Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Lab 9 was another fun thing to do. I chose to model my elementary school. I went to a Catholic elementary school which is really a complex of buildings including, of course, the church. Even our gym was a separate building.
I had a blast with this one. My mom, who still lives near the school, was going to take pictures for me so that I could get the buildings as close to real life as possible ( maybe even play around with putting the photos in there), but alas the weather did not cooperate.
SketchUp was fun, but its pencil tool needs a little refinement. It is somehow recieving information from the photo and I found it very hard to straighten lines which were obviously crooked. Perhaps a orthorectified photo would be better, but I don't expect to see that on Google Earth. The result has been some crooked walls. This is what is wrong with the cross on the front of the church.
Here was an odd thing: I opened Sketch-Up and proceeded with the Google upload when I realized that I had not yet deleted the crooked cross. So I deleted the Google upload and went back to Sketch-Up deleted the crooked cross and reloaded the file into Google. The cross is still there. Apparently I should have closed both programs and started all over with the cross deleted or something along those lines in order to have the correct file up on Google.
Also the pencil does not ever stop, except for when you first bring in it down into the work area. After that, even after you have completed construction of a polygon it is still drawing lines and you have to continually go up and delete the last line that you inadvertantly drew across the entire drawing trying to get up to the task bar.
I would have liked to see more archetectural components, all in all the components were lacking. The choices were limited and kind of odd. For example it didn't have a regular double window but it did have a revolving door, and no porches at all. Now in fairness I must say that I did not go back to the website to download any more components either because of the file sizes. As I have said, I still have dial-up and a 20 meg file is not adviseable.
Also missing was the ability to scale an object that you make yourself. I did not find that tool.
Overall it was great. Even my ten year old is making 3-D objects now. We think we might get him to model his school!
I had a blast with this one. My mom, who still lives near the school, was going to take pictures for me so that I could get the buildings as close to real life as possible ( maybe even play around with putting the photos in there), but alas the weather did not cooperate.
SketchUp was fun, but its pencil tool needs a little refinement. It is somehow recieving information from the photo and I found it very hard to straighten lines which were obviously crooked. Perhaps a orthorectified photo would be better, but I don't expect to see that on Google Earth. The result has been some crooked walls. This is what is wrong with the cross on the front of the church.
Here was an odd thing: I opened Sketch-Up and proceeded with the Google upload when I realized that I had not yet deleted the crooked cross. So I deleted the Google upload and went back to Sketch-Up deleted the crooked cross and reloaded the file into Google. The cross is still there. Apparently I should have closed both programs and started all over with the cross deleted or something along those lines in order to have the correct file up on Google.
Also the pencil does not ever stop, except for when you first bring in it down into the work area. After that, even after you have completed construction of a polygon it is still drawing lines and you have to continually go up and delete the last line that you inadvertantly drew across the entire drawing trying to get up to the task bar.
I would have liked to see more archetectural components, all in all the components were lacking. The choices were limited and kind of odd. For example it didn't have a regular double window but it did have a revolving door, and no porches at all. Now in fairness I must say that I did not go back to the website to download any more components either because of the file sizes. As I have said, I still have dial-up and a 20 meg file is not adviseable.
Also missing was the ability to scale an object that you make yourself. I did not find that tool.
Overall it was great. Even my ten year old is making 3-D objects now. We think we might get him to model his school!
// posted by Elizabeth Hull @ 6:04 AM 
