Building Kitchens from Space!

At the AIA show this year, Mike Tadros, president of the Sketchup training company, www.go-2-school.com did several presentations during the AIA show.  As with all of Mike's presentations, they are well thought out, and very informative.  Mike has a really fluid manner of teaching, and he's great at sensing what his class needs, and molding the presentation on the fly to accomodate everyone in the room.  Check out some of Mike's videos to get an idea of what I am talking about:

Of all Mike's presentations, there was one that really stuck out for me.  Mike started building a kitchen using the Kraftmaid models that are available in the 3D warehouse.  He went on to show how easy it is to create kitchens and living spaces with these models.  At one point, a lady asked if she could build her own kitchen with these tools.  Mike said "Sure!"  and then asked, "How about I build your kitchen for you?"  She agreed.  At this point, she, I, and I think everyone else was confused as to how Mike was going to accomplish this.  Remember, we're all on a trade show floor, and even though we were surrounded by architects, nobody had any idea what her kitchen looked like.

Without skipping a beat, Mike asked what her address was.  He pulled up Google Earth, and zoomed in on her location, and found the aerial photography of her house.

With just a few clicks, Mike had the aerial photography in Sketchup, where he began to trace the outside of the house.  He was quickly able to model up the walls.  The lady at the show was rather confused up until this point, because she had no idea how Mike was going to draw her house, without ever seeing it.  As soon as she saw the walls go up, she was able to easily describe where her kitchen was located.

After finishing the walls, Mike started to build a kitchen for her...

Right there on the screen, Mike put the cabinets where she wanted them.  There was no waiting, no render time, it all happened live, right there on the trade show floor.  Mike was using Merillat cabinets, which are available on the 3D warehouse in Sketchup

After Mike built her a kitchen, he even emailed her the Sketchup model.  She can now go home, download Sketchup Free, and view her dream kitchen herself, right in her own home.  When she decides its time to get it built, she's got a great 3D model to start with!  They say a picture is work a thousand words, but how many words is a 3D model worth?

Droid Does

So after spending some quality time with my friend Paul Anater in Miami this past week, I have become inspired to expand what I write about on this blog.  I usually like to stick to strictly Sketchup topics.  I am a bit of a geek sometimes, and I'd like to share some experiences I have had switching smartphones.

I remember when the iPhone first came out in 2007.  I watched in envy as everyone was able to switch over to get what at the time was, the most advanced smartphone out there.

I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon on the day the iPhone 3G was released.  That was a great year to be an iPhone owner.  There were 10,000 ways to waste time on the app store, and limited 3G coverage.  The best part was, this was before AT&T was REALLY bad....

For two years I used my wonderful white iPhone.  I loved it.  It did everything I wanted it to.  When the 3GS came out, I didn't even really want to upgrade.  The 3GS was quite a bit faster, and I did feel myself wanting for a little more speed on my phone, but my 3G still ran great, and I never ended up trading up to the 3GS.

Then something happened, Apple released the new iPhone 4.  At the same time, they also released a huge software update, iPhone software 4.0 for all models except the original iPhone.  Apple has a nice habit of upgrading software on old devices, even as they release new hardware.  This is nice for current owners as they usually add some nice new features, and performance enhancements.  I think this is a really good move on Apple's part, it makes current customers happy, which generates good PR, and drives sales for new hardware.

I have been through three major software revisions with my iPhone.  Each time there is a major release, there is a slew of new features, and a few bugs.  Apple usually quickly fixes the bugs, so I always have felt really comfortable upgrading the day these new updates come out.

I upgraded to 4.0 the day it came out, and things were not as they usually are.  The software took forever to install on my 3G, and once it did, I immediately noticed a major performance hit.  Instead of feeling like I had all my apps, and the internet at my finger tips, it felt like I had to reach through a bowl of Jello-O to get to any of them.  Once I got them they were, sticky, and hard to handle.  I think that Apple put out a piece of software that was not well tested on the old iPhone.....

Check out my friend Paul Anater's blog post on the subject.  There's a great video embedded in that post as well.  If you're a current 3G owner, you will be able to relate.

I have a theory that this has something to do with their business model, but we'll keep theory and conjecture for another article.

My resolution was to switch phones, and carriers.  I was sick of getting dropped calls, and slow internet connectivity on my iPhone.  That software update did me in.  I walked into my local Verizon store and picked myself up a Droid Incredible.  I was a sucker for the original Droid ads.  As a geek, they really got me interested...  This was the first commercial.

Now, this commercial is a little dated already, as the new iPhone CAN do all of these things...  But there is so much more to Android then just side by side comparions of features.

Lets break the two platforms down.  You've got Apple, they want everything to be perfect.  They control the entire process, from the hardware, to the software.  I'll bet they'd even love to control the cell towers if they could afford to.  You can't do anything on your iPhone unless Steve says that you can.  Things are magical and perfect in iPhone land.

Then there is Google Android.  Its open, customizable, and available to anyone who's got a piece of hardware that they want to put it on.  This has its upsides, and downsides.  The upsides are that you can do ANYTHING you want on Android.  If you want to run 60 apps at the same time and drain you battery, go crazy.  If you want to have a different music player then the stock one, just go ahead and download one.  If you want to have apps that have full access to the phone, you can get them.  A great example of allowing devolopers access to the entire phone system is that you can create apps that work great with other apps.  For example, just about any piece of media on the phone can be shared.  If you have your favorite Twitter app on your phone and you want to post a photo, that app comes right up in the list of ways you can share a piece of media.  No longer to you have to launch the app, create the tweet, go to your camera roll, and search for the picture.

Perhaps you aren't happy with the dialer pad on the phone, simply download another one!  Smartphones are more and more becoming portals to the internet, and less and less about phones.  I think the internet should be open and free, and I also think that the device that you use to access it should be the same.  Remember how angry we all got when Microsoft blocked Netscape back in the day?  Its funny how we now tolerate that sort of Draconian control from Apple, just because they are "Hip" and "Cool".

Now for the really good stuff:  The speed of the Droid Incredible.  Between Verizon's speedy 3G network, and the Incredibles hi octane processor, this phone can go faster then you can think.  The internet operates at nearly broadband speeds.  You can even load Flash on it!  Then there is Google's system wide voice search.  Want to find something, anything on your phone or the internet?  Simply tap one button, and just ask it!

You can ask Droid anything.  Things like "Call Paul Anater" or "Navigate to Orlando Florida" will do exactly what you expect them to.  The voice recognition is uncannily good.

If you are thinking of making the switch, you should.  I use this phone more then I ever used my iPhone.  Now have at the disposal of my thumbs the ultimate connection to the world.  Its brilliantly fast, and rather then get in my way, it gets out of the way and just gets things done.  Droid definitely Does.

As an aside, I was able to take my now deactivated iPhone 3G and downgrade it to the old 3.13 software.  Its not as easy as upgrading, and you do have to wipe your phone and manually put everything back on it, but it does work perfectly now!

Google Apps with Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson FAIA from Masco Cabinetry did some great presentations on many different topics at this year's KBIS show and AIA show.  He has a very unique way of presenting.  Rather then getting up there and spewing facts out, or shouting and waving his arms about (like me) its more like a fireside chat with Mark.  Mark can take even dry subjects and make you feel all warm and fuzzy about them!

One presentation he did that I really enjoyed was called "Google Apps for Designers".  Mark went on to talk about all of the free Google applications that are available, and how to use them as designers to promote your business. I am sure we've all heard about GMail, Google Search (who hasn't these days, its a VERB now!), but there are several others that can be used for research and marketing your services.

I'd like to consider myself rather geeky, and I am definitely a heavy user of Google (who isn't?)  But I have never really paid Google Trends any attention until I saw Mark's presentation.

Google Trends is an application that allows you to see how popular a particular search topic is.  All you have to do is enter that topic into Google Trends and you can see how many times its been searched over a certain period of time.

Here we can see the comparison of Sketchup, AutoCAD and 20-20 Design.  You can see a nice spike in Sketchup when it was acquired by Google.  Its interesting to see that they all dip at about the same time...

This search for the word "Cabinetry" yields some interesting results.  Note how in the beginning of each year, it spikes, and then as the year progresses, it falls off...  Also note that year after year its trending down...  I'll bet this graph overlaid onto a graph of home sales would be rather interesting to see.  Google Trends can be a very interesting tool to see, well, trends.  Perhaps you want to see how many people are searching for a wood species, or a door style.  Think of Google Trends like that gossipy person in high school that seemed to always know what was going on.  The difference here though, is that Google Trends doesn't exaggerate, and its not biased!

Another topic that Mark talked about was social media.  This is a really hot thing going on in our world today, and I think he was right on with this point.  You can't go anywhere today without seeing "Find us on Facebook" or "Follow us on Twitter"  Just about every major company and brand has a presence in social media.  The great thing about this new wave of social media is that it's very accessible to anyone.  Whether you are a fortune 100 company, or just yourself, you can tweet, blog, and Facebook just like the big guys.

You may or may not know that KraftMaid and Merillat have recently launched a lot of their cabinetry in Google's 3D warehouse.  With inexpensive and free versions of Google Sketchup and these free models, you can draw KraftMaid and Merillat kitchens.  Mark shared how you can use Google Earth, Google Maps and 3D Warehouse in combination with kitchen models to promote your showroom location, how to get there, what it looks like in 3D...no special glasses required!   

There is a new social media aspect of the 3D Warehouse that Mark showed us.  You can now share your models on the warehouse, and then link them to just about any social network that is out there.  This is great if you have a LinkedIn account, Facebook, Twitter, or any other network.  Masco even has a section of the 3D warehouse dedicated to designs by fans.  

The above is an example of how you can share a model even in a blog!

Mark also showed how KraftMaid is leveraging technology to make it easy for designers to promote themselves and their designs with portable devices like the iPod, iPhone, or Apple iPad.  Imagine being able to pull your phone out of your pocket and show off that latest design to your customer!

Lastly, Mark rounded out these presentations by showing how easy it is to use all of these services.  You don't need to be a geek to figure all of this stuff out.  If you can use email, you have the skill set to get out there and market yourself on the Internet!

AIA Show

SketchThis attended this years AIA show as a guest presenter with Kraftmaid and Igloo Studios in their tech booth.  Things went quite well overall, the folks at Krafmaid, myself, and the Google team all had a great time.

There were a few snafus though, I didn't get the tan I was hoping for, and I experienced a lot of this.

Thanks to Apple's business model of making things obsolete so quickly, what was otherwise a great little MacBook is now waiting to be replaced by its all aluminum counterpart.  According to Apple, this thing is going to be fast, like 1.21 gigawatts fast!

I digress though, this post is supposed to be about the show, not about the "uber" nerdy computer that is in the mail for me.

So, from what I understand, you don't see too much in the way of kitchen and bath related products at these AIA show's, its usually doors, windows, and structural stuff.  For the most part, this stuff is rather uninteresting to us kitchen designers.

They tend to keep these show's categorized by product type, and we were in the technology area.  Let me translate that for you laymens:  We were in the nerd area, the geek zone, or techie lounge.  Remember when geeks weren't cool?  Well, we weren't until Google made it cool to be a nerd.  And guess what, they were right next to us! Next to being a Googler, we were the coolest people there.

Kraftmaid is making a big push in to the tech area, and I think its wonderfully useful, and geeky cool.  Where other cabinet companies are content with one piece of design software, and paper catalogs, Kraftmaid and Merrillat are going far beyond that.

At the show, Mark Johnson did presentations on how you can experience Kraftmaid with more then just a paper catalog, and showroom display.  He demonstrated how you can have an interactive portfolio, and brochure available right on your iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  He even had an iPad at the show to show how it all worked!


Mike Tadros did several presentations on Sketchup.  He talked a lot about the 3D warehouse, and the Sketchup models that are available on it for kitchen designers, and architects.  Mike strayed away from his rehearsed presentations a few times, and it was quite brilliant actually.  He did several mini "Q&A" sessions.  These we're nothing short of brilliant.  Architects gathered around and threw questions out as fast as I apparently go through MacBooks.  And as cool as the Fonz, Mike answered them all wonderfully.  One the last day, a lady came up asking if she could see her kitchen in Sketchup.  Without even skipping a beat, Mike asked her for her address, and zoomed in on her house in Google Earth.  He took a snapshot of the roof of her house, and imported it into Sketchup.  Within minutes, he used Sketchup to draw the outside walls of her house.  Once that was done, she was able to describe where her kitchen was in the house, and Mike put up the interior walls.  Minutes later, he was downloading Kraftmaid and Merillat cabinets and placing them into her house.  After about twenty minutes, with her making requests, and Mike operating the computer, she had a new kitchen, all designed in Sketchup.  This, I think was the most compelling presentation of the week.

Alex Oliver did several great presentations on how the 3D warehouse can be leveraged to really make the design process in Sketchup much easier, and quicker.  He also did something that I had only heard about, he created 3D pdf's!  That's right, 3D PDF's!  You can use Sketchup, and Adobe Acrobat to make a PDF of your Sketchup model, and show it in 3D.  Just about every computer everywhere as PDF viewing capabilities.  Think about that for a minute!

David Pillsbury did presentations on how you can use Sketchup to draw houses.  Many architects stopped by to see what they could do with Sketchup.  Its simply amazing to see how easily you can draw a house, and how compelling it is to take someone through a 3D tour through it.  A very interesting part of David's presentations involved the use of AutoCAD as well.  I for one have left AutoCAD in the dust with Sketchup, although I still think its a wonderful program.  David really showed off how well Sketchup and AutoCAD can play well together.  From talking with a lot of architects and designers, it seems that a lot of them use Sketchup for many tasks, and then AutoCAD for others.  Its really nice to see that they work so well with each other.

After I was able to pull myself away from all the other geeky and nerdy stuff that I was surrounded with, presented the Arcitect to designer workflow.  In the past few years, I have seen many jobs that were designed by arcitects, and then passed along to us kitchen designers.  Usually there is a big disconnect between the arcitects vision, and the kitchen designers.  Its not a difference of opinion, its just that there is no standard form of communication.  I have found that when customers come in and want a kitchen design, we are often redrawing things that an architect has already done, and it makes for a realy cumbersome design process.

Enter Sketchup, most Architects are already using it to create 3D models of the houses they design to show their clients.  What I did to show how this workflow can be much better, is take one of these houses, and fill the kitchen space with Kraftmaid cabinetry.

Why is this so awesome?  Well, first of all, the same great 3D model that was presented to the customer by the architect gets to be used to draw the kitchen.  This is great for the customer because they can see how the kitchen relates to their whole house.

Next, if the architect wants to be involved in the design, I can take their Sketchup model, re work it, and send it right back to them, often very early on in their design process.  This way more decisions can be made.  This means cabinets come in faster, and making the whole project move along much smoother.

I did several live examples of this at the show, and I think it opened a lot of eyes.  Architects are no stranger to Sketchup, they just didn't realize that us kitchen designers use it too!

Over the next week or so, I am going to put up some posts with details of each person's presentations.  I will include the models, pictures, and a nice narrative so if you missed them, you can relive all the magic right here.

AIA Show

So this year SketchThis.NET is heading to Miami Florida to present Sketchup at the American Institute of Architects convention.  We are teaming up with Igloo Studio's, Kraftmaid, and the Google Sketchup team to put on a great show!

KBIS is going to have nothing on this show!

So what are we going to do when we are down there?  My first thought was to find some place that looks like this:

But then I thought, how good would a pale Massachusetts native look after a few hours of basking in that sun?  Bright red, that's how i'd look!  So rather then work on my tan here,  I have decided that for one of my presentations I will be taking an existing model that I found on the 3D warehouse, and filling it with cabinets, countertops, and whatever else I can get my hands on in the 3D warehouse.  Why would I do this you ask?  Because I am doing a presentation on how arcitects and kitchen deisgners can use Google Sketchup Pro to collaborate on models.  This will save us both time, money, and most of all, will make the client even happier!

The house I have chosen is below.  Any thoughts on what I should do?

If you want to see inside this house, click on the 3D view and you can download it and see it right in Sketchup!