3d art

Thiel Chapel
© Desmone & Associates Architects
Go global with
Google Earth
Being part of the Google family means that
SketchUp integrates happily with Google Earth,
allowing you to utilise a world of data into your
own projects. Architect Lewis Wadsworth
explains that the combination is “very useful
for conceptual work. It’s simple to import a bit
of the virtual globe, terrain and satellite-photo
texture into SketchUp, if I don’t have enough
survey information for a project or if I need a
site model fast.”
Wadsworth made use of Google Earth on a
project he calls Stormhouse, which won the
2009 BSA Unbuilt Architecture Award. As a
structure located on Deception Island, just off
the coast of Antarctica, Wadsworth obviously
couldn’t visit himself and “could only find some
dated surveys of the site, so the immediate
local terrain you see in the rendering is in fact
largely imported from Google Earth into
SketchUp.” Alternatively, as with 3D
Warehouse, you can turn your hand to a bit of
geo-modelling, and use SketchUp to create
elements to be included in Google Earth. The
world is your oyster after all…
edges, and bang, you get a surface! Hit that
surface with the Push-Pull tool and you turn it into
a volume… Draw an edge on a surface in
SketchUp and it splits it into two surfaces… Push
two objects up against each other and they
become one object.”
Argentine Ricardo Cossoli is a partner in Three
Dimensions (http://threedimensionsarg.
blogspot.com), a company set up in 2008 to
provide high-end architectural images for real
Larger projects always start with SketchUp,
are pushed to SketchUp’s polygon limitations,
and are then taken into a program like 3ds Max
to add some of the more CPU-intensive items
such as vegetation, cars and high-poly items
Stormhouse
© Lewis Wadsworth
estate and construction. He is a big fan of
SketchUp too, and says, “We always try to make
the best quality images possible, regardless of the
size of the project, whether a small cottage or a
large apartment building… and we use SketchUp
for everything from design to modelling an entire
project, not using any other modelling program.”
Using SketchUp end-to-end isn’t an option for
everyone though, and many companies and
individuals use it as one component part in their
workflow. For instance, Adam Warner, a freelance
Palazetto
© Lewis Wadsworth
designer who
specialises in
architectural
illustration, explains, “Larger projects always start
with SketchUp, are pushed to SketchUp’s polygon
limitations, and are then taken into a program like
3ds Max to add some of the more CPU-intensive
items such as vegetation, cars and other highpoly-count
items. At times, I also use Rhino to
make more organic-looking elements.”
So why is SketchUp so loved, given that most of
its users admit that they have to use other
programs as well to get their work done? Greg
McHugh, from a home furnishings and interior
design firm in Washington state (www.ksfhome.
com), says simply: “I hate changing software – but
the first date with SketchUp won me over. It was
so easy to learn and very intuitive.” Tim Sloat,
senior designer at Lowney Architecture, tells a
similar story: “We began playing with it four years
ago when looking for an alternative to Revit’s
clunky concept design tools and it quickly became
the concept and schematic design tool of choice.”
But simplicity alone is not enough to account
for the app’s success. As Wadsworth notes,
SketchUp backs this up with “a sort of intelligent
second-guessing. The application only presents
you with the tools that are applicable to the job at
hand.” And of course, in a depressed economy,
ease of use equals speed of use, which means it
160