Converting a SketchUp model to a Revit Family – Video

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Posted on May 27, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

By Russell Davidson and Marc Fredrickson

Awhile back we posted the process of taking a SketchUp model and converting it to a Revit family. The process we detailed the steps we go through to get a model into Revit that would allow the user to modify and change the materials. Here’s a link to the post. Blog post of steps for converting

It has turned out that many people would like to convert a SketchUp model to Revit and it is the most popular blog posting we have. And so by popular demand by count of blog views.. we’ve made a video as part of our How2(TM) video series showing the process.

When converting SketchUp 3D models to Autodesk Revit the most important steps are the initial ones performed within SketchUp. No matter how simple a model is, it is good to think of how it will be used, and how the layers and layer names will later affect the Revit model.

Creation of layers based on elements rather than colors or textures is important and will allow for more flexibility once the model is assigned materials within Revit. Keeping these conventions similar throughout all conversions will be helpful when managing your project in Revit.

Once you get the hang of it and need to convert many models like we do here at FormFonts, here are some helpful hints…

1. When doing conversions try to stay in one program as long as possible so time is not wasted switching between programs.

2. When first converting models the area where most time was lost was entering the RGB value for materials in Revit to match to corresponding one in SketchUp. Before exporting models from SketchUp always match the layer color to the one that will be entered in Revit. This way, one can quickly toggle back to SketchUp with only the Layer palette open and never need to waste time orbiting around the model or sorting through the materials palette to retrieve the RGB value.

We’ve found these tips useful after going through the standard workflow many times. Try experimenting in the beginning to see what works best for you.

How2™ apply Trend Textures™ in SketchUp

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Posted on May 24, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

Cerused Oak is making quite a comeback… from way back. In the 1500’s Venetian ceruse (white lead) was used widely as a cosmetic. The skin-whitener gave wearers that deadly-pale look of upward Nobility. Queen Elizabeth the 1st of England was a famous proponent.

16th Century cabinet makers wondered if ceruse might not also enhance woodgrains, et Viola! When applied to porous woods like oak, the white pigment fills in the grain, yet doesn’t affect the overall finish color of the wood.

Fig 1. - Cerused Oak (or Limed Oak in Europe) is coming back in style in case goods, furniture, and furniture-as-art. Custom Mizuki cabinets are shown here with vertical grain in Cerused Grey. Image courtesy of Venegas and Company.

Of course the modern version of this cabinet cosmetic is a non-toxic wax, instead of the deadly lead paste. And the resurgence of pale perfection is perfect for what I like to call High-Touch Ascetics.. a sophisticated minimalism that contrasts rustic raw materials with functional high-tech… and high-touch finishes.

—–

Trend Textures™ (check out that ceramic backsplash) and Trend Colors™ are important because they drive interior design and architecture up-cycles. A really good Trend Texture – like Cerused Oak – instantly makes everything prior.. look pathetic and outmoded.

The only downside with Trend Textures™ is the moment you see them, you’ve got to instantly incorporate them into your designs. Why? To show your brilliant taste and cutting edge design sensibilities of course. But where to find 3D model stock this… au courant?

FormFonts 3D has solved this problem with our living library of materials and textures. All can easily be applied to our 3D model stock for the very latest ascetic-aesthetic. Well, rather easily.. especially when you just watch-and-learn from our master modeler, Alan Fraser.

Fig 2. - Video of Alan Fraser projecting the Ceruse Oak texture onto various geometries in SketchUp. Learning is easy, when Alan shows us How2 ™.

FormFonts’ materials and textures library includes just under 5000 custom images not available anywhere else. And more are added every week. All materials are easily imported into SketchUp, as demonstrated.

Now you too can command the very latest materials pallet in SketchUp, and project Trend Textures™ like a master 3D modeler!

by Fred Abler

Thanks for reading, watching and subscribing – The FormFonts 3D Team

Sources:

Create an Idea Book for your next Project – Houzz
Fine Cabinetry and Design Solutions – Venegas and Company
Furniture as Art – Mizuki
How2™ Importing & Projecting Textures in SketchUp – FormFonts YouTube Channel
How2 ™ & Trend Textures™ & Trend Colors ™ are trademarks of FormFonts Inc.

DiWIRE – 3D Wireforms..from your SketchUp files

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Posted on May 22, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

I’ve always loved Alexander Calder. He was shabby, irascible, and brilliant in almost any media. The prolific American artist expressed himself effortlessly in sheet metal, wire, plywood, string, free-carving, and paint. And quite often, a combination of all of the above.

My favorite Calder works are his charming 3D wire sculptures. Calder first began showing his ‘Animal Circus’ (a menagerie of wire animals and caricature portraits) in Paris in 1927. It was the start of Calder’s lifelong interest in wire sculpture and kinetic art.

Fig 1. – 3D Wire Sketch, by Alexander Calder. Elephant (1928).

Now nearly a century later, you too can DIY some wireframe whimsy.. simply by exporting your drawing files from SketchUp into a new aluminum wire ‘3D printer’ from the New York design consultancy Pensa.

The DiWire ‘Bender’ is a makerbot that follows vector diagrams, to bend and shape pieces of wire into elaborate structures. It can easily handle 2D wire shapes, but somewhat amazingly, it also makes complex 3D wire “sketches” as well.

Take a look for yourself. Watch the DiWire bender in action on this video!

Fig 2. DiWire Bender. A MakerBot for 2D and 3D Wire bending from your vector files.

SketchUp Pro exports .obj files, which import into Pensa’s software for 3D bending. Or if you are interested in strictly 2D wireforms, you can use Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape (a free open source version of Illustrator).

I contacted Pensa Design’s Principal, Marco Perry. He confessed that Pensa has been somewhat overwhelmed by the tremendous interest in DIWire:

“People have told us about all sorts of uses they would have for one, from bending different kinds of metal to electro-luminescent wire and more. So we will open source it and put up plans and code on our blog soon – hope you make one for yourself!”

Marco Perry, Pensa Design

I was also curious about the choice of aluminum wire. Marco explained it’s not only malleable, but it has “almost zero spring back” making the alpha version easy to work with. Bending other materials is possible, he notes, but will need some additional calibration.

Marco said “perhaps in the future we will manufacture one..” but for the moment Pensa is content to open source DiWire. For the latest DiWire updates, code, specs, bill of materials, etc., pick your favorite social media and stay in touch with creative minds at Pensa.

Blog - blog.pensanyc.com
RSS feed – http://blog.pensanyc.com/rss
Twitter – @thinkpensa #diwire
Facebook - www.facebook.com/thinkpensa

Thanks for reading and subscribing! The FormFonts 3D Models Team

Sources:

Pensa Design Consultancy
Alexander Calder Biography
SketchUp Pro
Inkscape

New Ascetics

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Posted on May 20, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

Something small is happening. A generation of young people have come down with ‘cabin fever’. The viral vector spreading this fever is a tumble-log called Cabin Porn. If you haven’t heard about it yet, well… you just did.

Cabin Porn is a visual atlas of cabin typology – dilapidated cabins from the last century, spanky new cabins, lake cabins, remote cabins, slab-cabins. Cabins, shacks and huts, small… and even smaller.

Fig 1. Image of a hiker’s hut near Arthur’s Pass, New Zealand. Submitted by Greg Brown. Stress heads at work can now visit their ‘quiet place’ online at Cabin Porn. DSFW – Definitely Safe for Work.

The Blogging-sphere has enjoyed round speculation as to why Cabin Fever is upon us. Everything from ‘urban hipster angst’, to ‘channeling your inner-Thoreau’, or simply the ‘need to find a quiet place’ have been proposed.

But in an age of high-tech and high anxiety, it’s unsurprising that cabins are revered for their perverse simplicity. And this renewed appreciation signals an important and improbable aesthetic shift – a return to the poetics of space.

“…the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

The Poetics of Space is a phenomenological exploration of how we experience intimate spaces. The French philosopher and author provides a dense, magical, and literary curation of the lived experiences of small spaces – the cellar, attics, cupboards…even the poetics of housekeeping.

Poetics’ is one of the few literary works that is required reading for architects. It provides a deep understanding of psychological sanctuary and recalls the spatial imagination of childhood. Having read it, you will never look at ordinary spaces as.. ordinary again.

The need for psychological sanctuary is core to the growing Minimalist Movement – the desire to declutter, downsize, and de-stress our lives. For these new ascetics… small is beautiful, and small homes have become ‘the guardian of their identity” (De Botton).

Fig 2 and 3 – This Finish micro house ‘Nido’ (Nest in Italian) built by a designer in Finland for $10,000 and labor. 3D Model (above) and rendering (below) by Alan Fraser, FormFonts 3D Models.
Some Minimalists have even started living in their cabins. Finish Designer Robin Flack recently built a micro house that is only 96 square feet – small enough to be built without a building permit in Finland. With help from some local architects, this Robin.. built his own nest.

It’s Sunday! Why not take your dog, a beat-up old thermos full of good coffee, a good book .. find yourself a quiet place, and re-create.

Perverse simplicity – the new aesthetic for New Ascetics. Is it The Architecture of Happiness? You decide.

Thanks for reading and subscribing to FormFonts 3D Models!

Sources:

Definitely Safe for Work (DSFW) - Cabin Porn
What it Means that Urban Hipsters like staring at pictures of Cabins – The Atlantic
The Poetics of Space – Gaston Bachelard
The Architecture of Happiness – Alain De Botton
Influence, you already have it – Becoming Minimalist
Robin’s Micro House – Tiny House Listings

WiKEA™ = WikiHouse + IKEA

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Posted on May 17, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

By Fred Abler

One of the first things architecture students learn is that less than 3% of the built environment is designed by an architect. This vanishingly small fraction is meant to inflame young architects and fill them with purpose and passion.

There are only about 140,000 architects in the U.S.. Not nearly enough to go around. Consequently, most of the world forgoes ‘polite architecture’ designed by professional, and makes due with vernacular architecture – buildings designed and built by non-architects.

Frank Lloyd Wright described the vernacular as “Folk building growing in response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no better than to fit them with native feeling”. But this was no put down. He goes on: “for us, better worth study than all the highly self-conscious academic attempts at the beautiful throughout Europe”.

The wisdom of vernacular architecture obtains from the forced-compromise of locally available building materials and localized needs. Its naive beauty stems from pride-of-place, craft in construction, and the often charming applied decoration of these buildings.

Yet in this modern age of high-tech, you might think vernacular architecture is all but outmoded, a kind of quaint folk-art. But then you’d be wrong. A new kind of Open Sourced meta-tek’ture is making for a vernacular comeback.

——

The WikiHouse is an open source construction project that aims to make it possible for most anyone with modest skills, to freely download and build affordable housing. It was started by a group of young London designers, and on display last month at the Milan Design Week.

Fig 1. Ready? Design, Print, Build! – The WikiHouse uses a construction system based on plywood FCOs (Flat Cut Outs) with fins that connect together like puzzle pieces, creating a sturdy structure.

WikiHouse builds on the ideas of the Open Sim Sim project, a response to the housing crisis in Japan after the Tsunami. By leveraging both technology and Open Source design, the projects enhance design-flow and collective memory – making architecture more accessible.

To start, would-be builders simply download a SketchUp plug-in that enables them to access the WikiHouse open source website. Thus users can browse a folksonomy of open designs, modify an existing plan, or even design anew – then download and ‘print’ using a CNC milling machine.

The plywood puzzle-pieces are then flat-packed for transport, and subsequently assembled in-situ, secured only with wingnuts and bolts, or mortise and tenon joints that are ‘persuaded’ into place by mallet. The mallet is of course itself a plywood FCO.

Fig 2. WikiHouse Construction Details. The building system uses no glue, nails, or other permanent fasteners. This Finger-Tek™ makes construction more accessible to all.

——

The WikiHouse is still only in the development phase, but the team is committed to building habitable houses during the next 12-months via collaborations in New Zealand, Japan, and the U.S.. Their target building-type is disaster-relief housing which may be a killer-app.

Yet I can’t help thinking this clever meta-tek deserves a wider audience. WikiHouse clearly addresses the extreme time, material, and construction constraints needed for disaster-relief. But why limit this DIY (Design-It-Yourself) construction only to catastrophes?

Open Source building could easily be applied to small structures – playhouses, utility sheds, dog houses, yoga platforms, writing studios, and all manner of out-shacks. For example, why not capitalize on the urban-farming craze with composting cribs or Chicken-Wiki!

Fig 3. – Chicken-Wiki. Open Source Chicken Coop for urban farming. 3D Model by Gabriel Concha and 2D photofigures by Alan Fraser. Download the SketchUp model at FormFonts 3D Models.

The Swedish flat-masters over at IKEA ought to promote this Finger-Tek™ construction system by partnering with WikiHouse so the idea can go viral. The name for this new flat-pack partnership would be of course … Wiki + IKEA = WiKEA ™!

Fig 4. – WiKEA™ - The new Design-It-Yourself Flat Pack outbuildings and playstructures now available at IKEA. A serious proposal by FormFonts 3D Models. 3D Models developed in SketchUp. Image courtesy of WikiHouse.

The Swedes actually invented plywood. The self-taught Swedish inventor and building contractor Immanuel Nobel (father of Alfred his Nobel Prize) invented the rotary lathe in mid 1800’s. This enabled his follow-on invention… commercial grade plywood. Or was it vice-versa?

So then, it’s only proper that IKEA should host the world’s first collaboratory for plywood construction. And should you need some help tweaking the folksonomic designs, perhaps IKEA can hire some underemployed architects.. to help ‘pimp your plywood’!

The WiKEA™ .SKP file would then be emailed to your nearest CNC provider – a local lumberyard that will ‘cut’ your project for free. Yes, free! ‘Plywood-printing’ would be a huge sales-maker for manufacturers like Columbia Forest Products and Georgia Pacific.

In short: The DIY (Design-It-Yourself) and Open Source movements are co-creating a new generation of vernacular architecture.

Thanks for reading and subscribing! FormFonts 3D Team

Sources:

Vernacular Architecture – Wikipedia
WikiHouse Website http://www.wikihouse.cc/library
WikiHouse SketchUp Plug-in – Download Here
Daniel Dendra on Architecture – TedX Berlin
Open Sim Sim Project for Japan – OpenSimSim
Inventor of Modern Plywood – Immanuel Nobel
North America’s Largest Plywood maker – Columbia Forest Products

No Away

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Posted on May 15, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

As a child I spent many happy hours lost inside the large photographs of LIFE magazine and The National Geographic. Their saturated images helped me see the larger world, and understand our fragile relationship to it.

An early introduction to ‘recycling’ came from a NatGeo picture. Young men were walking down a paved highway in Africa – wearing sandals made from recycled car tires. I just couldn’t get over the symmetry. Their feet wore tire-treads, just like the cars and buses next to them.

These clever re-treads helped me see things differently. Things could be reused, and in fact had to be, in poorer countries. So I became keen on re-purposing garbage into useful things. It was 70’s, and I fondly remember buying a bottle glass cutter kit at our co-op.

The glass cutter came attached to a compass, so you could circumscribe empty wine or beer bottles and make drinking glasses from them. I was only 8, but chose to make a set of wine goblets from recycled wine bottles. (symmetry again).

Fig 1- Recycled wine glasses and goblets by designer Laurence Brabant. If you love glass and clever reuse, you need to check out his studio website. His glasswork is equal part utility and fine art.

The trick to a clean cut is to score the bottle only once, and then thermally shock the glass alternately with boiling hot and cold water. This takes less than 30 seconds, and creates a remarkably clean cut that will save you hours of wet-sanding.

I’m still obsessed with reusing and reusable containers. As a side project, I have a small green packaging company called PennyRevolution that makes a self-counting, recycled, and reusable coin roller I designed. They’re made from curbside-recycled milk jugs.

——-

So when Lucy Walker’s documentary “Waste Land” arrived in 2010, it immediately went to the top of my view-que. It is a truly inspiring documentary about the ‘catadores’ (garbage pickers) at Brazil’s Jardim Gramacho landfill, claimed to be the largest dump in the world,

Catadores are mostly illegal workers, and very poor. The film documents how some of their lives are forever changed when they are chosen to collaborate with Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist now living in Brooklyn.

Mr. Muniz transforms the catadores, making them both his artistic assistants and collaborators in an art project called “There is No Garbage”. Muniz takes classical photographs of the catadores, which are “sketches” for huge mosaics made of trash.

The documentary deftly deconstructs the notion of “garbage” by skilled camerawork. It subjectively changes the viewer’s visual and semantic distance from the garbage – repeatedly throughout the film. This helps us see that “trash” is merely a single viewpoint.

When the film opens, an extreme far-shot shows Jardim Gramacho as some kind of abstract resource, a moving mountain of jello covered by thousands of ants. The ‘ants’ in fact are the 3000 catadores that recover more than 200 tons of recyclable material each day.

Fig 2 – Satellite Photo (from 600 miles up) of Jardim Gramacho, outside Rio De Janiero, Brazil. Gramacho received 70% of Rio’s daily output of trash. It claims to be the world’s largest landfill. As do landfills in Mexico and Korea. Why anyone wants this distinction is unknown.

As the film’s semantic focus begins to rack, in (to extreme closeups) and back out again, it provides an expressive point-alism both the filmmaker and artist intend. Namely that there is No Garbage, only disuse. And there is No Away, in throw away.

For example, when sorted by Tião and his band of pickers into neat piles, “garbage” becomes commercially valuable technical nutrients that can be resold and re-purposed – making each catadore some $20 to $30 a day.

And when ‘trash’ is further curated by the catadores, and collaboratively composed by visual artist Vik Muniz – it is optically-fused into fine art, which is then photographed and sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

Fig 3. – Photograph of art in progress (3 stories up). Using a laser-pointer, Brazilian born Vik Muniz directs his catadore-assistants in Waste Land, creating artworks from landfill trash. The project raise more than $300,000 for the catadores. Image from the documentary “Waste Land”.

The documentary is also an essay on social entrepreneurship. It does not solicit pity or empathy, but asks only that we look at things differently…with dignity. “We are not pickers of garbage; we are pickers of recyclable materials,” say Tião repeatedly throughout the film.

The difference between these two viewpoints (garbage vs. recyclables) is a matter of commercial value, and intense pride for the catadores.

—–

This past week, the Jardim Gramacho landfill came to a permanent end. It was closed down in time for Rio to host the Rio+20 UN environmental conference. For decades the landfill has been leaking toxic liquid waste into the beautiful Guanabara Bay it overlooks.

The Gramacho landfill will now be reused itself, as a public park – though the site’s administrators say it will take more than 15 years for the land to fully recover. And the more than 3000 catadores… What will happen to them?

Brazil is currently doing GIS research that it hopes will turn its legions of informal ‘pickers of recyclable materials’ into an opportunistic urban army of independent recycle-techs that require no central coordination.

Researchers at São Paulo University in Brazil have teamed up with MIT to optimize recycling routes using available tech. The project is called Forage Tracking, and it integrates standard technology (sensors, GPS, GIS, etc.) to solve social challenges.

Fig 4. – The Forage Tracking project is mapping the tacit knowledge and spatial organization of informal recyclers. This way catadores can maximize collection of reusable materials without central coordination. Courtesy of MIT’s Sensable City lab.

“The idea is to help the informal recycler cooperatives with cheap technologies to document their knowledge and improve their operations.” says Dietmar Offenhuber, a researcher at the MIT’s SENSEable City Lab.

In Short – Public-private partnerships and GIS/GPS technologies may make distributed recovery of recyclables more participatory and effective, for the developing world.

Thanks for reading and subscribing! FormFonts 3D Models

Sources:

WasteLand (2010 Critics Pick) – The New York Times
An Incredible Satellite Tour Of 15 Trash Dumps.. – Business Insider
The End of Jardim Gramacho Landfill: Daily - The Rio Times
Laurence Brabant Studio
Penny Revolution - makers of self-counting and reusable coin wrappers.

Electric BrowserMobiles

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Posted on May 10, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

The progressive state of Nevada just issued Google’s driverless vehicles its first “drivers” licence. That’s right, a machine got a learner’s permit. Google’s autonomous cars can now drive themselves on any Nevada roadway – as long as two meat-popsicles chaperone.

The average American now spends more than their 2 week vacation, commuting to work – 100 hours annually according to the 2005 U.S. Census. En mass transit, that’s hundreds of millions of hours behind the wheel. A valuable media market called ‘Drive Time’.

Google wants to help this car-captive audience use their Drive Time more productively. You know… searching Google, socializing on Google Hangouts, texting, chatting, and clicking on Google Adwords.

The Google is also terrified distracted driver laws will soon make smart phones illegal in cars. So no surprise, The Google is hard at work on driverless cars.

Fig.1 3D Model of Lexus 2054 – by FormFonts 3D. This beautiful vision for future commuters was designed for The Minority Report. Designer’s working with Lexus came up with a form factor would run on fuel cells, and have many advanced safety features, including a crash-proof structure. In Google’s version, it’s a mobile media-pod and the windshields double as transparent touch-screens.

The Internet reduces the friction of distance, enabling millions to telecommute. It’s strange then that Google is pursuing a shrinking media market. Unless of course, you think about mass transportation as just another kind of web-service.

And really, that’s how The Google sees everything. They’d like to lease you transportation monthly just like data storage. Of course, this robo-car (hacker slang) will really be just be an electric browser-mobile, with all the Chrome… inside.

This robo-rental will be wirelessly tethered, and your every stop planned, recorded, and/or shared by Google. In transit, it will also laser-scan your route, record wifi hotspots, and pair telematically with nearby vehicles. Lease Payment? Perhaps as low as $100 a month.

About the only thing this electric browsermobile won’t do, is make coffee. But the average worker spends $1100 a year on coffee. No way Google leaves that money on the table. Starbucks will partner with Google and plug-in to the browsermobile… for on-board brew.

—–

From the age of six, I couldn’t wait to drive my own car. So I’ll likely never own a browsermobile. But I do love the idea for distracted drivers – all those other people I see chatting, texting, shaving and putting on eyeliner at 70+ mph on their way to work.

And if you think you’re one of those exceptional people who can actually multi-task on the move (who doesn’t)… or that you’re an immortal teenager, you really need to watch this!

Fig. 2 – Video of Belgian Drivers License Test. Drivers are Required to Text and Drive safely, in order to get their driver’s licence. It flips the script, and is definitely worth watching.

—–

Another reason to like robo-cars is the sophisticated Smart Geometry they will require. You can only imagine the complex hyperdimensional Mirror Worlds needed to manage the nation’s road-traffic on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis.

Fig. 3 – An image of what Google’s driverless car sees. A lot of Smart Geometry is needed for Telematics like this. Notice how on board laser-scanners capture partial profiles of nearby vehicles, does type ID by pattern matching, and then puts a bounding box around each vehicle. Image from Nevada DOT.

Barring any breakthroughs (i.e, reductions in battery costs or increases in their energy density), Google’s browsermobiles are also probably our best chance to make electric vehicles accessible to millions. I’ve already reserved my vanity license plate… C U OPEC !

—–

Still, there are some roadblocks. The uber geniuses at The Google haven’t thought of everything. Autonomobiles will almost never speed, road-rage, frogger (change lanes rapidly to get ahead of traffic), jump a red, or ‘catch a prune’ (french slang for getting a parking ticket).

[ Note: The Nevada tester already "gets honked at more often because it's being safe!" according to Nevada DMV Director, Bruce Breslow ]

That means Billions of dollars in lost state and local revenues that can’t otherwise be replaced. And who’s going to re-employ all those Highway Patrol officers, or DMV Workers once you can renew your driver’s license while “driving”. Google? Not likely.

In Short: Google wants to make commuters… commputers! Affordable electric vehicles may be a processional benefit. But Edward Tenner’s Law of Unintended Consequences still applies.

Thanks for reading and subscribing! - FormFonts 3D Models

Sources:

Google’s self-driving car tests get Nevada OK – CBC News
Americans now Spend 100 Hours a Year Commuting – About.com
Average American Worker Spends Nearly $1,100/year on Coffee – The Consumerist
Edward Tenner : Unintended Consequences - TED Talks Video

GIZA ARCHIVES

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Posted on May 8, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

The Egyptians were some pretty interesting people. The blue water-lilly of the Nile (blue lotus) can be used to induce sleep, and its psychoactive properties are also well known.

The blue lotus appears throughout Egyptian iconography, suggesting a religious use. Therefore, It seems likely Egyptian lotus-eaters had strong virtual experiences of ‘death’ which explains their obsession with death and funerary practices.

Obsessed by the afterlife, the bridge between this life and the next for Egyptians was architecture itself. And canonical architectural history theory is that primitive benches (called mastabahs) were eventually stacked to from Ziggurats, or stepped pyramids.

Eventually, these stepped ‘stairways to heaven’ then became smoothly inclined pyramids crowned by gold or copper-covered capstones – that likely shone in the sun for miles during the day, and perhaps… electro-magically, even radiated an ethereal glow at night.

—-

The Great Pyramid of Giza is flat topped. It’s capstone has been missing since the time of Christ. The capstone is a solid mini-pyramid 30’ on each side, and could hardly have gone missing. The riddle of the flat-topped pyramid, has vexed Egyptologists for centuries.

Sir W. Siemens, a serious British inventor, climbed to the top of the pyramid with his Arab guides, determined to solve the riddle. But at the flat top, things truly got shocking. One of his guides called out to his attention that when he held his fingers out, he would hear a very loud ringing.

Seimens verified this by raising his own finger and felt a prickling sensation, and also received a shock when he tried to drink from a wine bottle. Seimens then wrapped a full wine bottle in a newspaper (to create an early form of capacitor) and then held it aloft where it was charged with electricity.

Sparks spit from the bottle, and Seimen’s Arab guides were terrified, thinking he was some kind of Harry Bottler, and grabbed his companion. It was a bad move. Seimens pointed the jar-electric at the fellow.. and transmitted a shock so strong, that it knocked him to the ground.

Since this shocking discovery, many theories abound as to true purpose of these largely “functional” buildings. They range from the merely possible (The pyramids were power antennae analogous to Tesla’s WydenCliff tower) to the wildly improbable – Pyramids are some kind of ‘Fifth Element’ gateway for ancient aliens.

—–

You could waste many happy hours on the interwebs trying to solve the Great Pyramid at Giza’s Capstone Controversy, or some might even say ‘Consipracy’. Or you could do something.. a bit more interesting.

The Giza Archives debuted early this morning, and now you can experience the pyramids and plateau of ancient Giza in first-person-immersive. No blue-lotus, passport , or primative leyden jars required!

The Giza Archives is a clever joint project of Dassault Systemes and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). This “strategic partnership” enables the real-time virtual reconstruction of the Giza plateau based on the MFA’s comprehensive historic archives.

Apparently the Museum’s photographic archives were getting a bit dusty and hard-to-love, so it made sense to bring them back from the dead, with interactive 3D. Seems even Museums need to remain relevant. So we go from Old archives, to real-time 3D.

Fig 1. Dassault Systems and Boston MFA experiment in a brave new world of ‘Experiental Marketing’ of history. A 2D video of the web-based 3D Immersive experience of the Giza plateau, circa 3000 B.C. that debuted this morning on the web.

To be one of the first virtual archeologists and 3D’Egyptologists on site this morning, click on the temporal spin-field here… Warning, FireFox Browser running in 32 bit mode is required!

In Short – Everything really old, is new again – thanks to 3D experiential marketing!

Thanks for reading and subscribing – FormFonts 3D

Sources:

Sir W. Seimans, British Inventor - Wikipedia
Egypt the Cradle of Ancient Masonry – Norman Frederick De Clifford
CapStone Controvery – Robert Beauval

Shagadelic Skies

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Posted on May 6, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

My last post Raster Revolution, was an aggressive prediction that 3D raster (or Voxel) data will soon overthrow polygons as the privileged paradigm in 3D. Making bold predictions is risky anytime and anywhere. But especially so on the interwebs – where nothing ever dies.

I was starting to question my own conviction, until I came across Sam Pfeifle’s blog ‘Head in the Point Clouds’. Sam is the editor at Spar Point Group, and his semi-sarcastic post ‘Good To See Laser Scanning Put to Important Work’ stepped on my… point, about the Raster Revolution.

Pfeifle’s post was about the new “Little Richards” custom ice cubes, made in the shape of Virgin Airlines owner Sir Richard Branson’s head. These icy avatars of Sir’ Shaggy himself, were made using 3D laser Scanners.

Fig. 1. Virgin Airline’s unstoppable Promoter-in-Chief, Sir Richard Branson’s latest PR stunt. Ice cubes in the shape of his own head!

Pfiefle’s reasuring point was this – “… it’s a good sign for the rate of 3D data capture adoption when the technology starts to be put to more, shall we say, frivolous pursuits”.

_____

Sir Richard has been busy restoring air travel to its former glamor during the Swinging 60’s, replete with on-board mood lighting, retro sensibilities, personal TV remotes, and now… Mad Men cocktails, brought to you by one of Virgin’s lovely ‘red-hot’ hostesses.

These crimson-lipped beauties wear smart-skirts, Updos, and ‘Upper Class Red’ lipstick with matching platform pumps that get their own close-ups in Virgin’s cheeky videos (below). Virgin proudly boasts “The hottest flight-attendants in the Sky”.

Fig 2. ‘Your airline’s either got it or it hasn’t’. Official Virgin Atlantic advert from 2011. An obvious homage to the sexy opening sequences of James Bond movies.

As an architect I appreciate Virgin’s optics, and the return of some kind of excitement to air travel. But Branson has pretty much mined this meme. What could be next? Austin Powers Approved rotating round beds in upper class… Mile-high key parties?

We’ll find out when Virgin Atlantic releases details of their new “Whispering Coach” for Upper Class in a few weeks. At least now when you fly the shagadelic skies, you won’t have to drink alone! Sir Richard’s icy avatars will personally keep you company.

In Short: The Raster Revolution is here.. all thanks to 3D laser scanning technology.

Thanks for reading and Subscribing - FormFonts 3D Models

Sources:

Richard Branson ice cubes Chill Virgin Atlantic. ABC News
‘Good To See Laser Scanning Put to Important Work’ – SPAR Point Group
Virgin Cabin Crew Taught to Whisper – The Telegraph

Raster Revolution (TM)

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Posted on May 3, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler, CEO of FormFonts 3D

When I was a young architecture student studying in Denmark, I attended a brilliant dinner at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It was an invitation only affair, and much of the Royal Academy and DIS architecture faculty attended.

I had likely been invited because (in a design charrette) I chose the Scandic Palace Hotel on Rådhuspladsen as my favorite local building – a masterful mashup of Baltic Romanticism + Art Nouveau. Only later did I learn Professor Anton Rosen, a former Academy member, had designed it.

After dinner that magic moment arrived. Everyone was having their coffee and weighing up the evening: Should I run for an early train home, or, Stay and talk-and-drink awhile? Several attempts at after-dinner conversation were made, but none took.

Prof. Jørn Peder Hansen and I were at a particularly good table – we were cozily ensconced among the loveliest female danish architecture students – ever! No way was I ready for the evening to end.

I knew those assembled may be interested in what this young Amerikanere’ would say about architecture. But I also knew that if I wanted the evening to last - I had only one shot, and it had better be pitch-perfect!

Drawing on the beautiful golden-courage that is Danish beer, I asked those assembled…

“So what about Jørn Utzon, then. Why don’t we hear any more about him?”

The room filled with appreciative Danish snorts-n-sighs. Danes will suck in air audibly when something strikes them the right way. I had side-stepped the obvious-and-annoying question about Danish Star’chitects – Henning Larsen, Tegnestuen Vandkunsten, or A5, etc.,

Rather, I had shown a real and deeper appreciation of Danish Architecture. And, Yes! I believe this would now be worthy of further comment, discussion, and story-telling ..

We continued for many happy hours of drinking, talking and flirting. I actually felt…. Danish. And deep-lore was revealed. Utzon was a very interesting fellow. But the evening ended with the best story of all – as told byJørn Peder Hensen, himself.

The context was Utzon’s brilliant housing project – KingoHusene, in Helsingor, Denmark.

Fig 1. Kingo Houses – a housing development designed by architect Jørn Utzon.

I always assumed that the sinuous layout of the Kingo houses was a creative use of french-curves, or a sympathy towards topography of the site, and that these lovely brick residences were uniquely Danish.

But Peder-Hansen explained that Utzon drew upon Chinese and Islamic influences for the buildings. And the string-of-pearls layout? It obtained from Utzon’s experience as a young architect in North Africa – where masons used a knotted-rope to measure and layout their buildings.

This knotted rope fascinated Utzon, for all that it implied, and he exploited this flexibility fully in Kingo Husene. And so, Prof. Hansen concluded our evening splendidly with..

“The Tools we use to measure.. Matter !!”. It couldn’t get any better than this.

——-

The way we measure does matter. A lot! And like it or not, the tools and software we use are as confining as they are liberating. As the Utzon parable illustrates, when the way we measure things changes, our designs can change radically, and very suddenly.

One only has to look at the GooGy shapes and architecture of Frank Gehry to realize this is true. None of his sculptural form-giving would have been possible without parametric CAD. Even if he had to use software for aircraft design (Catia) to begin with.

I’ve been telling people that we are on the cusp of The Raster Revolution(TM). An explosion of 3D raster-data driven by digital metrology, that will likely result in the displacement of dead parrots (i.e., polygons) as the privileged paradigm for 3D.

(A voxel represents a single sample, or data point, on a regularly-spaced, three dimensional grid). In short a Voxel is a 3D pixel or raster – hence the Raster Revolution.)

3D Laser Scanning (LIDAR) has accelerated the Raster Revolution by measuring nearly everything digitally – from the earth’s 3D surface from the Space Shuttle, to Google StreetViews, to building interiors (see Marc’s Post – Hey Algorithm, It’s a flat plane), and even 3D objects.

It now seems almost obvious that laser-scanners, digital point clouds, and voxel data will fundamentally change 3D modeling forever. I’ve been saying so for almost a decade now, and I’ve told those that would listen, that what we really need is a… SketchUp-for-Voxels!

So you can imagine my delight when Alan Fraser sent this interview with Bryn Fosburgh, VP at Trimble this morning, and I read the following…

“Currently, Pointools has a plug-in for SketchUp that allows for the use of point cloud data, and Fosburgh said SketchUp’s API would allow for Trimble and other third-party developers to fairly easily expand the program’s ability to utilize as-built 3D data.” source: Spar Point Group

——-

Not only does this confirm some of my aggressive ‘connect-the-dots’ predictions for SketchUp 3.0 , it cinches my conviction that we are truly entering a new period of revolutionary change in 3D modeling.

These changes involve nothing less that a whole new way of representing reality, something metaphorically like the invention of Pointillism in the late 1800s.

Fig. 2 George Seurat (1884-1886). Seurat invented Pointillism. This time consuming ‘point’ style experimented with the perceptual phenomenon called optical blending. I believe Seurat was imitating the granular capture of light, typical of early photographs. Photography was invented about 50 years prior by fellow frenchman, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.

Within a few short years, we may look back at polygons affectionately – as an historic means of representation of reality – perhaps they way we now regard a Cubist painting, or the charm of old mechanical drafting tables. It’s a bold prediction, but consider this:

Now that 3D laser-scaning is widely available, highly accurate, easy to use, and increasingly inexpensive.. it solves a fundamental problem of 3D world-making, something we content-types refer to as – the first cost of content creation.

——-

In Short – 3D laser-scanning is reducing the first-cost of content creation for significant amounts of in-situ content. We will soon be able to Rip’ Reality, as easily as we do an MP3.

The Raster Revolution is already here, and the future is about to become widely distributed… in SketchUp!

Thanks for reading and subscribing! - FormFonts 3D Models

Interact with Holographic 3D objects

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Posted on October 28, 2011 by Formfonts 3D Models

The labs at Microsoft are working on a lot of cool stuff. The Kinect has released tons of creativity. The Kinect seems to have been the missing link between the real and the virtual world. Virtual objects and real object can both be handled. Maybe there’s a dish-washing by hand game in the works ;)

Check it out in action:

Sources: Engadget, Gizmag, Microsoft Research

ESRI’s CityEngine – In praise of forced compromise..and electric sheep!

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Posted on November 2, 2011 by Formfonts 3D Models

By Fred Abler

In school, young architects quickly learn that severe constraints are often their best friend. Then as professional designers, we routinely seek the deepest design constraints early to begin negotiating the forced compromise of good design.

Not surprising then, forced compromise also drives the very best software design.

The severe limitations of viewing 3D objects on a 2D screen forced Joe Esch to invent the geometric inference engine in the late 90’s, and SketchUp was born. SketchUp’s inference engine gave users an intuitive pen and paper like “drawing” experience paired with simple tools that let designers play with their designs in a way that had not been done before. The result was a unique user experience I call ‘structured play’, that proved to be an addictive approach to 3D content creation (we’ll come back to this).

Early video games similarly had severe memory limitations. This forced content such as maps to be generated algorithmically on-the-fly – there simply wasn’t enough space to store large amounts of pre-made levels and 2D/3D Art. This content strategy was called procedural generation, whereby needed virtual real-estate gets whipped up procedurally ‘just-in-time’ from rule-based algorithms. Regrettably, capacious memory has since largely obviated such programmatic cleverness.

Today, games ship with tons of ‘dead parrots’ (polygons) and handmade 3D Art. However, procedural generation has recently made a big comeback in a new class of voxel-based terrain games called ‘sand-box modelers’. MineCraft makes extensive use of procedural generation. Whenever a player moves to the edges of the ‘known world’, more terrain is procedurally generated. Those familiar with generative components, or that design-school-darling Rhino and its Grasshopper plugin, already understand procedural generation.

ESRI’s CityEngine uniquely enables procedural generation for city-scale content creation. CityEngine is like… well, it’s a lot like SketchUp on steroids. Individual 3D objects are not just dynamic components, the entire network of 3D objects in your model space collectively has dynamic fidelity! So for example, you can simply drag the street-edge of your city block model, and CityEngine auto-magically in-fills the urban block with suitably contextual buildings – using the procedural equivalent of Chris Alexander’s ‘pattern languages’.

To get quick view of this urban block stretching (and other whizzy demo capabilities ) check out the CityEngine demo:

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/demos.html

To see the true power of CityEngine’s pattern-based inferencing, and the future of UI design, watch Gert make a bridge…. wait for it !!

http://video.arcgis.com/watch/427/3d-gis-in-arcgis-10.1

In fact, ESRI’s CityEngine is what you would get if SketchUp’s (inference engine), and Chris Alexander’s ‘A Pattern Language’ had a love-child. How is that for a forced-association? CityEngine’s geometric engine lets you mashup geodesign patterns on the fly, and afterall mashup is just another word for forced association. So not only is the underlying software design the result of brilliant negotiation of forced compromises; CityEngine itself powerfully enables you to experiment with your own forced-associations. It’s the urban designers’ ultimate 3D pattern-masher.

For example, I started my first session by importing a “San Francisco” style base map into my CityEngine workspace, and then applied a ‘Science Fiction’ design pattern. Actually, they’re called “rules” in CityEngine, but designers don’t like rules. They should be called patterns. This scifi mashup with thousands of 3D buildings took less than 3 minutes to generate. I actually made a cuppa, so it was probably less. Afterwards, I spent way too much time tweaking this procedurally generated android dream into something that looked like a CGI set for – CSI 2K47 : San Francisco (Bladerunner Division).

In short, ESRI has a huge breakout 3D tool for urban content creation and design exploration on its’ hands with CityEngine. New for the staid GIS provider, CityEngine software has legitimate snazz-factor, and the combined inference-ability and play-ability more than meet my viral test for ‘structured play’. This software is sticky! You’re in-flow almost immediately, and then the software quickly engages the users’ curiosity and ‘what if’ design sensibilities.

Those of us who fondly remember the delicious hours spent falling in love with Google’s SketchUp, will recognize the feeling.. all over again.

Fred Abler is CEO of FormFonts 3D, the world’s first subscription-based 3D model library.

Details and Downloads, etc.

ESRI has just released a new version of CityEngine and you can get your 30 day free trial here.

This latest version takes typical GIS layers (i.e. design patterns) easily as input, and thereby enables more geo-specific urban content generation. It also enables you to insert high fidelity reference models where needed, and makes extensive use of drag and drop.

FormFonts 3D’s .dae files are easily imported into CityEngine and we will soon be supporting ESRI’s style files natively. If you need custom models for CityEngine, we can of course oblige. I’ve already requested my procedural ‘electric sheep’ from Alan Fraser, and our world-class 3D artists will be happy to help make procedural content for you. In fact you might just find some of Marc’s handiwork in the latest CityEngine release.

The download takes less than 2 mintues, and the setup wizard was actually worth it! It lets you easily bind your mouse and keyboard to CityEngine using familiar iconography from your favorite 3D application. So of course… I simply selected SketchUp, and the entire CityEngine interface is now strangely familiar.

1,000 3D Models!

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Posted on November 11, 2011 by Formfonts 3D Models

Gabriel posted his 1,000th model today! It some how seems appropriate that a subscriber requested flowers. Gabriel made the most beautiful flowers. Three cheers! Or should we say “One-thousand cheers!”

And to look back here’s Gabriel’s first model posting.

Occupy GeoDesign

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Posted on January 5, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

The OCCUPY MOVEMENT: Lessons in Accidental Branding

There are creeping indications that branding and identity are co-evolving with new media in ways not yet fully appreciated. The Occupy Wall Street (O.W.S.) movement is a case in point.

“We are the 99%” is an ingenious framing device. In one twitter-sized jot, it establishes moral authority and singularity. Yet paradoxically, it holds a large basket of social ills and outrages.

It was not created by pedigreed marketing professionals, but by a still anonymous graphic designer. In an age of intense anxiety and months before O.W.S. he started the Tumblr blog wearethe99percent.

The aim was to create a public space for people to share their grief and anger. The micro-blog quickly went viral. By the time O.W.S even reached public awareness, it was synonymous with “We are the 99%”.

This accidental branding resonated deeply with, well.. the 99%. It engendered global buy-in, and along with the transitive Occupy ”Anything” (i.e., Occupy Oakland, Occupy Berlin, etc.), enabled O.W.S. to assume a worldwide franchise in just three weeks.

Traditional media were visibly annoyed with the unwashed masses. Occupiers refused to define their movement. Honestly! How could pundits process O.W.S. (read trivialize) without ‘talking points’, or at the very least someone to argue with?

Fig 1. Commentator Ben Stein. ”O.W.S. protesters are smelly hippies and their omni-directional rainbow of hate needs refinement. They’re a bunch of bums as far as I’m concerned. If they had some specific ideas... if they were doing anythingwhatsoever besides sleeping in their tents and banging drums, I would say God bless them.”

Continue reading →

Introducing one2one™ Consulting Services – SketchUp™ Geniuses On Demand!

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Posted on March 21, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

By Fred Abler

Today I’m truly pleased to announce the beta release of FormFonts(R) new one2one™ Online Consulting Service. For the past seven months, we have been working feverishly to build your new cloud-based consultancy and I’m pleased to announce that Daniel Tal has formally joined the FormFonts team to lead this effort.

one2one™ is a lot like Apple’s Genius Bar. Only we come to you! Using the power of Cisco’s WebEx (which is blindingly fast), our SketchUp geniuses can reach out across the web and provide you personal consulting on demand. That’s right, get help when _you_ need it!

one2one Fig 01 Google SketchUp Terrain Modeling Techniques

Fig 1: one2one™ Consulting Session. Daniel remotely assists FormFonts’ clients with their unique SketchUp landscape modeling challenge.

Daniel Tal has been writing books about SketchUp, and doing SketchUp professional training webinars for more than six years now. He approached FormFonts® about doing training webinars, but as he described the training process in detail, I became increasingly convinced that it would be better to offer individual consults as needed, and one2one™ consulting was born.

The next time you become stuck, are on a short deadline, attempting complex geometry foo, or, you simply wanting to take GOOGLE SketchUp™ to the next level – remember that you can now get immediate personal training with FormFonts one2one™.

To get some one2one™ time with our SketchUp™ genius, just sign up for 30minutes (US$60), 60 minutes (US$110) or even 90 minutes (US$150) of deliciously personal one2one™ consulting. Remember, what happens in the cloud, stays in the cloud!

Check out our new service on the web at http://www.formfonts.com/one2one, and please, let us know what you think at info@formfonts.com. By the way, we have a promotion planned to give away some free sessions with Daniel, so stay tuned!

Approval from City Hall – May the Force be with You!

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Posted on April 15, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that George Lucas of Star Wars fame has finally given up on Marin County. In a bitterly worded letter, Lucasfilms pulled all of its building plans out of Marin, the notoriously politically correct enclave just north of San Francisco, CA.

The rife politics of local development of the Grady Ranch was just too much. Having fought since 1978 to develop Skywalker Ranch and other studio facilities in Marin County, Lucasfilms understandably decided to take it’s “evil empire” elsewhere.

Ironically, the very digital technologies Lucasfilms and ILM invented – are now being used to engage community members and help get other terrestrial building projects through City Hall.

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, hopes to even the odds with AR (Augmented Reality) that can show 3D models of proposed building projects on mobile screens and devices - as if they had actually been planted into the environment.

This is no longer the most mind-bending application of virtual 3D, but while architects continue to adopt Virtual Building Design and Construction (VBDC), it’s good to know the Finns are keeping pace with virtual community building.

P.S. We invite Mr. Lucas to bring his high-creative, high-tech, and high-income industry to beautiful San Luis Obispo County.

Source: The Atlantic

Towards a ‘Sixth Sense’

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Posted on April 18, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

I admit to a weakness for GeoPorn. I am not ashamed. I subscribe to all the cable channels : Discovery, NatGeo, Science Channels (both 1 and 2), The BBC, and the Travel Channel.

My all-time favorite shows are about electro-magnetism. But my real kink? How some animals can track the earth’s geomagnetic field. And last week, it was unusually good viewing for my kind of GeoPorn.

—–

On NOVA’s ‘Hunting for the Elements’, superbly hosted by David Pogue, I learned a clever chemist and fisherman in the Bahamas has discovered that sharks not only dislike magnets (old news), they also hate rare-earth elements.

Fig 1. These images illustrate how I imagine sharks “see” geomagnetism – a synesthetic ‘force field’. Images from Our Magnetic Earth by Ronald Merril.

Stroud is currently developing fish-hooks made of a magnetized mix of neodymium and praseodymium. So far they have been very effective at repelling sharks, and thus saving their lives.

Sharks never sleep, so they are probably roaming the oceans in a sleep-drunk state – a kind of ‘continuous partial attention’. Stroud actually proves his point by first suspending sharks upside down, until they enter a passive state that he calls “tonic immobility”.

It’s likely sharks use their magnetic senses as a kind of ‘snooze-control’ (cruise control + alarm clock). They simply awake to strike any ‘magnetic signature’ that triggers their ‘Shark Vision’. If correct, this may explain their striking humans, whom after all, are very rarely eaten.

—–

It really doesn’t get much better than sharks (with frick’en magnets in-their-heads). But once again during my own hazy state of CPA - I call it multi-slacking ( the Internet + TV in parallel ) – my focus suddenly snapped to the ‘big’ screen.

A shaggy dude on BBC2 was walking around a large polygon taped onto some platz’ in Europe. Must be German I thought. But wait, he was blindfolded!

Fig 2. BBC2 – “Seeing is Believing”. Udo Wachter test drives his new ‘Sixth Sense’ – while temporarily blind.

Ahh…. no one does GeoPorn like the Germans! Given der’ blind-goggles, Udo was navigating surprisingly well. His secret? The ‘feelspace’ belt fitted with vibrating sensors around his waist. Wearers can navigate via the earth’s magnetic field and without sight.

The belt is the brainchild of the FeelSpace Magnetic Perception Research Group at the University of Osnabruck in Germany. Yet after wearing ‘the belt’ for only a short time, test subjects become almost addicted to their new “sixth sense”.

But When asked to describe their new found sense-abilities – they simply couldn’t. Of course we architects and designers can sympathize. We have our own in-built ‘feelspace’, and a professional language barrier that makes our work largely inexpressible to outsiders.

——

So then… blindfolds, vibrating leather belts, magnetic sensors, feelspace, and indescribable sensory biology. Yes, it’s kinda sexy! But what does all this synesthezia have to do with 3D and digital design? Once again, we go to Germany.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering is currently working on a 3-D planning tool that lets GeoDesigners easily visualize noise, pollution, and traffic – so that they don’t accidentally build a structure that will have nearby residents enraged. Germans are very sensitive to noise!

Fig. 3 – Data in this image corresponds with the different colored boxes. High levels of noise could be green,for example, while low levels could be blue. There is a distance of just over 16 feet between data points. Image courtesy of FIIT.

What is encouraging here is that researchers are making solid progress towards describing the inexpressible - l’espace indicible as Corbu called it. This is the privileged potential of digital design environments, their ability to give us virtual ‘sixth senses’ and blended data (qualitative + quantitative) in a single model.

In short, our sensory biology is becoming another additive reference layer to better inform our design of the natural and built environment.

Thanks for reading and subscribing! - FormFonts 3D Models

Reference Links:

NOVA “Hunting for the Elements” – Rare Earths repelling Sharks by Stroud
Our Magnetic Earth by Ronald Merril – SciAm Book Review
BBC America – “Is Seeing Believing”
FeelSpace – Magnetic Perception Group
Fast Company – A 3D tool to let urban planners visualize noise, traffic und pollution!
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering

Deep Dive

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Posted on April 20, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

Some people are hard to like. Obsessives can be interesting, but they’re seldom likeable. So, I’ve never really been a James Cameron fan. Until recently that is. It’s becoming clear that now there are at least two James Camerons.

We all know the Canadian filmmaker: ridiculously successful, bombastic, insanely rich, married to a lovely environmentalist wife, lots of kids, etc. You know, the really-hard-to-like James Cameron.

But lately there’s James Cameron, the National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. This is the royal ‘world-is-my-OysterRolex’.. Sir’James! And it’s this new Cameron, the modern day Jacques Cousteau, I’m starting to like.

—- Sir’James —

Recently, after literally voyaging to the bottom of the sea (and back), Sir’James the explorer emerged from his submersible, the DeepSea Challenger, and sheepishly admitted that things had been, well… a bit cramped!!

“I probably should have made the cockpit about 3” larger.. so I could have at least stretched out my legs!”.

I found this admission winning. His DeepSea ‘vertical torpedo‘ cost well over $5,000,000 U.S.. The project was privately funded with a corporate sponsor, Rolex. But the sub’s architect? Cameron himself, right down to the ‘kawasaki-green‘ paint job!

Fig. 1- FormFonts 3D model of the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER and Sir'James. Modeled by the amazing Alan Fraser. Process image shows how FormFonts models everything - from scratch!

So honestly, my very next thought was … “If only Cameron and his aqua-nauts had known about Google SketchUp and FormFonts 3D Models!!” With some previz, we could have surely saved him some very real physical pain.

Cameron who is 6’2”, folded his frame into the 43” ID spherical-steel cockpit, and stayed crouched there for a little more than 3 hours. At-depth, the hydraulic arm and ‘slurp gun’ malfunctioned, So Sir’ Cam could only just…look around.

He stared out into the Alien Abyss, quietly eating his Scuba Snacks TM – a single banana and granola bar – the only two things inside the cockpit besides James. But it was as they say… A Good Day!

—– Luck Counts! —-

Had this Deep Dive lasted the full 10 hours (as planned), things could have come out differently. In fact, they would have had to suck Sir’James from his bathy-sphere, with his own slurp gun. Resurfacing 6 hours early was, in retrospect, Lucky!

Fig. 2 - FormFonts 3D model of DeepSea Challenger and Sir’James in-the-bubble.

—- the 3D Design Process —

So sure, you’re skeptical and I don’t blame you. “Mr. 3D! James Avatar Cameron, didn’t make any 3D models, mock-ups, or even full-on prototypes of the cockpit”. He just made the world’s first solo-dive to the ocean’s deepest point, without any models at all!

Well of course not! But see for yourself how the cockpit was designed and tested. Below, CNN’s Jason Carroll interviews Cameron about his ‘tiny sub’ (ouch!). Be sure to watch the video to the end. Wait for it!!

Fig 3 – Note: the pressure at-depth is so great, the cockpit actually contracts 3” in interior diameter. So What ID (surface or depth) did they use for the physical prototype?”

—- Coming up for Air —

But let us not forget that Sir’James after all, is still that 3D movie-guy. So of course… Mr. Camera-on! had to shoot the Deep Dive in High Definition 3D video. So soon we can re-experience it, courtesy of NatGeo. Oh Natty-G!

In short, the DeepSea Challenger is either – A world-class science submersible, or, just the world’s biggest GoPro camera! A tool for DeepSea Science or Infotainment? Maybe both!

Thanks for reading and subscribing! - FormFonts 3D Models *Canadians _can_ be knighted by HRH, the Queen of England. However Canadian law currently prevents peers from using the title ‘Sir’ if knighted.

—- PostScript —

Mr. Cameron, Some of us (yourself included) are old enough to fondly remember the Space-food craze. Tang(TM) powdered orange drink, and those pitiful foil-wrapped extrusions ‘Space-Food Sticks’. So next time, take along Sir’James Scuba Snacks (TM)!

Sweet Genius!

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Posted on April 22, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

The Food Network has a new show called Sweet Genius. At first I was skeptical, but the strange charisma of Master Pasty Chef, Ron Ben-Israel (judge), his wacky IS’ray-lee accent, and, the shows design-school-studio format, have won me over.

Fig 1 – (left) The ‘Sweet Genius’ – former Israeli military-ballet dancer-pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel, and one of his amazing chocolate wedding cakes (right).

As the studio master, Ben-Israel challenges three contestants with two mandatory ingredients and an offbeat “InSPI’ray-shun” (design motif) that have to be used to make chocolate, candy and cakes. The chef that wins all three challenges, becomes the… “Z’weet Gene-Yuz”!

Chef Ron keeps things interesting by throwing in a wildcard ingredient, midway through each challenge. So there are some spectacular failures. This only adds to the fun. Especially because it’s the loudest, trash-talkin, and most obnoxious chef, that inevitably gets his or her just desserts.

There are only two problems with the show. First, the chef-test’ants have not yet risen to the level of say.. Iron Chef. I suspect that will change as the show continues to succeed. And second, the show is filmed in the ‘cooking studio’ that is well, but not fully…equipped.

For example, it currently lacks the very latest in Sweet Genius – the World’s first commercial 3D Chocolate Printer announced last week. And once again university researchers from Britain’s University of Exeter, have made the world a better place.

The research team, called ChocALM (Chocolate Additive Layer Manufacturing), has borrowed heavily from the rapid-prototyping of plastics that we all know (Shapeways, Stratasys, etc.) to rapidly layer molten chocolate.. with a 3D plotter.

Video 1 – World’s first commercial 3D Chocolate Printer – Choc Creator.

One of the research group’s leads, Dr. Liang Hao, has recently engaged in some delicious techa-Lol’ogy transfer, and is now selling the commercial version – Choc Creator for a mere $3,330 per machine. A great product, but really.. that’s the best name you could come up with??

Fig 2. – A brave new world of 3D printed chocolates? (Left) – Japanese Chocolate “blocks” for your favorite City and Regional Planner, and (Right) – Modernist chocolates, from the wonderful world of Italian design for your favorite architect.

FormFonts 3D got in early on 3D printables, now called ‘physibles’, when we teamed up with Stratasys, Inc. to test their early on-demand 3D printing facilities in 2008. We converted several FormFonts 3D models into water-tight models that could be ‘additively manufactured’.

At the time, I suggested to Stratasys that there would soon be a 3D printer on every desktop. They had never heard this before, but they liked it! And we had great fun converting Alan’s Army figure and some of Gabriel Concha’s adorable intercity buses into printed miniatures.

Fig 3 – FormFonts 3D chocolates. By Gabriel Concha, 3D Genius!!

FormFonts’ experiments in 3D printing will be the subject of future posts, but for now, check out these physible models that Gabriel made for the blog. 3D Chok’ropolis !! or to use cocoa-latin correctly, Chokropoli…!?

In short, 3D physibles are now edibles! Now that’s… S’weet Genius!!

Thanks for reading and subscribing ! FormFonts 3D Models

Holo’ Tek – Glasses Free 3D for Tablets

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Posted on April 24, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

You have to love StarTrek if only for the tech… phasers, transporters, tri-quarters, replicators, holodecks… You name it, Star Trek’nology was some cool kit!

In one of my favorite tech segments, Captain Picard orders “Earl Grey- HOT!!”, but the replicator keeps making a wet mess. It’s later discovered that the replicator software has a bug. It’s mindlessly replicating the tea before the teacup.

Obviously the show’s creators want us to know, that even in the future, computers still won’t have any common sense.

The all-time coolest tech (besides the transporter) was the HoloDeck ‘simulated reality’ facility on the Enterprise-D. Here again ‘the computer’ would run “programs” in ‘first person’ subjective mode, in which the person usually interacts with the program and it’s characters.

The Enterprise HoloDeck was typically used by some lonely, lost, or libidinous.. Starfleet officer in need of some virtual “shore leave” - to attend the Klingon tea ceremony, host a simulated BetaZed marriage, or even haunt jazz-filled bars on Ye’Old Earth.

The truly great thing about HoloDeck was it was immersive and interactive. You could safely spar with Klingon Batliffs, kanoodle with an old girlfriend, or talk to Spock’s father - all in a cathartic kind of waking dream.

And that’s the sucky thing about today’s HoloTek. It’s static. After taking three Excedrin 3Ds, and donning a bad-pair of Ray-Bans, we have to sit still for hours – getting poked-in-the-eye repeatedly by some moviemaker-cliche. Swords, Flying Dragons, etc. etc.

— Synesthesia —

3D movies may be immersive… but they’re hardly interactive. This creates real drag on suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy them. Not only do you have to willingly enter the filmmakers’ world – your autonomic nervous system has to come-along for the ride as well.

Yet interacting in 3D is a much more engaging experience. Why? Because your brain is actively providing the narrative, and is thus distracted. Plus, the haptic movement of your own body reinforces the experience. Theme parks are built on this very understanding.

Obviously today’s 3D Tek is still mostly concerned with optics, and far less so with the synesthetics (adding two senses or more together). But this is likely to change, and faster than we might think.

—-Holo ‘Decks’ —-

New 3D tablets will be commercially available next year. The LA Times recently test-drove a new 3D tablet from Qualcomm. It uses something called “Cell-Matrix Parallax Barrier Technology” to deliver a very convincing ‘glasses free’ 3D from a tablet.

At first I thought, what a great way to sell shoes! I bet Zappos is already working on this, but wait, that would be on the Kindle (groan). But after some deeper consideration, I believe the unique form-factor of tablets may do more for 3D than you would think.

Video 1 – Video of the “MasterImage 3D” tablet. NOTE: 2D video is incapable of showing 3D video, so this video is a pretty lame video. But, the saving grace is that even in 2D, you can see the tablet uses fairly stunning HiDef 2D video, which will save this device from being a gimmick.

—- 3D Tablets —-

Fig 1 – FormFonts 3D figure illustrating of one of our future subscribers – browsing our expansive 3D model library on a 3D Holo ‘Deck.

– Natural User Interfaces —

The Qualcomm 3D tablet requires no glasses, so it’s already miles ahead. But the real advantage of the tablet is that it is directly manipulated itself, both as a physical formfactor, as a “multi-touch” 2D slate, and, as a Holographic 3D object.

They key is that from any inertail frame, the user can manipulate the ‘objects’ directly. Because no indirect manipulation of a software menu in required, Direct Manipulation is a subset of what User Interface designers call – NUIs, or Natural User Interfaces.

NUI’s are incredibly easy-to-use because they design-away explicit constraints (which people seldom enjoy) and replace them with implicit constraints. Implicit constraints are hugely important because they’re not perceived as constratints, and complex interactions can be offloaded to muscle memory.

This gives the user transparency, and enables them to focus on their own design intent. Perhaps some day, well-designed interfaces will cease to be a cause celeb, and we’ll just be able to “do things”.

Fig 2 – Closeup of FormFonts’ future 3D Interface. The ‘Holo-Browser’. Concept by author. Illustration and 3D models by Alan Fraser.

Referencing the illustration above, it’s clear that 3D tablets will convincingly project NUIs into 3D space itself. The user can rotate the tablet itself to see ‘around’ the vehicle, or rotate the virtual car to see the undercarriage, or even touch the hologram to open the hood.

Collectively these haptic, interactive, and natural cues give the user the visceral experience of reality, and therefore the user is much more willing to suspend their disbelief. In fact, all the perceptual cues enforce this perception by cooperating synesthetically.

IN SHORT: NUIs are ready for their closeup… the Holo’Deck’.

Thanks for reading and subscribing – FormFonts 3D Models

SketchUp 3.0

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Posted on April 27, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

Yesterday was a hugely exciting day in the SketchUp community. John Bacus announced a major reboot for the SketchUp team. They are leaving GOOGLE and being acquired by Trimble Navigation (TRMB).

This was a big relief for SketchUp watchers. We had been worried for weeks. Google recently told beta-testers that the next version would not be released. It had in fact been “postponed indefinitely”. Rumours were flying, and none of them appetizing.

Then, while signing up to follow FormFonts 3D on Twitter, I saw a tweet from John Bacus. “I’ll be in San Francisco with the family for a 3 week vacation, anyone know of fun things to do there?” it said. “Who the heck takes a three week vacation at Headquarters I thought?”

I confided in a few that I was now really worried – “Google may kill SketchUp and Layout, and pull John Bacus, Aidan, Bryce and others onto other “more important” Google projects!”. But luckily, my internal GPS was just ever-so-slightly off.

Trimble Navigation Inc. is just down the street from the Googleplex in Sunnyvale, CA. And I’m willing to wager that John spent more than a few days while “on vacation” at their offices. But the point of this post is – when it comes to positioning, close doesn’t count.

Thankfully, we were all wrong. Even those predicting SketchUp would soon be sold to Dassault!

Now it feels like the clock has been rolled back to the heady days of 2005. Everyone, including the SketchUp team, is genuinely excited… and we can’t wait to see what comes next!

As an architect, I couldn’t be happier to see SketchUp move to Trimble Navigation, a Silicon Valley company started 35 years ago as a provider of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) receivers. If you’re a surveyor or own a small boat or plane, you’ve known Trimble for years.

Over the decades Trimble has expanded aggressively into four core markets; Engineering and Construction, Field Solutions, Mobile Solutions, and Advanced Devices. Trimble now earns 55% of their $1.6 Billion in annual revenue from Engineering and Construction.

Lately, Trimble has been on a serious acquisition jag – buying companies both large and small (nine in 2011, and SketchUp is the 4th acquisition so far this year). Strategic acquisitions include companies as diverse as RFID provider ThingMagic, the BIM Brainiacs at TEKLA, and several laser scanning companies ( LIDAR).

—- the power of position-ing —-

Trimble currently has two unfair advantages. It controls initial-capture of what the military calls “mission critical” information (i.e. position). Furthermore, Trimble leverages this precise information-advantage from its natural market – Engineering and Construction.

(Warning: Purple Comment) So many companies have been trying to sell BIM to Architects instead of Constructors, and with such middling results. Trimble is not a company making this mistake. It will succeed organically by just ‘baking BIM into its product pipeline’. The’ Desk should be very scared…

Trimble’s acquisitions appear to all share a common strategic objective – to simultaneously expand_and_harden its ‘positioning pipeline’. It seems to me that Trimble’s meta-mission is to “own positioning” as an existential (constantly changing) attribute of all things.

—- @ Last! —-

Given Trimble’s brilliant.. positioning, it’s highly likely they intend to use SketchUp as the web-friendly super-glue that will hold all of their strategic acquisitions together. This would appear to be the perfect challenge for SketchUp.

At Last! Trimble is likely to take the advice long-given on SU BetaForums, to use the Ruby API and C++ SDK, to enable many different flavors of SketchUp. If true, this new product-line practice will enable SketchUp (and its partners) to finally reach full potential.

If SketchUp is near “cloud ready”…(a personal speculation), it could soon support a lightweight web client – or viewer. Trimble will likely accelerate development of SketchUp as a SAAS platform, internet-enabling their extended user workflow.

Given that SketchUp has 30 million registered users (sincere thanks to The Google), and that Trimble is likely to promote SketchUp_As_A_Platform (SKAAP?) – SketchUp may soon be in a position to actually deliver the BIM’plimentation others have only promised.

—- Hu-man Relationships —-

Finally, as founder of SketchUp’s first free 3D model library – ObjectiveNetworks in 2002 and FormFonts 3D (2005) – the world’s largest living library of professionally created 3D components (both forerunners of Google’s 3D Warehouse) – I can tell you, it’s been a rough decade living in the SketchUp Ecology.

My personal hope is Trimble is one of the few technology companies that actually values human relationships…business partners..and users great-and-small. It will be so nice not to mine ‘Tweets and Rumors’.. just for clues about SketchUp’s future!

In Short, SketchUp 3.0 is a major reboot! Trimble will @Last, give SketchUp the resources it deserves (including a new building), more staff and hopefully some autonomy – and very likely gain a THIRD unfair advantage in the bargain.

Thanks for reading and subscribing! - FormFonts 3D Models

Land8

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Posted on April 29, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

It’s Sunday. Now that we can’t get the New York Times Sunday print edition, and the LA Times is downright anorexic, I find Sundays much longer than they used to be. The interwebs are largely dead on the weekend, so it’s a good time for catching up with family, friends and colleagues.

If you don’t already know about Land8, (L8) it’s a brilliant site for Landscape Architects to hang, chat, and share knowledge of their craft. L8 was started by Andrew Spiering in June of 2008. Andrew is a landscape architect (and fellow Cal Poly-SLO Alum) who lives and works in Sausalito, CA.

I really envy Andrew because he can go to Cibo for breakfast anytime he wants. It’s an amazing cafe/restaurant and they serve batch roasted BlueBottle Coffee – made right. It’s Sunday, so why not read the story of BlueBottle coffee. (after this post please).

If I could, I would have Sunday breakfast there every week, and coffee at Cibo every morning. Last time I was there, I even took a picture of my breakfast (unusual) it was so amazing..

Fig 1 – Breakfast at Cibo Sausalito. Frittata $9.75. Eggs, Cream, Fresh vegetables, Cibo Hot Sauce, and creamed beans (with a splash of Marsala wine?) on toast.

I also envy Andrew because Land8 is a genuinely beautiful website. It’s stylish without being too hip, and it’s just loaded with Land8-types doing social media – the way it should be done.

I wish as a young man, I had had the gathered wisdom of a community that you find at L8. For example, this post ‘ Should I major in Landscape Architecture?’… with 80 replies. Wouldn’t you like to know what they said? I did.

In Short – It’s Sunday. Get yourself over to Land8 for some quality multi-slacking. You might even win yourself some free One2One SketchUp consulting with Daniel Tal and FormFonts 3D!

Thanks for reading and Subscribing! FormFonts3d Models

Direct DC

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Posted on May 1, 2012 by Formfonts 3D Models

by Fred Abler

The summer I was 11, my cousin and uncle helped me build a large scale model of a tug-boat. I have always loved Tug boats. Who doesn’t.. they just look Tough!

Fig.1 – FormFonts 3D Model of Mr. Darby Tugboat, by Gabriel Concha.

Both my cousin Dave and my uncle are world class model builders. So we made the custom-designed hull from hand laid-fiberglass (way before carbon fiber). And after weeks of hard work, huffing VOCs from the resin, and repeated wet-sandings of the hull, my Uncle Bud said.. “Hey.. Let’s test it!”

Before I could say “no”, he sprang up like a cat from the back stoop, put the hull keel-up on the concrete patio, and proceeded not just to stand on it. No! He jumped up-and-down-repeatedly on my precious!! I nearly died, until I saw it was unharmed.

This was my first introduction to the strength of composite materials; real multi-channel radio control; negative steering; and small electric motors and batteries. We even used a car’s windshield-wiper motor to equip the Tug with real bow-thrusters. Like I said, world class.

I remember clearly buying my first real battery for the Tug at SEARS. It was a small 9V motorcycle battery, about the size of 5 packs of cigarettes. This was my first real introduction to electric batteries and Direct Current, and DC has since become something of a fascination for me.

(we will return to boats shortly)

— DC now—

Years later, as an architect and home-moaner, I’m increasingly aware of the extent to which Direct Current now confronts me in my everyday life. Anything with a transistor inside it uses DC, electricity that flows only in one direction.

This means that every PC, laptop, iphone, flat panel TV ( all 3 of them) in the house has it’s own in-built converter box, to convert AC from the wall into DC. This is horribly inefficient. But then it’s not just electronics.. there are electric cars, and LED lighting.

The advent of affordable LED lighting is really starting to change the balance of power. To the point I find myself asking, “Do residences even need AC for anymore?”. And for about the past three years, I’ve asked myself:

“Why didn’t I just wire the whole house with DC circuits??”

Just use one big DIEHARD battery (or more likely an AC-to-DC converter) in the garage for everything. Think about it. You’d never have to change those damn smoke-detector batteries ever again!

—– Direct DC —–

I am not alone in my latent appreciation of; efficiency, Direct Current, or even ‘productive laziness’. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, have recently done some valuable ‘What If’ scenarios on DC-powered LED lighting.

They ran several lighting scenarios on a 48,000 s.f. building using either a central DC power supply, or AC from-the-grid. Using DC on fluorescent lighting did not result in savings. However, with DC-powered LED lighting, CMU researchers found a savings of $24,000 per year.

Of course, if the LED lighting is powered directly from a PV solar array on the building, savings are even greater (no AC-to-DC converters required). It should also be noted that to sell solar PV power back to the grid, an DC-to-AC converter is required. Use the juice …directly, and both converters are obviated.

There are a few drawbacks of course. Permitting DC wiring (the full safety of which is not fully known) and installation costs (higher than AC) all need to be addressed. But these are relatively minor and can be designed-away. What I’ll call Direct DC is coming soon.

——– All On’Board —–

It’s not hard to see a ship as just a floating building. And if you do so, the future of Direct DC is already here. This February, ABB, the huge Swedish-Swiss power and automation technology group, won an order from ship owners to build the first OnBoard DC power grid.

The OnBoard DC grid will provide all power and propulsion systems for the vessel – a 93 meter long 5000 tonne multi-purpose oil-field supply and construction vessel currently being built in Norway. The ship is slated for operation starting the first quarter of 2013.

In traditional propulsion systems, the electric thrusters and propulsion drives are powered by AC converted to multiple DC circuits, and together account for more than 80% of the vessels electrical power use. ABB’s OnBoard DC power system saves energy by distributing power through a single DC circuit.

In Short : The future is electric! Get OnBoard with Direct DC.

Thanks for reading and subscribing! FormFonts 3D Models

Sources:

ABB to Supply Onboard DC Grid to Shipowner

Edison’s Revenge: The Rise of DC Power

FormFonts 3D Model of Mr. Darby Tugboat

“So what about Jørn Utzon, then. Why don’t we hear any more about him?”

My all-time favorite shows are about electro-magnetism. But my real kink? How some animals can track the earth’s geomagnetic field. And last week, it was unusually good viewing for my kind of GeoPorn.

—–

—–

But When asked to describe their new found sense-abilities – they simply couldn’t. Of course we architects and designers can sympathize. We have our own in-built ‘feelspace’, and a professional language barrier that makes our work largely inexpressible to outsiders.

——

He stared out into the Alien Abyss, quietly eating his Scuba Snacks TM – a single banana and granola bar – the only two things inside the cockpit besides James. But it was as they say… A Good Day!

Video 1 – World’s first commercial 3D Chocolate Printer – Choc Creator.

Fig 2. – A brave new world of 3D printed chocolates? (Left) – Japanese Chocolate “blocks” for your favorite City and Regional Planner, and (Right) – Modernist chocolates, from the wonderful world of Italian design for your favorite architect.

Sources:

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