I found great software from tool google that let’s you make 3d renderings. It is free and it works well. I can’t share my designs but I wanted to point out this software to the couminity. It is a great way to get ideas across to other people. It is called google sketch up 7.

yea i have got that, its free and is pretty good, the only thing is, its is quite hard to make things look realistic. e.g curves, colors and such.

9/10 is my score. :D

It is just to give you an idea of what it will look like. To make a sketch up.

Alas, until it works with linux it’s out of my domain I tried getting it to work using Wine with no luck, but it does look like a cool tool, especially for sharing mockups around a DIY’er community such as this one.

Couldn’t agree more. The great thing about SketchUp is that it is as simple or complicated as you want it to be - rough sketches to get your idea across take no more than a few minutes, but you can add as much detail as you want. Getting things to scale is a task made much easier by sketchup. Here are some good links that I’ve accumulated for anyone interested in getting involved with Sketchup:
http://sketchup.google.com (homepage)
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ (3D Warehouse - get components to add to your models)
http://sketchup.google.com/training/videos.html (SketchUp training videos)
http://www.youtube.com/user/SketchUpVideo (YouTube training vids)
http://sketchup3dchallenge.blogspot.com/ (SketchUp 3D Challenge - a nice way to try your hand at some modeling challenges to get yourself acquainted with some of SketchUp’s tools and intricacies...some of the models are amazing).

I’ve posted the models that I’ve made for my table in my blog, if anyone’s interested...they’re pretty simple (no textures, etc. - just for measuring purposes), but feel free to add on to them or modify them. I’ve been using sketchup for a while, so drop me a PM if anyone needs some help with something.

@magicstuff
Curves can be difficult...the best way that I’ve been able to make them is intersecting spheres with rectangular prisms, and then deleting parts of the intersected shape until I am left with a curve. The materials panel is actually quite well stocked, and you can import your own pics and colors for materials. It takes some work to make things look ‘realistic’, but to model something for, say, a table design isn’t too bad.

rbedi100

Sketchup has some rendering plugins too. I used one for this image. Not all of their plugins are free though.

Wow nice job seth, yeah i agree too that google sketch up is great for rendering simple designs and few complex too, the tutorials provided gives you a head start on how to use it. great stuff.

That is pretty neat..

but.. is that a toaster in your rig? 

heh, looks like a toaster, but it’s a mini atx computer case.

Wanted to link my thread about models done up in the game Second Life, which has a really powerful building engine:  http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/4363/
The models show the MT techniques seen throughout this forum, as well as some MT tables.

Now all someone has to make this multi touch compatible so we can use it on our screens.

cicada - 27 January 2009 09:54 AM

That is pretty neat..

but.. is that a toaster in your rig? 

Maybe he likes toast while MultiTouching.

Sketch up is really one of my favorite google apps.

hah that looks great Touchmaster. Did you use any plugins?

Seth (cerupcat) - 30 March 2009 10:31 PM

hah that looks great Touchmaster. Did you use any plugins?

Thanks Seth, I haven’t tried plugins yet, I did do an animation with several version of typical situations.  This is part of a business challenge I’m in at school.

Sketch-Up animation created for Point Park University. 

well, it’s quite possible to make sketchup rendering look realistic, just use the right plugins, for instance indigo (in my expirience by far the best) and it’s still free. here’s an example.