Adobe Ideas on the iPad.

I did a lot of presentations at the Kitchen & Bath Industry show this year.  The presentations that I did were at Kraftmaid's Knowledge center.  Kraftmaid is doing a great job at being a leader in technology for design, and that's what a lot of my presentations were about.

If you follow this blog, you may know about my exploits with various bits of technology, in particular, my new iPad.  I got the iPad about six months ago, despite my newfound Android addiction.  Since getting the iPad, I have slotted it into my workflow rather nicely.  In this digital age, I see no reason that we can't go completely paperless.  In part for saving the trees, but also because its so damn convenient to not have to deal with paper.

In my presentations for the iPad I talked about a slew of apps that can make your life so much easier as a designer.  One that I really love and use just about every day is called Adobe Ideas.  This app is a simple, robust drawing app built by the company that made "Photoshop" a verb. Despite the rather nasty spat Apple had with adobe this past year, Adobe Ideas rocks on the iPad!  In the video below you will see how I use this app for taking field measurements, meeting notes, and I even draw ON a picture!

As the KBIS coverage continues throughout the coming weeks, stay tuned for more apps!  In the meantime, go get this app and let me know in the comments how it works for you!

The force is strong with Shaderlight

I have talked in the past about how I thought rendering was too complicated and too hard to do for the average Sketchupper.  I thought I was right until I discovered Shaderlight, the rendering plugin for Sketchup.  Check out some of the renderings I have done:

Shaderlight has proven to be a powerful, and very easy to use tool.  If you understand Sketchup, then you can understand Shaderlight.  As with any program, its always good to have a good teacher.  Its even better if you can learn from a master.  Martin Cox, the senior Shaderlight Ninja will be offering a free, yes, a FREE web seminar on lighting in Shaderlight on Thursday, April 14th at 1pm EST.  Click here to sign up!  Ingredients required to view this recipe of awesome?  A computer, monitor, and a dash of internet.  Thats it!

I've already seen him present in person, and I can tell you it will be worth it!

3D Connexion: Making your mouse even more jealous

3D Connexion has just announced new drivers for their line of 3D controllers.  I reviewed one of these units a while back.  You are probably thinking "New drivers, big deal.  That's like me getting excited over regular vs premium gas."

You are right, driver updates are normally just bug fixes and other boring things.  This update is a little more involved.  After you install this update you will be able to whip through web pages, fly through playlists on iTunes, and even Windows Explorer.  You accountants out there could really spice up your day by panning around a giant spreadsheet (Yes, you can really do that now)

Best of all, this update is free.  It will make your 3D Connexion device, no matter what model much more useful.  Lets just hope your regular mouse is not the jealous type.

Sketchup, now with mind bending capabilities

I love plugins for Sketchup.  Think of them as "Apps" for Sketchup.  Sketchup in its stock form is quite a useful modeling tool, but you can take it so much farther with different plugins.

The other day I was tasked with modeling a house for a client in Sketchup.  Sketchup's tools are great for this sort of thing.  This house did have several curved staircases.  If you've ever had to figure out one of these, its not easy, there is a lot of math involved.  Once you've got the math done you need to actually draw the thing.  Drawing a curved staircase in Sketchup isn't actually that hard, its just time consuming.

Enter Shape Bender, a brilliant plugin for Sketchup.  It was written by Chris Fullmer who I had the pleasure of meeting at Basecamp 2010.  Shape Bender allowed me to take a straight staircase and bend it by just using a couple of clicks.

The Staircase Before

The Staircase Afterwards and shelves that I bent with Shape Bender

To see how Shape Bender can bend geometry and minds, check out this video:

If you'd like to get Shape Bender for yourself, you can download it HERE.

Here are a few other plugins that I use that you may find interesting:

Round Corners by Fredo 6

Material Replacer by Thomas Thomassen

Shaderlight: Now available on fruity computers!

Shaderlight: Its a rendering plugin for Sketchup that's fast like a cheetah with a jetpack, and about as easy to use as a can opener. Don't let its simple toolset lead you to believe this is a toy, this renderer is a serious piece of kit.  Its been out for the PC since last year, and its now coming to the Mac on March 1st.  Head over to www.Shaderlight.com to reserve your copy! I've had a chance to see it in action and it offers the same great renders that you get on the PC.  My seat-of-the-pants speed tests indicate that it renders even faster on the Mac.  Read on to hear about my experience with Shaderlight...

In the past if you remember I have been anti rendering for a variety of reasons that I laid out in this article I published.  There are no shortage of rendering plugins for Sketchup.  I have tried out many of them. Some can produce phenomenal results, but I have always found the learning curve to be way to steep, and the render times to long to make it worth it.

At Google's 3D Basecamp I had the pleasure of meeting some of the team from Shaderlight.  These folks are no strangers rendering.  They were there to unveil their version 1.0 rendering technology for Sketchup. I met them in the lobby and got to talking to them about rendering.  As you know I was a skeptic but still curious.  Martin showed me some rather impressive renders with some rather speedy render times.  He also showed me how easy it was to use.  I still wasn't convinced because he was using all stuff from his hard drive.  I issued a challenge:  Render one of my drawings and see how it comes out.  He accepted, and I loaded a drawing onto his laptop right there.  How you may ask?  Its a Google gathering, of course I had my flash drive with me!

He loaded my kitchen in, set up a few materials, put in a light and fired up the rendering engine.  Within minutes I started to see my kitchen come to life!  I was hooked.  Since then, I have totally changed my view on rendering.  I have turned into quite the rendering geek.  Check out some of these renders that I have done:

If you can use Sketchup, you can use Shaderlight with a very short learning curve.  The renderings are really impressive, and happen quickly.  On March first, it will also be available for the Mac.

I suggest you head on over to www.Shaderlight.com and download a trial today!  Its free to try, and cheap to own and I highly recommend it!

(I'd also like to thank the team for featuring my renderings on their home page!)