Drawing a sound spectrum in SketchUp

I have always been fascinated with visualizers of a sound spectrum. A quick google-around will show you all these beautiful liquid shapes that have been generated with sound as input.
I did not find anything available for SketchUp to generate a mesh out of audio, so I decided to create a new extension for that.


Shape generated from an mp3 using this (yet unreleased) extension and then colored by z using @ChrisFullmer his famous color by z extension.

This tool is something I cannot come up with an exact usecase, I made it for fun, not to fill a specific need I or one of my clients had. But at the same time there is so much I can think of one could do with it, going from art to pseudo-random liquid architecture.

What do you think? Is there some usecase this tool could be useful for you?

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that’s a good usecase :wink:

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Well… it sure is fun :smiley:

image

A 5min song:
image

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There were those among us who could identify a piece of music just by looking at the groove patterns on records…i wonder if the same would be possible with this?

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…and those who don’t know which grooves

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Or (unknown) pleasures:

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What did you use to make this?

Well. I don’t know.
Could you give me 3 sound files? I will use one to make a pattern and let you guess?

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@MikeWayzovski image was made by Joy Division. :wink::+1::notes:

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Actually, they feature the sounds of pulsar p1919:

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:shushing_face: UI.beep :loud_sound:

Hmm, I like how this is just a bunch of lines instead of a 3d shape. I might add an option to the extension to generate just edges in 1 direction, instead of a triangle mesh :thinking:

Has anyone ever used that? :face_with_hand_over_mouth:
Looks fun to add that in an extension so that it beeps every now and then. The user would have no idea.

I can think of one extension that uses it. Problem is, it triggers a tone every time you right click whether or not you are using the extension or not. I only install it if I’m going to use it and then uninstall it immediately after finishing with it. There are surely others, though.

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This one:
https://extensions.sketchup.com/extension/ed3012ea-b70c-48f7-84c3-2206cab3ab97/retro-up

I see.

Cueing up Disorder now…

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