Animate your SketchUp models

In the past five years since Google purchased SketchUp (and then made it free), we’ve seen it receive a ton of improvements. Last fall saw the release of SketchUp 8, which added a bunch of great new features, and last month they released another update that provided SpaceNavigator support and a very helpful bug fix.

Despite all of that, there is still one feature missing that users are wanting — animation. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to animate your models from within SketchUp? Thanks to developer MorisDov and his “Proper Animation” plugin, now you can!

Check out the video below for a brief sample:

The plugin works by allowing you to create various positions for your model, and then those model moves to those various positions, creating the animation. It’s a very useful plugin, and I’m sure many SketchUp modelers will be thankful to MorisDov for creating it.

To get started, head over to his site, read this SketchUcation thread, or head over to the Google SketchUp Blog for a nice walk-through.

Have you tried this plug-in yet? What do you think of it?

L’Aquila being rebuilt in 3D

Nearly two years, ago, the city of L’Aquila, Italy was hit by a major earthquake, destroying much of the city. Today, most of the city remains in ruins.

Barnaby Gunning has created a website, Comefacciamo, to encourage people to build out the entire city in 3D in its current state. As you may have seen on the SketchUp Blog last week, they’ve already accomplished quite a bit. For example, check out the images below of the Santa Maria Paganica to see just how well-detailed some of these models are:

santa-maria.jpg

A few days ago, Google organized a workshop to help volunteers learn how to use the various modeling tools available to them. One of the best tools to help model L’Aquila is Building Maker, which recently added the city to it’s growing list of available areas. For a bit more on how to use that, check out these getting started videos.

If you’d like more imagery for your models, you’ll want to look at this page on the Comefacciamo site, which has hundres of high-res images of the buildings in the city.

For more info, you can fly to L’Aquila in Google Earth using this KML file, visit the L’Aquila 3D site or get more info from this post in the SketchUp Blog.

London 3D Project

Jack recently contacted me to let me know about the “London 3D Project”, which I wasn’t previously aware of. They’re a group of users that want to see more 3D buildings in London and rather than complain about it, they’re getting to work! Since they started work in October, the team has constructed well over 100 models, and roughly 80 of them have shown up in Google Earth.

They’re making a point to try to tackle a lot of the “boring” buildings that people otherwise might not model. For example, there are over 200 models of “Big Ben” in the 3D Warehouse, and most of the popular buildings in town have multiple models available. Their effort is focused on filling out the city with all of the models they can find, not just famous buildings.

To learn more about the project, you can visit their website at www.london3dproject.mfbiz.com.

You can also check out some of their models in the 3D Warehouse.

A project like this is also a great way to explore a city. Jack mentioned that they’ve come across a variety of interesting architecture and some buildings that they didn’t even know existed. Not only have they discovered these buildings now, but they’re sharing them with the rest of the community. Great work guys!