WIP - Another project with long time friend and colleague, Ira Shapiro, for an apartment in NYC. This is my first real foray into artificial lighting in a render. The model was originally created with the intention of making line drawings mostly, but after getting well into it, we decided we needed to show some lighting. None the the very abstracted trim was ever intended to be rendered like this, but it worked for the lighting effects anyway. SU Podium 2.5 and a lot of stuff from Podium Browser.
I like it!
ceiling on the right hand side: Is that a ceiling hole?
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Yes, an elliptical dome with indirect cove lighting. That’s what we wanted to show, but I threw in the kitchen for context and comparison. Podium allows you to select a surface and make it a Light Emitting Material (LEM) which is what I did for the cove lighting. I also placed a giant softbox behind the camera for general fill light.
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Very nice idea, that elliptical dome light!
Is there no light/lamp above that kitchen-block with the seats?
Oh, probably. It’s not all figured out yet, but I needed a splash of light on the cabinets, so I threw them in there.
A past client came to me for some renovations and changes, so I started opening old files to see what I actually have on file. Opening this one was interesting:
Version 3! At the time, I fully embraced surface modeling, really low polygon count, and modeling an interior space with inside out surfaces as I was already doing that in UpFront in the '90s.
Anyway, the final result came out like this:
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Wow, awesome Design/Project. And I like that circular stair.
Cool thing, that SketchUp still opens that old file.
Did you model the whole building in SketchUp?
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Did you charge for the new plans? 
For the new design work. I had to hunt through old files to see what I had for documents to serve as an existing condition starting point.
Fun! 
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Really great Robert that is very cool. Looks like a fine design. What is INSIDE OUT SURFACE? I remember UpFront-- you must be OLD!
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Well, I posted an example in the UpFront thread here. Oh, yeah, I’m old. I started with MacPaint and MacDraw on a 512k “Fat” Mac and dual single sided floppy drives, and went from there.
Here’s a sample such space in SU 2017
Inside out room-v17.skp (222.6 KB)
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No, it was all done in PowerCADD while I experimented with SketchUp. That room model seems have been started in 2003. Later, in 2006, I did some framing studies for constructibility.
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Ah yes. That’s nice!
Example work under construction. It was tough to work with the owner’s exacting specifications for all the plumbing accessories. Some were scratch built, and some from 3D warehouse were close enough. The fun thing was, being a renovation, it was another chance at Match Photo once demolition was done and you could see where everything went relative to existing studs.
SketchUp model only:
With Match Photo turned on:
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Beat ya :)… did my first architectural elevation on this is in 1983 (Oki if800)
Saw them in 1983 in Japan and convinced my archiectural faculty to buy three to use in my lectures in “computing for architecture students” course in 1984…
took our faculty out of the Maths Faculties archiac IBM mainframe and fortran programming on cards into MSDos and Basic, WordPecfect and Visicalc…
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More Hired Gun Stuff
About a year ago I reconnected with a former co-worker from Centerbrook days (actually it was called Moore, Grover, Harper that far back), Julia Miner, to do some PowerCADD work for her on a project she had already started in PC. At some point though, working out some tough framing problems, I couldn’t help but bring SketchUp into it. @medeek’s plugins Medeek Wall and Truss helped get the model started, but the strange parts that needed figuring out all required getting off the common path and customizing everything. I didn’t think the model was that presentable, as it wasn’t really finished, but worked out enough to know where the tricky parts are. For what it’s worth, here’s what was done unfinished as it was.
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A lot of structural elements in this model and it gets quite complex rather quickly. I love all the cut away views.
Looking at a model like this it becomes abundantly clear why one would want to spend a few hours and put together such a model. A 2D blueprint would never deliver this kind of clarity and piece of mind.
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More hire gun work: This is pretty neat.
Just a few months before the whole pandemic thing hit, I was once again helping my colleague, Ira Shapiro, on an apartment renovation project of his in NYC. Here are some of the SketchUp model views:
Now the project is completed and the general contractor had it all recorded with Matterport, and you can see it on their website here:
One strange thing I found is the Matterport viewer doesn’t seem to work with a Wacom tablet pen.
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Work In Progress
I think I found my Match Photo “White Whale” on this project. I’m used to using it for A (as in one) house every time I do an addition or renovation, but for this new construction one, we need a zoning variance, and that means showing how our project fits in with all the neighbors. After nine imperfect buildings, I’m loath to do any more, but it turns out that was enough. Unanimous approval in maybe two minutes of debate and vote by the board thanks to flooding them with beautiful SketchUp renderings.
Here is orthographic site plan to perspective views:
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