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Ideally you'd want the combo printer-scanners that are starting to come out, combined with something as simple and intuitive as SketchUp (but volumetric "clay" instead of shell/boundary) to let users modify the model by stretching, patching, or copying elements. That might have been something that Jobs' Apple could have done, but Jobs is dead.

Have you tried Sketchup? Even the pro version is relatively inexpensive and WOW! intuitive.

A single licence seems to go for $500. A $500 piece of software will never be mainstream.

There are two potentially huge markets. I, for one, would like to be able to take a few (360-degree) photos of my house and have SketchUp (formerly owned by Google) deliver a 3D version that prospective buyers could "walk around in" via their browsers. Similarly, construction works spend a lot of effort making site measurements to create estimates, order materials, etc.. If that could be automatically produced via 3D renderings, all the better.

Surprised this is going over so quietly, the new ``Free'' version of SketchUp is prohibited from commercial use:

http://sketchup.com/license/b/sketchup-make

>Trimble Navigation Limited and/or its affiliates (“Trimble”) gives you a personal,
>worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable and non-exclusive license to use the
>executable version of the Software for non-commercial use only. Non-commercial
>use means: you may not sell, rent, lease or lend the output of the Software or
>the Services. If you are a for-profit organization of any kind, or an employee
>of a for-profit organization using the Software or Services in that capacity,
>you are engaged in commercial activity; therefore, in order to use the Software
>and Services, you must purchase a SketchUp Pro license.

I suppose if one makes something for one's home w/ it, then has to move and sells the item in a garage sale one is guilty of a thought-crime?

Wonder how that'll hold up in court.

Other people have already pointed out several ways that this review is, to put it nicely, lacking. I'd like to mention two more important points.

1. Hyperlinks...do you use them?

Reviewer writes

(I know you will love this part of the book, so I got a sample of this chapter from the publisher for you guys – See it Here)

Yeah, see it where? Did you (reviewer and/or editor) do the most cursory of read-throughs to see if there were any blatant instances of "click on this text that's not a hyperlink but really, probably should be" ? I guess the answer would be no.

But don't be sad -- I got a free web coupon from the ice cream factory for everyone -- Click to See it Here!

2. SketchUp isn't Free Software. It's not entirely free as in beer, either. Be more clear on Slashdot.

SketchUp is a product hoovered-up by Google. They have a free-as-in-beer version as well as a Pro version for $495 (US). I can't even believe that in this whole review there wasn't even a link back to the software's website. I mean, that's like the first place people would want to go after reading the review or buying the book.

Reviewer states that this book will

teach you how to make stunning photorealistic and artistic visuals of your projects with free software

Okay, so it's "free" in the sense that you're not paying money for it. Well, at least if you download the free-as-in-beer version of SketchUp. Don't get the Pro version, or the trial version of the Pro software...

Some other free software that you will learn how to use is GIMP

Yes, GIMP is free-as-in-beer, but it's also Free Software (note the capitalization), which is actually something that (most of) the readers of Slashdot care about.

The reviewer also mentions Kerkythea, a project which seems to be internally confused about how free and open it is. Their About page says that

Kerkythea is a standalone renderer...I want to believe that KT can now be considered among the top freeware/open source renderer engines

But Kerkythea isn't open source and doesn't have open distribution, as their License page confusingly describes:

We believe in free software that continues to be of high quality, user friendly and can be used in your commercial work without any fees or any other restrictions. We have only some terms of usage to basically protect our hard work.

Kerkythea is freeware copyrighted product and can be used under the following terms:
1. You can not re-distribute Kerkythea software from web sites or other ways of massive redistribution (for example, magazine CD). Person to person redistribution is permitted provided that the package is distributed without modifications and without gaining money from this action, or any kind of advertisement material.
2. You can use Kerkythea and its produced output (rendered images) for your work (including commercial) completely free without any fees. Mentioning the rendering software is appreciated but not required.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 January 2008 )

So to sum up, the KT teams "believes in free software [that] can be used in...commercial work without any fees or other restrictions," but then puts a pretty big restriction on software distribution. Hmmmm... think that's confusing? I sure do.

But I digress...

It really all comes down to putting in the effort to author a solid review.

I wish that the revie

At the SketchUp Pro retail single seat price of $495, I'm rather certain they could handle a one-off CD/DVD distribution system. Don't you think?

Is interactivity not the major difference? With a computer you can learn how to ski,skydive,sculpt and sing.

Not wanting to get all web 2.0 on your ass, but the fact that the internet is becoming a less passive experience by the day, is one reason I remain optimistic about its educational role.

Now you are starting to get to the MEAT : Feng Shui despite all the laughter I am now hearing in tech-land starts to focus on the harmony of the place. Simply is this a nice environment to work in. Just because its an IT environment does not mean it has to resemble and feel like a mortuary even if Sun and other computer companies specify similar environments to protect the hardware..

Do yourself a BIG favor take a weekend of to look at some feng shui examples and get Chris Alexanders book A pattern Language http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings-Construction-Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199828727&sr=8-1 then sit down and list all the things you hate about work environments and all the things you like and your favorite work habits and only include features around the positive.

Paramount importance get good natural light or full spectrum minimum 75 foot candles non glare reflective , excellent air quality and not just C02 controls - CO the works and monitor it , the first three control you work temp the racks like 60deg and 30% humidity but humans don't, Get low pressure air flow from the floor to the intake vents mounted on the top part of the wall or ceiling superior acoustics no more than 50DB in your sit down and concentration and reflection spot.

All the other Feng Shui comments are spot on. Once you have this lined out then slap in the technology racks routers colored wiring whatever. Just a a side hint Gensler the architect has started to design buildings around what makes them great places to work instead of the normal archicrap and these companies are getting 20 - 30 % increase in productivity. http://www.gensler.com/news/2006/07-20_workSurvey.html you can also experiment with this by making simple sketchup models http://www.sketchup.com/ which you will find also great for mapping all the rest of your data setup

Primarily think " HOW YOU WORK " not whats in your workspace

When you get the AHHHHHHHHH effect and people start to congregate in your office with smiles you have made it

Design well Design for yourself / Great post by Qbertino

( : ( : pete

That's a harder question than it sounds.

I didn't get much from the tutorials on the blender.org site, apart from the basic interface tutorial, mostly because they don't clearly separate learning 3D from learning Blender. If you already know how to visualize and work in computer 3D, the wikibooks manual is better. If you don't know how to work in 3D at all, I'd suggest starting with Google's Sketchup, which is an unconventional 3D architectural modeler capable of spectacular results.

once I've learned it, am I more or less productive than with the alternatives?

You'll be more productive.

The harsh comments you'll see here are from people who can't wrap their heads around Blender's hotkey-based UI. If you get used to the idea of keeping your left hand on the keyboard to command, and the right hand on the mouse to move, you'll be able to work faster than most of the alternatives. The critics are right in that it doesn't reward casual experimentation; you have to commit to learning the hotkeys. They're wrong in claiming that the experience won't translate well to other apps. It doesn't take long for any consistent UI to vanish, and your mind to drill into the modeling or animation, and Blender's UI is consistent.

Google Sketchup
http://contest.sketchup.com/entry.php?rules=1

http://contest.sketchup.com/entry.php?rules=1

Pretty soon we will see hundreds of campuses mapped in 3D and available everywhere on google maps. How hard would it be to convert the Google 3D data to a CS or Quake map? Not hard at all. I guess Google is supporting the next generation of school shooters eh?

Actually, no I'm not exaggerating just a quick google for [blender user interface] found me this little page (at position 6 in my results).

http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2006/01/blender-user -interface-tutorial.html

I possibly will retry it at some other time, but for now the only positive thing to come out of this is a link to Sketchup which at first glance seems a lot less headache inducing and might just do for what I need.

Personally, I like Sketchup, and it runs on the Mac. Oh, yeah, it compares to any professional CAD about like a hammer and chisel compare to a Mont blanc pen, but I like it. Of course, IANAME (Mech. Eng.).

AutoCad won't run on a Mac

Have you checked out VectorWorks? I was surprised to find AutoCad didn't run on OS X because an architect a friend of mine knows uses a Mac for work, and I thought AutoCad was all there was for the profession. I later found out he uses VectorWorks. I don't know much about it, but apparently SketchUp works with it.

Blender is complex. Compare it to, say, SketchUp (which I see was just bought by Google and now has a free-as-in-beer version) and you'll see the UI is much less approachable than it could be.

And the beautiful thing about it is that you can affect the "sketchiness" of the drawing, with extension lines, jitter, etc. Makes it look almost hand drawn.

Check out the Gallery portion of the forums, there's some amazing stuff being done with this program.

http://forum.sketchup.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9

And the cool thing is that it's *3D*, not just a simple drawing tool - it exports nicely (well, mostly nicely) into AutoCAD - but then again, I own the Pro version. ;-)

Overall I think it's a neat toy that some people may enjoy, but I think anyone serious about 3D will give it a pass (including, I'm guessing, the Pro version).

I don't know about that. Take a look at their case studies. There are some pretty good models in there.

• Access to the following 3D export formats: DWG, DXF, 3DS, OBJ, XSI, VRML and FBX.

Don't get me wrong, i've been checking their website and it looks like a terrfic product. It's just that $500 feels like a lot; you can get very decent CAD products from $50 up, including Audodesk's Autosketch 9 for about $150! $500 is just too much for a hobbyst like me, which i infered from the article is part of the target audience for the software.

    I'm not OSS zealot, and i pay gladly for software if i think it's worth it. I'll try the demo tormorrow, and i'm pretty sure i'll like it from what i've seen so far - the "push/pull designing" thing alone had me drooling for a while. But i don't know if it'll turn out to be $500-worth. Rememeber, a full-fledged CAD package is in the vecinity of $700-800.

sketchup is $495: http://www.sketchup.com/cgi-bin/store/trybuy.html

I recently needed to design some 3D models; I found both Blender and a special architectural program too much hassle to use. The user interface of Sketchup was so easy, though, that I managed to put together the model very quickly, and the UI was intuitive enough that I didn't even have to look at a manual. Sketchup is now being used by a lot of architecture departments, and that kind of quick 3D design might be a better target "market" for Blender than trying to compete with 3D Studio Max or Maya.

My conclusion was that with a carefully designed UI, 3D applications don't have to be hard to use. The Blender developers would do well to have a look at the Sketchup UI and implement some of the good ideas found there. On the other hand, even the Sketchup UI has some annoyances, so Blender could actually do better.

http://sketchup.com/ is a really amazing 3D design tool.

For a long time I was looking at various free or demo CAD programs to do quick floorplans and renovation ideas. But what I really wanted was a 3D sketch tool that would show me the measurements etc.

SketchUp is that tool, and it's great. Evidently it can export to regular CAD programs so you can generate blueprints, etc., and also can export vector graphics.

Somebody asked this question a few years ago on slashdot in a more 3-D context, and one person heartily recommended SketchUp. They've got a free download.

I checked it out, and have been a happy customer every since. They've got both MacOS X and Windows versions, and it really kicks ass - it's the only vector drawing program that I've used where I feel happy to just doodle and something interesting tends to evolve. It's that good of a tool, that it naturally extends your imagination. Of course, because of the nature of the tool the drawings always tend to grow into the third dimension - which always gives a more dynamic result.

I'm just a happy SketchUp customer. Check it out, it's really a great tool.

For a super-cheap, excellent modeller, try SketchUp. Cheap to buy, and a 14 day free demo.

We use this tool to concept for our MMORPG (it exports) that is in development, it is incredibly powerful, superfast and so simple, my mother could use it.

In the SketchUp in Action section, they have a couple of vids that you might want to check out.

If you are looking for more interior design options, make sure you pull the "components" stuff from thier download section.

Good Luck

For a super-cheap, excellent modeller, try SketchUp. Cheap to buy, and a 14 day free demo.

We use this tool to concept for our MMORPG (it exports) that is in development, it is incredibly powerful, superfast and so simple, my mother could use it.

In the SketchUp in Action section, they have a couple of vids that you might want to check out.

If you are looking for more interior design options, make sure you pull the "components" stuff from thier download section.

Good Luck

But there are better options:
Microspot Interiors, etc
Sketchup
VectorWorks 11.5
Form*Z
PowerCADD
VersaCAD
Cadintosh

But there is no current Mac version of AutoCAD, Pro/E, or Microstation. Bad news if you're planning on designing a new aircraft carrier on your new Mac Mini...

Have a look at SketchUp. It's more intended for technical drawing than artistic, but it does have pretty intuitive interface.

Also check out sketchup. Not exactly the same interaction techniques (because it's more architecture-oriented), but similar step in the "right direction" in uasbility.

Although geared toward architectural sketching, SketchUp might serve some of these needs. (Disclosure: I've not used the software, but I do walk past their office on a near-daily basis).

SketchUp has a unique interface that allows 3D forms to be created, viewed and modified quickly and easily. The core of its simplicity is an interface that allows you simply to draw the edges of the desired model in 3D space, just as they would using a pencil and paper. Intelligent inferencing capabilities automatically determine the nature of the lines and "fill" shapes to create 3D geometry. SketchUp is used by all kinds of designers in many different industries. It is quick to learn, fast to use and hard to forget.

If you're wanting non-curved shapes (architectural models especially) I do believe sketchup might be what you're after. The interface is even better than they say it is.

SketchUp absolutely takes the cake on this one. SketchUp is the best 3-D modeling design software available (no reason you can't work in 2-D). SketchUp features automatic length and surface area calculations, as well as automatic labelling and dimensioning.

You can also use walkthroughs; literally walk through the model. You can build on different layers and hide any/all of them, and even deaignate a plene on your model, such that everything on the positive side of the plane is hidden, but the rest is visible (perfect for cross sections, cutaways).

SketchUp costs $475 for the full version, but you can get a demo, which can either work for 30 days, or for 12.0 hours of actual use time. THere is a windows client as well. The best part about SketchUp is the versatility. You can actually save drawings as .dwg (AutoCAD drawing), pictures, and many other formats.

SketchUp is definitely the way to go.

I must say, SketchUp wins hands-down over any floor-plan-type software. It does have 3D modelling and walkthroughs, but you don't have to use them. The only thing is that it's not inexpensive, as you specified (the web site says US$475), but there is a free 30 day trial. Check out some of the tutorials, too, to see what amazing things you can do with this app.

3D modelling and rendering would be helped quite a bit.

Check out SketchUp - expensive software, but the downloadale demo gives you 8 hours in which to become addicted to it.

I love Sketchup, but at $500 it is probably too expensive. Still, it is fun - you can download a fully functional demo from their site, and it's good for 8 hours of use. It's pretty intuitive, so that might be enough time for your situation.