Beyond Construction Modeling

It doesn’t take more than a few years teaching in a construction school to realize construction students are definitely a breed apart. This fact is particularly interesting when the school is within shouting distance of an architectural school.

For some reason, designers and constructors just don’t mix well. This, of course, is nothing new to anyone working on a jobsite, but it’s particularly interesting that this innate difference in personalities begins well before anyone enters a design or construction program.

Bimification of Craft

Of course professionals work together effectively no matter what their personalities or motivations, recognizing a mutual interest in coordinating their efforts to get a project built. But the rationalization of the entire construction process tends to diminish both the craft of producing a design and the craft of building a building.

In practice, the industrialization of the products created by designers and builders has been going on for a very long time and though both recognize the importance of the others’ work, few practicing today remember the draftsmen or carpenters that were once masters of their craft.

 

In a fast paced bimified world, it’s very rare to meet either a designer or a builder who has achieved the level of expertise once seen with the legendary masterbuilders. Perhaps things are just too complicated now for individual expression. Where a sheet in a set of construction drawings was once drawn by one person and checked by another, CAD drawings are now a mix of overlays, cross references, imports, and paste-in-place, all following a preprogrammed, almost robotic computerized system.

Like manufacturing a new car, buildings are designed and assembled through repetitive work, maximum efficiency, and carefully managed production. When it works, it gets the job done, but the results are far from a personal expression of any individual’s skill.

Techne of Craft

Sociologists see this loss of craft as the outcome of specialization, a function of modernity and the reduction of the master craftsmen to wage workers without the time or interest in perfecting their work.

Ancient Greeks described the separation of craft from work as a philosophical trait they called “techne.” Techne is the mechanical skill, the living knowledge of a craft, as an understanding of something that brings a sense of satisfaction from a familiar expertise in making or doing.

 
Techne was once seen in singular objects that were drawn or created with a focus on the physical act of doing, not as an art, but as the result of the actions necessary to proudly put something together with one’s hands to solve a problem or make something that wasn’t there before. The objects that result come from a deep understanding of the tools and materials that are the manifestations of their craft.
 

The industrialization of craft is of course necessary for human progress. Most would agree there’s no way we could do what we do now in a purely craft-based economy. Considering the systems and specialization, let alone the growing intelligence of both the building and design documentation, we can only dream of those good old days. I’m happy I was a part of them.

Techne @ Net Zero

At the same time, techne exists in design and construction in what appears to be the absence of craft. This is the folk art of pottery and paint, the fantasies of individual expressions.

 

For construction professionals, techne is most apparent when we look at the disordered architecture of the informal sector. These are buildings where craft appears to be excluded from both the details and structure of their form. At the same time, if you look carefully (with the eye of a hands-on do-it-yourselfer) you see the ingenuity and determination embedded in an architecture with no presumptive form, no practiced pretense.

At first glance, these buildings may seem to be the antithesis of techne. Seen from a developed and disciplined world, they look like unconsciously erratic interpretations of architecture, expression of both untutored self-determination and limited imagination. But look again and you might see a reflection of the personalities we once held before being trained as designers and builders in a post modern world.

Important is that these buildings stand as the result of impoverished humans responding to the need for shelter with little or no planning, using random and dysfunctional materials, limited tools, and a disordered process that reflects almost none of the formalized systems of an “educated” industrialized society. With no power, scaffolding, or equipment, this is architecture put together by hand with none of the practiced rigor of a preconceived plan or the processed consumables necessary to analytically assemble an orderly product.

Standing outside the formal constraints of a rational process, they are a unique human form, distillations of the essence of intuition and invention where shape and substance are created purely out of necessity and an instinct for survival.

As a purely organic structure, they are built like sculptures with randomly collected materials pieced together to create an object that mixes both doing and design on the margins of rational industrialized thought.

Beyond Construction Modeling

Study these buildings again as a construction modeler and you see an object that cannot be built as a 3D construction model, first because the pieces and placements don’t conform to the simplified geometry of our bimified three-dimensional axes. Second, though the elevations might be photographically textured as a rendered model, the assembled materials cannot be organized in a computer to predict or inform a construction process.

Finally, neither the design nor construction can be reduced to an hourly wage. There is no schedule to manage, no deadlines, just an ongoing commitment to self-reliance and determination. Beyond craft or techne, what we see as a result are the purposeful limits of construction modeling.

When the innate personalities of designers and builders are left to wander without the professorial inputs of an institutionalized post industrial world, one is only left to marvel at the techne seen in these informal constructions.

.

Virtualized Clouds and Construction

“Virtualization” became popular for desktop computers in 2007 as operating systems, memory, and data storage became more affordable.  By definition, virtualization is the creation of a virtual rather than actual version of something (Wikipedia).

In practice, it’s a way of partitioning computer memory to set up distinct programs or data sectors on a hard-drive or network servers.  The idea is to organize information and software so it’s faster to access as stored memory, expanding the operational potential of different kinds of computational devices.

Virtualized interaction

The entire computational world has now been virtualized.  Today, internet resources, wireless networks, and the increased graphical capabilities of electronic devices continue to expand exponentially.

This means information is no longer stored on isolated standalone work stations, programming environments no longer operate from a single server, and many computers are no longer physically connected to a grid.

The result is that users have been literally liberated from their desktops.

Instead, a cloud of resources, including thousands of constantly evolving applications, are now available wirelessly on networked devices that fit in the palm of your hand.  These little machines are highly mobile, require no mouse or keyboard, and display graphics, motion, and details in ways that are literally impossible to duplicate on ordinary computers.

Virtualized information

Even more important is the variety of open source resources available to these handheld displays.  This is best seen in the changing structure of how information is delivered across virtualized networks.

For example, look at this posting on the Google Earth Blog.  It shows how far virtualized information has come.  First as a blog article that uses a single web page to explain a complex phenomenon with a simple display of graphical information; second as an animated introduction to the capability of one of the most stunning visual resources on the web (Google Earth); and finally, as a link to emerging virtualized environments that deliver information that behaves as if it has a life of its own (WikiLeaks).

Virtualized cloud

Cloud computing evolved from virtualization and exists as a byproduct of the internet.  It offers networked applications as construction tools that draw from the wealth of segmented information now stored anonymously on servers scattered around the world.

A cloud can be private or public.  Public clouds like Google, Wikipedia, and RSMeans are available to everybody.  This makes them available as common references accessible to an entire project team.  As such they help define the scope of work, motivations for project decisions, and research for alternative values.

Structured clouds like Heavy Equipment 2, American Builders, Craig’s List or eBay are where contractors find and price tools, materials, equipment, and labor.  Construction resources are traded daily on these virtualized servers, often with links to detailed manufacturer information in the public sectors of private clouds.

Private clouds are networks or centers that offer proprietary information or software services.  Market oriented explanations are used to capture interested users, while subscribers pay a fee for deeper access and technical support.

Examples include, Sage Construction, PrioSoft, and CMO Compliance.  The advantages of expert tools based in a private cloud include lower startup costs, transparency and mobility, training and technical support, access to a community of users, and continuous backup and software upgrades.

Virtualized advantages

In the end, design and construction companies are only as successful as their knowledge-base.  As such, the cloud works to the benefit of those that can comfortably access its potential, delivering innovative tools and immediate information to the fingertips of a new class of virtualized professionals.

That’s a competitive advantage that’s as true for construction professionals, as it is for medical doctors, research scientists, and high school seniors.

As many small and large constructors work hard, struggling to maintain relevance in a quickly evolving economy, it doesn’t take much to see the advantage of such a compelling and flexible new resource.

Virtualized Construction Managers

In just a couple of years, the game has changed.  Work stations are now seen to be confining constructors to desktops, blocking the flow of clear project communications.  These cumbersome computers are becoming the aging anchors of an office-based technology that keeps team members from the face-to-face-on-the-jobsite interactions required for quick and efficient construction management.

It’s becoming fairly obvious that we are entering an era of flexible, highly mobile, communicative practices, backed by visual information displays, visible on a clipboard-sized touch pad tablet, wireless connected to a cloud.

.

Graphically Competitive

Industry experts are saying Apple’s new I-Pad is a revolutionary development in visual communication, able to deliver page and video formats wirelessly and in color to handheld devices not much bigger than a magazine.

At this point, who knows if the I-Pad will change anything beyond its early market hype?

Vertical applications for this new device are still a ways off, especially for construction managers who are still struggling to keep pace with all the other technical changes now flooding a very competitive industry.

In practice, some construction companies are only just now taking advantage of simple email and page publishing programs, including texting messages and photos from the field to wirelessly file daily reports on project activity.  However, except for a handful of the more technically advanced companies, most of the industry remains reluctant to place graphical information systems of this kind at the center of their management methods.  That takes time, money, and talent.
.

Technical advantages

At the same time, most construction organizations know from experience that competition for projects is going to get even more intense as the economy finally comes out of the starting gate.

That level of intense competition will mean finding ways to take advantage of tools and ideas that give the winners a competitive edge in a rapidly changing economic environment.

The Internet and websites are obvious examples.  Just a few years ago, the idea of investing in a web page was only a passing interest for most people in construction.  Few saw the potential of the web to graphically clarify their mission, visually promote a strong company image, and illustrate unique proprietary processes that are often buried and forgotten in project proposals.

While most now accept that some online presence is a necessary business expense, the more innovative industry leaders have pushed their websites to communicate new management approaches and systems based on track records of real world experience.  This means they’ve found ways to add depth to their market perception, increasing their lead over more conventional construction companies even further.

In fact, the challenge of seeing and adapting to change makes this a pretty exciting time to be an innovative construction contractor.  Constant and continuous change creates all kinds of opportunities for quick thinkers.  It triggers shifts in the marketplace and seemingly insignificant openings that technically aggressive people and companies will be able to squeeze into in order to beat out the slower, late adapters.  When that happens, the powers of these technical innovations will expand market expectations, setting the bar a little higher for everyone trying to maintain a competitive organization.
.

Visually Augmented

In today’s fast paced world of construction, it’s not about drafting or reading construction drawings any more.  New graphical devices are becoming central to visual communication strategies that are far more powerful than drawings and words alone. These are descriptive images that open doors to an ongoing conversation where interactions and details evolve (or dissolve) over time.

Important is that technology is not central to this exchange of information.  It simply augments the experience and knowledge available to a generation that has never feared its implementation.  What we find are construction managers who have either grown up with these tools, or had the imagination to recognize the potential of construction models, animated images, and graphical networks and how they can assist them in delivering a higher level of services than were once possible.

Also important is that these communication technologies are embedded in a mindset where these same construction managers are able to step away from their power and apply a personal, more face to face approach whenever necessary.  These are professionals comfortable with visual explanations and able to use it to their advantage whenever it’s necessary.  In other words, what may be complicated or difficult to others is no more than a simple set of tools that help them do their work more efficiently.  Most interesting is that they join a network of similar thinkers across the broader project development community — our clients.

What we see as a result is a technically augmented group of managers. These are primarily men and women who have not only adapted these tools to their social and professional lives, but internalized their potential as part of their innate competitive motivations.  As such, they’re secure in using these strengths to market their services whenever it works to their advantage.
.

Layers of visual explanations

Technical augmentation like this is central to real world competition.  Consider a truly assertive website like the one used by ConXtech in Hayward CA.  This site becomes an information delivery system, based on a layered visual presentation as an approach to both a revolutionary product and an innovative construction method.

On this site, graphical information mixes with video, animation, and interactive content that changes according to client interest, adjusting levels of supportive information, posted continually to the web for immediate review.

When an interactive presentation like this is seen next to a company showing a template of 20 or 30 canned Power Point slides, with a lot of the same old industry jargon, written tediously as text-based bullet points, it becomes obvious that old school thinking is struggling to remain relevant in a modern age.  Dated companies like these are often far behind the curve and less able to keep pace and collaborate with a more technically proficient project team.

After all, it’s the construction industry’s development clients that are the first adapters of almost any system that improves investment potential.  Otherwise they wouldn’t be in the project production business – at least not for long.
.

Turning toward hypergraphic communications

When fully incorporated into construction management, these graphical tools provide advantages that are fast becoming part of both social and professional interactions.  These are tools that may seem disruptive to outmoded schools of thought, but are simply natural extensions of expression to those that are able to put these technologies to work.

Most interesting is that each of the tools is open-sourced, user defined, and free from the constant need for upgrades that are required by expensive commercial software.  Like any tool or piece of equipment, all they need to be effective is a little training, a bit of practice, and periodic maintenance.

To demonstrate the potential of a variety of hypergraphic tools, we’ve begun posting a series of tips and tutorials on the ePub link of the Insitebuilders website.  The lessons linked to these pages are a work in progress and change daily, but you can follow along as we try different formats and software, demonstrating their potential for hypergraphic construction communication.

Our goal is to graphically empower constructors so they can begin to communicate their ideas throughout the project development process.

As you’ll see, visual explanations in construction are based on the ability to quickly build simple 3D models similar to those found in our books.   3D construction models visually explain the means and methods of a particular process because they can be sequenced, annotated, and published to the web.

It’s the web, along with the I-Pad, that makes the potential of Apple’s new invention most worthy of note for the construction industry.

Hypergraphic Construction Communications

Democratized Communications

The idea that free and open source software might actually democratize construction communications could actually be a driving force behind the ongoing drive to upgrade CAD programs.  Just to survive, software developers must constantly add layers of complexity to their products simply to create a marketable need for a competitive upgrade.

Of course, the percentages of system managers able to use or find consultants who can work with each newly marketed upgrade is limited at best.  And the search for compatible collaborators only adds to the market perception that not owning the most actively promoted new software, makes it somehow difficult for a company to do what was once a straightforward matter of getting a building built.

The Fatal Flaw of CAD

For an example, just look at the “success” of the so-called BIM model.  While most are still trying to figure it out, the market’s perception is clear:  good parametric models self-generate error free 2D drawings, collaborative menu-selections seamlessly link design and construction, and the implied promise of faster and cheaper real-world production.

These features are not sold to individual practitioners, but to a broader industry of media professionals, conference organizers, and developers hungry for news of more effective communications between design and construction professionals.

Of course, the mounting complexity of these programs is their fatal flaw.  After all, the plotted output of even a high end CAD program is still a printed set of two-dimensional documents.  Everything else is what Edward Tuft calls “fluff.”  And every experienced builder and designer knows a set of plans and specs is only a fraction of what it takes to actually coordinate the construction of a building.

Social Model of Communications

In Wired Magazine’s February cover story, Chris Anderson writes about a post-institutional model of an open supply chain where designers and builders gain almost unlimited access to a vast social network of information, products, and willing collaborators on the Internet.

Anderson points out that in this post-institutional social model, the web rains a variety of resources that were impossible to find just a few years ago.  The result is a down pour of new, deinstitutionalized programs that bring transformative change “ripped from the sole domain of companies…and handed over to regular folks.”

For our industry, this includes a variety of software programs that work easily together across a range of real-world applications.  Ironically, these programs are not difficult to find and put together, but remain largely unknown primarily because no one is promoting them as a single software platform.  When something is free, there is nothing to “sell.”

Open Source, User Driven

Post-institutional software also means upgrades are driven directly by the users of the product and not by a manipulated market of need.  This mean the people using the software shape and share the direction of its development, sometimes in the form of faster or more efficient code, other times as plug-ins or add-ons written for some practical purpose, customized for a specific user group.

SketchUp is a good example of this kind of social development.  Not because of the guiding hand of Google Inc, but precisely because of it’s almost complete neglect.  Instead, Google leaves SketchUp open to a number of highly proficient, completely independent, Ruby programmers who seem to be able to make the software do anything an industry of users needs to put the program into practice.

And when plug-ins and fixes are not possible, an active user forum publicly pressures a relative handful of Google employees to correct problems and make the changes.  Add to this community of interest, master modelers and use-group coordinators like those found at < http://SketchUcation.com > and one sees the essence of what Anderson means by a post-institutional social model on the web.

Hypergraphic Construction Communications

Software like SketchUp sets the stage for the kind of hypergraphic communications found in this social model.  Hypergraphics is a synthesis of text and visual media, part of a critical method of thinking developed in the 1950s.  The idea is that communication is multiform, intended to transfer a body of information in a variety of media, sometimes working independently toward the same intent or description, but just as easily varied and seemingly disfunctional.

The key to success in this post-institutional standard is to know what tools to collect from the web and how best to integrate their applications in daily practice.  Much of this integration has already begun.  Email, web research, and even CAD would not exist without the Internet and our current dependence on these new digital forms of communications.

In the same way, cameras are routinely found on jobsites, with pictures and video readily attached to communications and clarifications.  Digital scans can now be posted or emailed directly from high speed copiers, including high resolution settings that capture every detail of a construction.  And drawings, either sketched by hand on a piece of drywall or drafted on a machine, remain at the core of construction communications, more often than not, copied into the project records as part of a database of archived construction information.

Capturing Sequence, Scene, and Motion

One thing is clear, quick and simple construction modeling is at the heart of the tools necessary to communicate effectively in an open-source post-institutional environment.  When 3D construction models are quickly generated in the field, their output facilitates three-dimensional explanations of what has all too often been found buried in layers of two-dimensional scrawl on wrinkled sheets of rain stained paper.

Instead, images extracted from a construction model set the stage for capturing the sequence, scenes, and motions of the construction industry.  Sequence is assembly and action.  Scenes are events and milestones.  And motion displays both means and method over a given time.

What we demonstrate in all of our books is the fact that when these tools work together, they join a hypergraphic narrative as a pattern of multi-media messages.  These are cross platform approaches using quick and simple, good enough programs, that serve to communicate exactly the kind of real-time information necessary to get the building built.

Sample video from our new book:
A Small Home of Your Own: Plan Permit Pay in 3D
http://insitebuilders.com/indexBooks.htm

.

A Faded Tradition of Interaction

Back to the future

Construction drawings were once works of art.  Not for their detailed precision or extensive notes and documentation, but simply for their expressive representation of a building.  In those days, ideas evolved from sketchy schematics to roughly scaled preliminaries, with time to review alternatives and think through their constructability.

Final drawings were inked with ruling pens on pressed linen using T-squares, triangles and curves to shape beautiful illustrations of the building.  The result was a set of drawings based on a thoughtful process that was fundamental to the pride and challenge of a team of good draftspersons.

This was also an era when builders and drafters could take the time to collaborate and work together to shape a building during its construction.  The finished drawings were no more than a starting point for a working relationship between skilled tradesmen and women who could take pride in abilities that they had acquired through years of apprenticeship and training.

With the advent of time saving instruments like parallel bars and drafting machines, ideas continued to be drawn, but the speed and versatility of these new instruments meant details could be discussed and noted on the drawings entirely within the designer’s office.  In other words, rather than rely on open relationships on the jobsite, drafters began detailing the “requirements” for the constructions before the drawings reached the field.

Controlled collaboration

This ability to presuppose the input and experience of the builder meant construction drawings soon lost their place as the start of a conversation.  Working drawings became contract documents, with detailed notes and specifications penciled onto sheets of vellum outside any input from a builder — collaborative opportunities for mutual cooperation were quickly forgotten.

Then computer aided design (CAD) became an essential drafting tool silencing even the skilled draftsperson.  With the advent of CAD, once open drawing-board-conversations between skilled designers were inadvertently lost to the memory of a machine.  Newly trained CAD operators labored in “virtual” isolation to manipulate lines and letters, using templates and libraries of graphic data with conversations limited to redlined corrections and data input.  What little construction knowledge that could be exchanged was dulled by the monitors of isolated work stations.

The latest technical development takes this breakdown in any collaborative approach one step further.  With building information modeling (BIM), software publishers promise that a set of two-dimensional documents can be “parametrically” generated from detailed design models.  With the expanding power of graphical computers, hundreds of sheets of drawings and thousands of pages of specifications can now be automatically extracted from three-dimensional databases, leaving little time for any discussion.

Silenced by the technology

Ironically, both the builder and the practiced draftsperson are now silenced by a widening technical gap.  Worse yet, the computer operators who build these parametric models are even further removed by the same technology.  As the puppets of project management, they have been reduced to performing tasks with limited understanding of the nuances of the real-world constructability or the implications of the plans automatically generated by their computers.

In response, large construction companies have installed their own graphical work stations.  Operators struggle to generate preconstruction and as-built models using the same design software to anticipate and resolve conflicts and problems that may occur in the field.  The use of this software by constructors indicates a commitment to cutting edge information technology, even though the real value of these programs is its advertised potential to automatically convert 3D models to 2D contract drawings (parametrically).  Not something many builders need or want in the real world.

The challenge of course is to respond to the potential of this new technology, without losing the exchange of ideas and interaction fundamental to discovering solutions in the construction process.  Like the once skilled draftsperson, professional builders can easily be buried by a protracted learning curve, cut off by a technology that blurs the essence of what it means to be a builder.

Construction models are not BIM

A construction model graphically defines scope and anticipates real-world conflicts and alternatives with little need for two-dimensional drawings.  These models mix sequence animations and assembly and process simulations to communicate ideas spontaneously in an ongoing construction process.

Important is that a construction model differs from a designer’s BIM model.  While in theory a detailed BIM model incorporates the subassemblies necessary to produce a set of contract documents, a construction model intends to graphically represent ideas in support of a continuing conversation in real-time construction.

In practice, the construction modeling process helps builders think through and visualize more than the finished assembly.  It is fundamentally a tool to hypergraphically plan and anticipate the impact of change and the values of different approaches to the same result.  In other words, construction models embody the means and methods that interact and evolve with the variable of real-world construction.

The strength of a construction model must therefore be in the simplicity of its production.  Any technical distraction, other than to directly represent a construction concept and clearly illustrate a series of actions, only distracts from its communicative potential for the seasoned builder.

Keep it simple

A three-dimensional construction model must therefore be absolutely dead simple to build.  The software must reduce the production of the construction model to the essence of its value to hands-on builders.  This means learning the program must be intuitive, requiring no more than an hour or so to gain proficiency, yet capable of generating the kind of detail that can be used in a variety of interactions.

To meet these requirements there are several 3D programs, any one of which could serve the needs of different builders and all of which are free.  These programs range from basic modelers with simple sets of construction tools like DeleD and 3Dbase to photorealistic modelers like POV Ray, Blender3D, and TrueSpace from MicroSoft.

Of course, the most popular 3D modeling program and perhaps the most intuitive for hands-on construction modeling is Google SketchUp.

In the end, the choice of the modeling program is really unimportant.  The most important requirement of a construction model is the model builder’s underlying and fundamental understanding of the construction process.  From this basis, a construction model can communicate an approach, plan a process, and think through alternatives.

Like the early pen and ink drawings of our graphic tradition, the resulting three-dimensional images will then focus the conversation on the actual construction, helping all the project players, on and off the jobsite, to literally see and share the same point of view.

4D Modeling and Scheduling Software for Google SketchUp

Project managers face a unique challenge in construction planning because they have to calculate the most efficient and cost effective way to build a design, while clearly communicating the construction process to clients and other stakeholders.

Recently, project managers have adopted 3D modeling and 4D scheduling programs to help in this critical phase of the construction project. 4D modeling combines 3D drawings with a construction schedule and displays the sequence of construction over time.

Syncro has developed a plugin for Google SketchUp along with their full line of 4D systems for various sizes and types of construction management teams. Synchro has been developing innovative scheduling systems since their start in construction software 2001. Syncro’s software integrates models from popular CAD programs like Google SketchUp, as well as Revit and Auto CAD, and then synchronizes them with a project timeline on a spreadsheet. The result is both a visual and spatial representation of construction as it occurs through time.

This innovative new 4D plug-in for SketchUp was introduced at the 2008 CMAA conference in San Francisco and Software Advice, an online resource that helps construction companies find construction management software, was there to capture the importance of Syncro’s new 4D tools.

Their video of the plug-in can be seen below or on the Software Advice website.

The viability of 4D modeling software as an effective planning tool has prompted much discussion among leading construction professionals. So much so, that Stanford University’s Department of Civil Engineering held their own research study. Their study reveals that project managers and stakeholders can indeed understand a construction schedule more quickly and completely with a 4D visualization.

In a real world scenario, 3D and 4D construction modeling software has definite advantages. Construction projects are complex, and modeling software helps project managers anticipate and plan for delays and miscalculations. Now 3D construction modelers can use SketchUp to track their projects in 4D !!

(Submitted by Houston Neal, Software Advice)

Reprint of 3D Construction Modeling

Classic book using SketchUp for construction modeling

3D Construction Modeling

Do to many requests, we’re reprinting the book 3D Construction Modeling and distributing it to booksellers and offering it again on Amazon. The book includes a trial version of SketchUp V4, which is a much simpler and basic program than Google SketchUp.

V4 has black and white icons, V5 has color (and new icon shapes) and an organizer called the Outliner. The Google SketchUp version adds a bunch more stuff like Layout, performances, sketchy edges, warehouse imports, photo match, etc. All design features that are not always necessary for most construction models. At least we never use them.

The book covers the fundamentals of building a piece-based construction model using the tools you find in all versions of SketchUp, but does not go beyond what is necessary to plan, layout, and build a construction model. This includes site planning and site layout modeling and subsequent chapters on how to fabricate and install the pieces of a wood frame building (and take them apart). There is also a chapter on shade and shadow, animation, and other simple effects in SketchUp.

The value of this book is that it introduces the reader to the basics of construction modeling using this simpler version of SketchUp — making the transition to the current version easier. It remains popular because it helps readers understand the piece-based concept of assembly and production modeling.

We are publishing a companion to this book later this year titled “How a House is Built.” The new book is not an upgrade in that it will not be a step–by-step hands-on learning experience like this one. But it will show how both a house and a construction model of the house are built using Google SketchUp, including mechanical, electrical, and plumbing as well as a “How To” page with video demonstrations rather than tutorials.

For more info see our website: http://insitebuilders.com