New forum for you Dave R!

[TrimTheKing]

Here you go chaps, I had a few mins spare so created the SketchUp forum as we seem to be getting busier in that space.

I will look to move the other related posts over here when I has a few mins, but from now on this is the place to put your SketchUp and CAD/Design related threads.

Fairly sure the permissions are all correct but please let me know if you find anything awry...

Cheers
Mark

 

[Dave R]

Hi Mark. Thanks for this. I hope others will participate, too.

 

[TrimTheKing]

No worries Dave, have no fear, I will be in here regularly!

Let me kick on off for starters, I am in the process of putting together a planning application for a new workshop and one of the things I want to put in there is a SketchUp version of the site plan, showing all the trees and planting that will obscure the building. Do you have a location or resource for (ideally) free downloads of bushes, trees, shrubs, hedges etc?

In the first instance I need a 16ft high Christmas tree (yes I have one growing in my garden), some bamboo, various mediterranean plants and general shrubbery.

Secondly, I also need to start planning how the heel I am going to arrange the workshop and I've seen lots of people's designs showing SketchUp models of workshop machinery, table saws, bandsaws etc. Any idea where I can easily purloin some of those rather than having to measure and draw them up myself?

Cheers
Mark

 

[Dave R]

Good question, Mark.

the first place to start would be the 3D Warehouse. You'll probably find most everything you're after. Open SketchUp and go to Window>Components. There's a search line where you can type in what you want to see. Click on the desired thumbnail and it will download into SketchUp. You'll place by clicking the cursor where you need the thing to be.

One word of caution, anyone can upload SketchUp models to the 3D Warehouse so you will find varying qualities of modeling. You may find for the shop layout planning, that it works out better to download components into separate files, spend some time cleaning them up and then importing them into your shop model. The time spent up front will likely save you trouble and frustration later. Frankly, I rarely use models from the 3D Warehouse because invariably the things I'm looking for are so poorly drawn that they aren't usable for my purposes and it is easier for me to draw what I need than to fix the problems someone else created. But you should look for yourself.

One thing to consider for your shop layout is that there's little benefit in having highly detailed models of the tools. You can greatly simplify tools to very basic shapes. You might want to consider including infeed and outfeed zones and the like for the various machines. You may find that helpful.

 

[Robert]

I use 3D warehouse quite a lot for quickly putting items into a drawing to see what it would look like.

As Dave says they vary a lot. If there are a few similar looking ones I pick one of the smaller file size versions as some can be huge. Add a few 5Mb objects and things start to slow down.

Once the item is in your drawing select it and use the scale tool to size it to match what you want as downloaded items are never the right size. I often do a quick edit to delete bits I don't want. Still saves a lot of time.

Open SketchUp and go to Window>Components. There's a search line where you can type in what you want to see.

I never knew that search was there as well! Are the results different to just going File > 3DWarehouse > Get Models ?

 

[TrimTheKing]

Thanks chaps. That might work, I am really just trying to save myself some time in having to measure and draw out my own kit. Was really just looking for a visual representation of a table saw that I can scale to the size of mine and place in the model just for the purposes of planning layout, so detail isn't really that important.

I did think about just getting the measurements of mine and creating some very basic box shapes to represent, but again this takes time that I am short of so for now the path of least resistance is the most attractive to me.

Will give the 3D Warehouse a look and see what I can find.

Cheers
Mark

 

[RogerS]

One thing you can also do which might help, Mark, is to take an actual photo of your house and garden etc and then insert into that photo the SU drawing of your outbuilding.

 

[Dave R]

I never knew that search was there as well! Are the results different to just going File > 3DWarehouse > Get Models ?

No. The results should be the same. I always have the Components window available and I rarely have that toolbar displayed so for me it is easier to do it the way I described. The one downside is you don't get to see the file size. At least with Get Models you should see that and it may be helpful for avoiding those large file sizes.

Depending on what you need and find, Mark, you may find that it takes less time to measure and draw simple boxes for your tools than it does to make components you download from the warehouse usable.

 

[TrimTheKing]

One thing you can also do which might help, Mark, is to take an actual photo of your house and garden etc and then insert into that photo the SU drawing of your outbuilding.

Ooooooh, I didn't know you could do that!!!! How????? Please!!!!

That would be absolutely perfect for something I am trying to do for my planning application!

Cheers
Mark

 

[TrimTheKing]

Depending on what you need and find, Mark, you may find that it takes less time to measure and draw simple boxes for your tools than it does to make components you download from the warehouse usable.

Okay thanks Dave. Will give it a 5 minute look then if there's nothing obvious then will go down that route. This is, in the first instance, purely about gauging space , the detail can follow.

Cheers
Mark

 

[RogerS]

One thing you can also do which might help, Mark, is to take an actual photo of your house and garden etc and then insert into that photo the SU drawing of your outbuilding.

Ooooooh, I didn't know you could do that!!!! How????? Please!!!!

That would be absolutely perfect for something I am trying to do for my planning application!

Cheers
Mark

I'm afraid you were going to ask me that! I hope that DaveR can answer that far better than I can. It's highly likely that he may have already covered it in his blog.

I also seem to remember that you can stick down a tree of a defined height and known geographic location (long/lat) and then watch how the suns shadows affect the surroundings as the year progresses.

 

[RogerS]

.....
Depending on what you need and find, Mark, you may find that it takes less time to measure and draw simple boxes for your tools than it does to make components you download from the warehouse usable.

+1 I could never understand the need for wee graphics of machines when working out workshop layouts.

 

[TrimTheKing]

One thing you can also do which might help, Mark, is to take an actual photo of your house and garden etc and then insert into that photo the SU drawing of your outbuilding.

Ooooooh, I didn't know you could do that!!!! How????? Please!!!!

That would be absolutely perfect for something I am trying to do for my planning application!

Cheers
Mark

I'm afraid you were going to ask me that! I hope that DaveR can answer that far better than I can. It's highly likely that he may have already covered it in his blog.

I also seem to remember that you can stick down a tree of a defined height and known geographic location (long/lat) and then watch how the suns shadows affect the surroundings as the year progresses.

Ideally what I would love to be able to do is take photos from various places along the road, from the fields, neighbours gardens etc and drop my proposed sketchup graphic for the workshop into them so as to prove to the planners that there is plenty of screening to mean that visual impact will be minimum. This is all in a bid to try and get the most comprehensive planning application I can to see if I can get it through t the first attempt.

If someone could show me how to do that then I will create a religion in your name and sacrifice many beers to your name!

Cheers
Mark

 

[Dave R]

You could do that in several ways. I would probably take the photos from points you can identify in Google Earth. Then edit the photos in an image editor so the areas that wouldn't be masked by trees and other plants is transparent. Then I would insert those as images (as opposed to textures) into SketchUp in the appropriate locations. You can insert an image from Google Maps onto which you can add the shop building and other structures. It'll also give you guidance for placing the photos you've taken.

Depending on what shows in the images, you might be able to use Match Photo, too, but without straight lines to use for setting things up, it would be difficult to get everything matched up.

No need to create a religion but you could buy me a pint when I show up on your door step.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Thanks Dave

I was hoping to be able to do something just using SketchUp, given my utter lack of anything resembling abilities in Photoshop…

You can insert an image from Google Maps onto which you can add the shop building and other structures. It'll also give you guidance for placing the photos you've taken.

So where would I start with that then?

Cheers
Mark

 

[Dave R]

Mark, as far as inserting the imagery from Google Maps, you can either enable the Google toolbar or go to the File menu and click on Add Location. Navigate to your property, choose Select Region in the upper right corner, drag the corners to adjust the area you'll cover and click on Grab. Then wait a moment and the image will be placed into SketchUp. If you don't see the image, set the face style to Shaded with Textures.

If you can wait until I get home from work, I'd be happy to demonstrate this for you live. It'll probably be around 10-ish your time.

As for editing your photos, I guess you could do it in SketchUp by importing the images as a textures, applying them to faces and then trace round the edges so you can delete the sky and distant background. Ultimately you'll end up with flats with the trees "painted" on them. It would be a little bit like scenery in a stage play.

 

[Dave R]

Here's a couple of cutout examples. There were both done by tracing around the bit I wanted to keep and deleting the rest.


You might recognize this one.


This was our family's Xmas card a few years ago. I took a photo of my son and traced round him in SketchUp to make him look like a paper doll.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Hi Dave

THat would be great if you could. Maybe i could even end you the location and skp's I've done thus far and you could demo for me in one of those?

I'll try and have a play with it myself once I've got the kids in bed, which will be around 8pm, so a couple of hours to see if I can work something up before you are free.

Thanking you
Mark