sketchUcation

Chaos Group LLC in Baltimore, Maryland, USA is now hiring

SketchUp Modeling and Rendering Artist:
Chaos Group is looking for an experienced SketchUp modeler and rendering artist to join our team in Baltimore, Maryland. This person will test current development software, provide technical assistance, promote, demonstrate, and encourage V-Ray for SketchUp users to take full advantage of our software features.

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The products of SU Podium; SU Podium V2 (with Podium Browser), Podium Walker, Viso3D, SU Animate and SU Walk now have installation version that support SketchUp 2013 for Windows and Mac.

If you have or are upgrading your SketchUp to SU 2013, go to the Free Trial page and download the plug-in and the version you need and reinstall. You will need to reactivate your license after installing for SketchUp 2013.

SU Podium will also release SU Podium Plus soon - which will be a free upgrade for all SU Podium V2 users.

After 3.5 years, tomorrow - June 1 - Building Maker is retiring, surrendering to the new, 45 degree imagery on Google Maps and Google Earth. Building Maker was introduced in October, 2009, and was first not very welcome by the geomodelling community as the automated process was fast but resulted in very poor models. Later, it was possible to re-import Building Maker models into SketchUp and finalize them there - a huge step forward to quality buildings. In SketchUp 8, Building Maker was already integrated into the software so one did not even need to leave SketchUp to access its features and immediately import the model for further tweaking.

Well, it was just a few months ago when we reached membership 180,000. Today we have reached 190,000 and membership is constantly growing at a speeding pace. The next milestone should be some time around late July with 200,000 members (although we usually experience a bit of drop during Summer). Anyway, we'll see.

Until then, let's get back to work to make the site even better and more appealing to "not-yet-members"!

Andrew Walters (AWPelion) is offering SketchUp training courses from his studio in the South Pelion region of Greece.

Andrew is a UK registered architect who's been using SketchUp for several years, In addition to using it for architectural design, he uses SketchUp to design boats, cars and for illustration purposes.

He aims to keep the courses on a one-to-one basis, or for small groups, although, given sufficient notice, he can accommodate larger groups at a local hotel that has conference facilities.

CGTextures reached a major milestone this week: there are now over 100,000 textures online! To celebrate the 100,000th texture all download quotas are doubled for the next 7 days (until the 5th of June). This means that a member with a free account can now download 30Mb a day! It's truly a lot of Mb's - although to be honest, I have never exceeded my daily quota with the lower downloads either.

CGTextures is one of the largest collection of textures on the Internet. Many textures are tiling while others are not but the great selection makes it a perfect place to find almost anything you need.

ThomThom updated his Vertex Tools and made a fully functional  Trial version that anyone can test for 30 days. Note that if you get hooked and  are a Premium Member at SketchUcation, you can get a 20% discount in the SketchUcation Shop.

Vertex Tools is a powerful vertex editor for SketchUp. With it, you can easily manipulate meshes using soft-select methods a handy gizmo, different selection methods etc.

Inglobe Technologies announced today that the new ARmedia 3D Tracker is finally available.

3D Tracking of real world objects is one of the most challenging tasks researchers in Computer Vision and Augmented Reality fields are currently facing and it is also one of the fundamental requirements for high-end applications in industrial sectors like AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) and Systems Maintenance.

The International Association of Forensic and Security Metrology is continuing their series of Webinars on Tuesday, July 18, 2013 at 4:00 pm EST with the Webinar: "3D Crime Scene Models with SketchUp 8"

The webinar will be presented by Elissa St. Clair, Special Agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). Elissa is currently assigned to the NCIS Office of Forensic Support. Her duties include offering guidance on proper techniques for detection, documentation, collection, and transportation of evidence located at crime scenes.

It seems it's "BIM everywhere" in SketchUp nowadays. A new tool seems to be developed by Ruby Sketch, too. If you watch the video, it indeed looks promising for architects and building professionals.

PlusSpec software delivers tools that support architectural design, estimating, scheduling and product selection in commercial & residential projects. PlusSpec is built to simplify BIM to a way that just about anyone can use and understand. Comprehensive features make PlusSpec an ideal solution for the entire building project team.