Mass Models

One of the most interesting aspects of architectural practice is the opportunity to explore and present ideas in three dimensions. There have been many tools to do this, with different capabilities including Autocad and Form-Z, and modified animation tools such as VIZ. Other tools have been created that combine technical data with the 3D model to create a full building information system such as Revit. These tools are very powerful and helpful for professionals that can leverage the time investment and data to learn and use them.

The problem with these tools is that they are all have a learning curve that ranges from days to weeks to be used with competence and much longer to achieve mastery. A few years ago a new tool was introduced, SketchUp, that can be picked up in minutes and brought to competency in mere hours. It does this by being intuitive to use, graphically responsive, and just plain fun!

Why am I blogging about this? Because recently google bought SketchUp, and a personal edition is now free! It doesn't support some of the professional model export, terrain, and rendering options, but the basic modelling tools are identical. So, if you ever wanted to play around with a true free-form powerful but simple modeling environment, head on over to the download page and give it a look.