Although my family business was construction and architecture, I have always been intimidated by the idea of doing a "real" rendering of a building.
The family of CAD programs seemed a bit too maniacal on the details; but a new version of SketchUp seems to be the closest thing to "hands on" construction--it is the best synthesis between drawing, computer-added design, Silly Puddy® and playing with wooden blocks!
Winner of MacWorld's 2005 Expo Best In Show Award, this software has built-in intelligence to allow for super-easy manipulation of compnents (doors, windows); shadows, colors and even lighting changes due to time-of-day or complete seasons. Rendering and shading seems instantaneous. Check out the wonderfully conversational tutorials in an elegant Flash interface.
Read a more detailed review at Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools.
Karen Dixon, ODA Architecture-Planning
Praise for SketchUp from Cool Tools:
SketchUp is unbelievably good. It's everything software *should* be, but isn't: intuitive, productive, stable, and fun. Using a remarkable technology they call "inferencing," SketchUp has an uncanny ability to figure out which direction you wish to draw; using "locking," you can fix that direction and then reference it to other points in the model.
My productivity is skyrocketing. My ability to freely experiment with designs without punishing amounts of rework, and the sheer thrill of seeing what I'm imagining quickly and precisely come to fruition, has me raving to all and sundry about this great product. There's an eight-hour demo available. The product is pricey, but if you do any sort of commercial work, I swear it is going to pay for itself within days. It is simply that good.
-- David Priest
I came to this program because I was designing a house I want to build, and I could NOT draw a convincing hip roof. Suddenly with SketchUp I was drawing the whole house, and a basement, trees, and an adjoining building and visualizing the whole site with textured surfaces, in wireframe, in X-ray, with sun shadows, at night with lights on, in walk-through mode. I tried a clerestory my wife fancies and found that it probably wouldn't work with this design. I tried a house based on an existing barn's dimensions and found that wouldn't work either.
Check out the longer feature-tour video. That's what sold me. This is one powerful program, shockingly intuitive to use. It works for a lot more than buildings--- landscapes, worlds. Video game designers use it. Architects use it but don't let their clients touch it for fear of being replaced. There's a whole online community of people creating new downloadable components and textures for it--- humans, pets, kitchen sinks, cappuccino machines, beds, wallpapers, stones, masonries, cars, trees, fences, doors...
It costs $500. It's a bargain. Works on Macs and PCs.
--Stewart Brand
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