Modelling Limerick with Sketchup

[James Corbett]

Now that Google have made the brilliant SketchUp software available for free I'd like to start modelling some of Limerick's landmarks starting with the Clarion hotel and The Riverpoint. Can anyone tell me where I might be able to obtain the dimensions for those buildings and others please?

[James Corbett]

Well I found the height (184ft) and guessed the rest. I don't think it worked out too badly really. You can find my model and many others for Ireland now at the Google 3D warehouse -

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

[Lotts]

I like the clarion one. Well done!
In my google earth it appears to hover about 20 meters over the ground though. Is it supposed to do that?

[James Corbett]

Thanks Lotts! No, its not supposed to hover but I guess Google Earth thinks Steamboat Quay is a few metres below water level ;-)

Here's my newer version where I matched ground levels and stretched a photo 'skin' over the surface to give it a 'photo realistic' rendering. Unfortunately Google Earth doesn't yet support photo textures but at least you can do an interesting fly-by in SketchUp -

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=8ff698b110aa24a845b0d3eaa0ce1edd

Now if only I could get dimensions for the curvature of the roof I could get rid of that 'bubble' up top ;-)

[Bren88]

Looks even better now. Any more on the way.


While we're on topic. I got Auto Cad 2007 the other day, I the 3D feature has com on leaps and bounds. The old technical way is still there. But they have added a new modelling feature. It is practically the same as sketch up but with the extra features of Cad.
Have yet to give it a good try out but looks very promising. For people who do the basics in a Cad program and export it to sketch up, it should save alot of time.

[experiMental]

as for rendering, try this freeware porgram: nVidia Gelato 2.0. You'll need a nVidia 3d-graphics accelerator on your PC, but it is completely free and produces excellent results.

Download it here: http://www.nvidia.com/page/gelato_download.html

[James Corbett]

The new version of Google Earth now supports textured models, uploaded from the new version of Sketchup so you can now do a flyby of the photorealistic version of the above model - http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=30fd98dbb060c02acb2a55165094f9be

I really think these tools are amazing....