Sketchup to CAD

SKETCHUP AND AUTOCAD can be used in conjunction with one another to create an image that is not so much a hybrid drawing, but rather an image / concept that originates in SKETCHUP - is exported to AUTOCAD - and then hatched and rendered in AUTOCAD. The image is drawn in 3D, then exported as a 2D image into AUTOCAD format. For this particular Civil Engineering Sketch, I used the two tone cylindrical gradient hatch in AUTOCAD to give the appearance and depth of 3D. The CAD file itself is 2 Dimensional and can be labelled and further edited in AUTOCAD.

Revisiting Patrick Dougherty - Stick Sculptor

This is the second posting for stick sculptor Patrick Dougherty. He is a birdman, using twigs to sculpt a fanstasy world. Beautiful work. His work could inspire anyone to turn their backyard into a childlike sculpture / tree house.

Mosaic Art in the Landscape of Italy

In my fortune of travelling the beautiful country of Italy, I visited a number of fantastic garden villas. The Tarocchi garden stands out for it's surreal and other-worldy sculptures. The dedication to the craft of mosaic tile work is a testament to patience and perhaps a glimpse inside the mind of an artist on the edge. Beauty and Madness seem to walk hand in hand through this garden.
The following is an excerpt from the official website:

"Tarocchi Garden is a grandiose and ingenious work of art located in Garavicchio, a fraction in the town of Capalbio, in heart of the southern territory of Maremma, Tuscany."

"A garden, begun in 1979, stopped in 1998 and finished in 2002, it was designed by celebrated artist Niki de Saint Phalle, a fascinating person who dedicated a lot of his time to creating this incredible piece of art. Today he is recognized all over the world not only for his artistic brilliance but also for the message he sought to express in all his works of art"

"The tarot statues reach important and unique dimensions, with some more than 15 metres tall. During work on the garden, the statues lived with the artist himself and are decorated with mosaics of stones and mirrors."





Photos by Draftroots

The following video clip helps to give a sense of scale to the garden.

Video Feature: LAND ART

Nature and the human desire to manipulate it's beauty come together in this video feature. Meditate on this for a while...

Book Feature - Close: Landscape Design and Land Art in Scotland

Eye candy and imagination. This book features the magical landscape photography of Allan Pollok-Morris. Search the web for more imagery by the photographer.



See www.northfieldeditions.com for more info on the book.

Featured Designer: Graphic Designer Ed Fella

The King of Zing. An old-school designer with a flare for text and hand drawn lettering, Ed Fella often uses the four colour ball point pen to illustrate his ideas. Check out the documentary for an in depth look at his anti-computer approach. He truly stands out in our techno-dependant world. Note the small print on image 2. Click to enlarge.

Designer People - Ed Fella from Bijan Berahimi on Vimeo.

Artificial Leaf Turns Sunlight into Electric Power

A new breakthrough uses biomimicry to solve the energy crisis. Attention all investors! Amazing stuff. Watch this short clip.



http://www.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Artificial-Leaf-Turns-Sunlight-into-Electric-Power-119070894.html

Book Feature: Google Sketchup for Site Design by Daniel Tal

This Book is a great reference tool for any intermediate or advanced Sketchup user. Check out this video for a Sketchup tour and a visual guide through the book's table of contents.

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro in Action

Here is a great example of the power and fun Autodesk Sketchbook Pro can bring to the creative user.

Making Old-School New: Multi-Media Hand Drawn Landscape Designs

This posting is to introduce a multi-media approach to the old school hand drawn landscape plan. With some experimentation, I have developed a simple process to present clean and crisp hand drawn landscape plans, while still integrating Photoshop text, colour & imagery.

IMAGE 1 - This is a portion of the survey done for the project. Note the simplicity that one can use to record the existing site data. Despite the simplicity, always double check measurements and be sure you can read your notes. These survey notes are typically for the Designers eyes only.




IMAGE 2 - This represents the "Cadification" (my own technical term) - a.k.a. the autocad drafted baseplan created using the above survey notes. This was then printed on a translucent mylar sheet. The drawing size was planned out to allow for a 24"x36" presentation at 1/4"=1'-0" scale.

IMAGE 3 - This is the mylar sheet with the concept rendering directly on the mylar. To achieve this, I overlaid trace paper and worked out my concept roughly with markers. Then proceeded to trace directly on the translucent mylar using hand sketching techniques. This step involved trace then trace again. The image is then scanned. As you can see, the image is still rough: note the colour testing in the top corner as well as the faded and lackluster colour provided by the scanning process.

IMAGE 4 - To achieve this final glossy cleaned up image, there were several important steps performed. First - the mylar scan is cleaned up using Photoshop. The colour is brightened and the contrast is enhanced. It is then brought into Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. I decided to clean up some of the line work to darken it as well as give it a crisp look. This was done mostly by tracing in a black overlay using my recently purchased and previously enjoyed Wacom tablet. The image is then brought back into Photoshop where text, colour, images and a title heading was added (removed from this image for client privacy). The final step was to overlay my original cad drawing (Printed as PDF) on top of the sketchwork using Photoshop . This provided the dark black line work that ultimately superseded the faded scanned line work.

Overall, I think the multi-media approach for this simple landscape concept, although had many stages to achieve the final result, was worth the effort. Once familiar with the techniques, it becomes a lot simpler to bounce back and forth between the various forms of software and achieve a clean professional drawing.

Visit http://www.draftroots.com/ for more imagery.

Jim Leggitt: Tradigital Imagery and the Art of Computer Models mixed with Hand Sketching

Jim Leggitt is one major influence in my evolving approach to 3d modelling. Check out this video to get a glimpse into his technique.




Visit his website at:
http://www.drawingshortcuts.com

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro - Software Review

I have stumbled upon some new software that I plan on integrating with my already large set of design tools. Sketchbook Pro by Autodesk is a user friendly digital sketchbook that is very effective when coupled with a Wacom Tablet, ie. digital drawing board. It emulates the feel of a pencil in hand, and allows the user to Etch and Sketch until their heart's content. It can be combined with additional software like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to help produce some incredible digital images.

As noted in my previous post, my concept presentations for Landscape Design are already composed using a multi-media approach. This will allow for that additional hand sketch feel to be added to my already layered 3d Model. The software supports several different formats like Jpegs, Gifs, PNG & TIF.

Check it out at: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=6848332&siteID=123112

Multi-Media Rendering: Sketchup, Piranesi & Photoshop

This image was constructed using several pieces of software. The initial 3d model is sketched over top of a base plan concept. Google Sketchup is the heart and soul of my rendering technique. After preparing the model and applying textures and materials to the newly designed components, I input secondary site details using Google Sketchup's 3d model warehouse. This "warehouse" is an online user stocked collection of miscelaneous 3d models. This method of integrating my own custom design work with "stock" models, helps to speed up the process, as well as give the image a greater sense of realism.

Piranesi is the second piece of software used to populate the image with trees & shrubs. As opposed to using Google Sketchup's tree and shrub components which can dramatically increase the model size, as well, don't always have the realism or look that I am trying to achieve, Piranesi retains the model's perspective and makes this addition quick and painless. Piranesi offers many rendering options and techniques - and I only use a fraction of it's capabilities.

Once populated with trees and shrubs, this image is exported as a Jpeg and imported into Photoshop. Using Photoshop, I finalize my rendering - integrating several techniques to bring the final sketch to life.