To the top-right of the window, you’ll see an “N” surrounding the compass icon: 
. This will cause North to point straight up.
4. Back in SketchUp, on the top toolbar, click the Get Current View icon: 
.
After a short time (and the appearance of a progress bar), the image will be imported into SketchUp. This image, however, is no ordinary image. It’s got both geographical as well as elevational data. You’ll see shortly the geographical data when we bring a model back to SketchUp. If you click the Toggle Terrain icon: 
. The flat image will go from what you see in the first image below, to what you see in the second one:
Flat Image
3D Image
So now that we’ve got our image in SketchUp, let’s build on it and export it back to Google Earth (to make life easier, click the Toggle Terrain button again to flatten the model).
5. Within SketchUp, construct your model directly on the building within the image from Google Earth:
6. Once you’re done, on the top toolbar, click the Place Model icon: 
.
Google Earth will come into focus and zoom into the region where the model is located:
If you change the model in SketchUp, simply click the Place Model icon again and, within Google Earth, you’ll be asked if you want to reload the model. Click Yes. I should just mention again, while this feature is built into SketchUp, you’ll have to download the plugin for both AutoCAD and Revit.
Tags: Google Earth, SketchUp
