Enscape Blog Post: BEST PRACTICES FOR LIGHTS AND MATERIALS IN SKETCHUP

I had the opportunity to write another post for the Enscape blog. Click the image below or the link at the end of this article to go to the Enscape website.

People who know me for my Revit books and presentations are often surprised to hear that I have also written books on hand sketching and SketchUp. This week’s post takes a break from Revit and focuses on Enscape’s support for SketchUp. Using a few keywords in your material names and placing special ‘Enscape Objects’ such as light sources, one can quickly turn a SketchUp model into a work of art!

The image above...

SketchUp to VR with Revizto

For those within, and around, the Revit ecosystem, you may not know that Revizto supports SketchUp as well. As you can see in the screen grab below, from the Revizto website, they support a number of applications and file formats.

When Revizto is installed, and SketchUp is present on your system, it will add the SketchUp plug-in. Once installed, simply open a Sketchup model and click the export to Revizto command. From there you have access to the model in Revizto and.... the reason for this post... quick access the a virtual reality experience within a SketchUp model!

The two images below are from a large multi-building, landscape architecture (LA) and civil project we collaborated on a few years ago (SU model created by our LA group). A larger overall image of this project can be seen on LHB's website, if interested: The Promenade of Wayzata.

Notice the hand colored, with markers, ground surface image came into Revit. Not that it is hard to navigate a SketchUp model, but you can use all of the familiar navigation techniques in Revizto to get around the model.

• For navigation, I love the 3D Connexion mouse. Last year I was able to get 3D Connexion to provide their 3D mice for my lab at RTC in Australia!

With the SketchUp model now exported to Revizto, we can open the model in VR... using the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. The image below is NDSU grad, Areosmith fan, and LHB'er Carolyn Stevens buzzing around a model using the Oculus.

I will close this post with a "homemade" video I created in 1-2 days. I have some practice as I create videos for my AutoCAD and Revit textbooks. Did you know I even have a SketchUp book (but it does not cover VR)?

Anyway, here is a video we never really ended up using due to audio quality... but towards the end it shows the SketchUp model in Revizto. Project Principal Aaron Kelly is also seen at the end of the video giving an unscripted plug for VR at LHB!

• YouTube link: VR at LHB Introduction

That's all...