Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Architectural Design with SketchUp
You can now rotate this shape onto the ground plane and switch your view to a parallel
projection from the top. At this point, you are ready to print the unfolded shape scaled and
use it as a template for cutting the shape out of, for example, sheet metal.
After you perform this process with different shaped surfaces, you will notice that some
surfaces can be easily unrolled (as in our example) while some others cannot. A surface that
is unrollable is generally called a developable surface. Examples are cylinders, cones, and any
ruled surface that was derived using a line. Double-curved surfaces (like the shells shown earlier
in this chapter) cannot (easily) be unrolled using this method. You may be able to unroll
them in strips, though.
Plugins for Data Integration and Exchange
Cloud
By D. Bur—Free [3]
You can import x, y, z coordinates into SketchUp from a text file using this plugin. Coordinates
get added as construction points, and the resulting point cloud can be triangulated after
import (to create a surface). This can be useful, for example, if you have LIDAR laser-scanned
point data that you want to use as a basis for building modeling. Be careful with LIDAR data,
though, as this plugin slows down with a too large number of data points.
As a bonus, existing vertices (edge points) of any highlighted geometry can be exported
to a CSV file.
A commercial plugin, Pointools, claims to be able to handle large numbers of LIDAR
data points easier in SketchUp. (Free evaluation, $1350 for full plugin [www.pointools.com].)
TIP
If you want to process LIDAR data files (that typically come in the native LAS format) for
use with SketchUp (as x, y, z formatted CSV files), then the freely available LAStools software
might be of help:
www.lastools.org
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