While sustainability seems to be guiding many discussions these days, not too long ago "homeland security" was the catchword of the day.

It has been interesting to monitor the development of these two key terms over the past few years and especially since September 2001. Both of these terms have shaped particularly the US American society's behavior and decision making in the past years and the second one is bound to continue doing this for some time to come. Arguably, the first one will, too.

In comparing them, it is important to realize that both relate to people's innate fears. The first was of course a reaction after 9/11 to the fear of the "homeland" being attacked. By the way: this was expressed not as "national" security but rather as "homeland" security, which includes two tangible terms ("home" and "land") instead of something as abstract as "nation". Ah, the power of rhetorics!

The second one is a reaction to the fear that we might be ruining the world for our children. Wherever users of this term come from - be it environmental sustainability or economic sustainability - people have an interest in providing the next generation with similar opportunities as they have had. Together with the ongoing discussion about climate change, the recent rising cost of energy and problems caused by depletion of natural resources, sustainability in the environmental context is bound to be with us for a while.

Reviewing the barrage of ads on the first few pages of Architectural Record (and similar planning-related publications) over the past years, it appears that the post-9/11 demand for suppliers of safe-and-secure products has been replaced in the last years by the demand for green products. Trying to quantify this anecdotal evidence a bit better, I typed both terms into Google Trends and produced the graph below. Although this is not a very precise comparison of trends, it provides a good hint at them.

(Source: Google Trends)

You can see in the image above that while "homeland security" still produces a higher search volume than "sustainability", the gap is closing fast. Sustainability has especially been picking up since early 2007. And if we just look at the News related volume, then you can see that this gap has fully closed in the last months and sustainability has taken off. Let's watch where it goes from here...

To export an image of the current view in SketchUp, go to File > Export > 2D Graphic... and select a file format for the export. In the save dialog that opens, there is an option button that allows for customizing. That's where you want to make the following adjustments:

If you export to a raster format like JPG, BMP or TIF, select a large image size. In most cases, something around 2000px width will give good results. In any case, use a larger image size than you want to produce. If you plan on producing a poster, go very large. The upper limit for this size seems to be set by your computer's processing powers.

After exporting the files, you can then resize them to the final dimensions taking advantage of nice antialiasing. The following images show the difference between exporting to a low and a high resolution:

Keep in mind that the larger you go (and the less grainy your images get), the smaller all edges will get since their width is defined in pixels. You might thus have to adjust line width before exporting (do this in SU's Styles window).

If you export to a vector format like JPG, PDF or DWG, line width is usually not as much of a problem since lines are defined parametrically and rendered in your imaging software (Photoshop or whichever you are using). Make width and size adjustments there. The image below is from an EPS export:

All of this holds true for other CAD software as well. For example, in AutoCAD, select "DWG to JPG" as printer in the print settings and set the image size to something quite large. Again, if you need wider lines, adjust line width before you export.

One caveat: When you export CAD views to a raster format, you lose all dimension information. Lengths that used to be stored internally as a 16-digit number, now measure X pixels. Even with a length reference, it is impossible to again scale these images to the same precision. If you need less precision and are happy with a reference length in your images, don't forget to include a scale (at least an object of known length) before you export the views.

The following images illustrate the difference between a raster and a vector representation of a line:

• Tollpatsch (Hungarian) - A less than capable person.
• Currywurst (Tamil, Portuguese and English) - A hot dog with curry and ketchup, essentially. The other German street food after a Döner.
• Engel - An angle... that was easy to translate...
• Milchschake (English) - Anglophones, marvel at the spelling!
• Chaos - A great word in any language.

With some moderate feeling of patriotic pride I must of course complement this list with German words that made it into daily use in the US (where I live). Here are a few that keep crossing my paths in the daily newspaper and elsewhere:

• blitzkrieg - war conducted with great speed and force
• doppelganger - a ghostly counterpart of a living person, double, alter ego
• dreck - trash, rubbish
• gesundheit - used to wish good health especially to one who has just sneezed
• kaputt - utterly finished, defeated, or destroyed, unable to function, hopelessly outmoded
• a mensch - a person of integrity and honor
• to schlepp - to proceed or move especially slowly, tediously, awkwardly, or carelessly
• verfremdung - distancing, alienation
• verklempt - choked with emotion
• zeitgeist - the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era

While all of these have their origin in the German language, it is interesting to note that some of them made their way into their use here through Yiddish, a language that is a combination of German, Hebrew (Ashkenazi) and Slavic languages. If you'd like to know more about this language, check out the National Yiddish Book Center just down the road from Amherst, MA at Hampshire College.

If you know of more words, feel free to send them as a comment below.

The video below shows the exported (and sped up) version of a presentation I just gave at the 2008 UMass family weekend. The topic was mainly the Google Earth model of our campus that my students prepared but I also gave some background on 3D CAD. Originally, I started to prepare a Powerpoint presentation for this, but quickly realized that it would be too limiting and much more appropriate to actually do it right in SketchUp. All slide transitions and animations were done with the tabbed slideshow feature and I interspersed the show with some live model-building and a switch to Google Earth for a view of our campus.

Building a 3D World from Alexander Schreyer on Vimeo.

I guess my advice for doing presentations like these are to keep the environment in SketchUp as visually clean as possible. Don't clutter it with unnecessary textures. Also, use a large and clean font for the Powerpoint slides that you import (as images). Two items for my "SketchUp for Presentation" wish list are a full-screen viewing option and the ability to import videos just like we currently import images.

The best way to create lightweight models is to start with small texture images in the first place. Before you import images as textures, resize them and save them with these specs:

• Longest image dimension: approx. 800 px or less, depending on detail. Don't include too much detail.
• JPG file compression: reduce to 50% quality or even less. Check that quality is still acceptable afterwards.

After placing these images, the SketchUp file size typically becomes just a little larger than the sum of all included images. You can then get a good feeling of how large the file will be if you highlight all image texture files and check their combined size:

So what do you do if you or someone else already placed way too large images into a building's model. You could re-texturize the entire model (export images, resize and re-import). That sounds painful. Here are two methods that will help you solve this problem.

1. 3DS Export/Import Workaround

When you export a SketchUp file to the 3DS file format (go to File > Export > 3D Model... and choose 3DS from the drop-down menu) you'll find a 3DS-file, an MTL file and a bunch of image files in the export location. Those images are your (adjusted and cropped!) textures. All you need to do now is resize and re-save (with the lower file quality setting) these images and re-import the 3DS model into SketchUp.

Make sure you don't rename any of the images in this process. Also, the aspect ratios should not be changed. In any case, look for a batch conversion feature in your image editing program (or write a script to do that) to make your life easier.

2. Open the KMZ File Directly

When you export a SketchUp model for Google Earth, a KMZ-file is created. This file is actually just a ZIPped file with a different extension. Rename the file to a .ZIP extension and look inside (using either Explorer or one of the ZIP-compression tools). Inside you'll find something like this:

The KML-file contains the georeferenced geometry in an XML format, the textures.dat file is just a list of all the textures and their locations and the files folder contains all of your texture image files. You can now unzip the image files, resize and reduce them and then copy them right back into the ZIP file. After renaming the Zip file back to KMZ, you will see that the Google Earth model has now drastically reduced in size.

That's it! Have fun making models for Google Earth. Oh, and in case you are competing for this year's Model Your Campus Competition - make way for the fantastic UMass collection!

P.S. You may need SketchUp Pro for 3DS export. If the free version doesn't have this capability, download the demo version of Pro and install it parallel to the free version. Then just use it for file exports.

P.P.S. If you want to convert a bunch of SketchUp or KMZ models to untextured building shapes ("clay presentation"), just delete the image files in the 3DS or KMZ file before re-importing or loading into GE.

While this appears to be a very promising tool, some of the limitations are mentioned upfront by the developers:

The plugin is not a full-featured interface for EnergyPlus. It will not help you create non-geometry EnergyPlus objects, such as materials, constructions, schedules, internal heat gains, HVAC equipment and systems, etc. In order to effectively use EnergyPlus with the plugin you will still have to be something of an expert in building simulation and must be willing to get your hands dirty working with the low-level EnergyPlus syntax of the text input file. Or, alternatively, you could use the plugin in conjunction with another third-party interface to make the job easier.

Some of those third party tools are mentioned on the DOE website. Also, remember that if you created a building model in SketchUp and exported it to Green Building Studio using Demeter, then you can download it as an input file for EnergyPlus.

Links:

• Energy Plus download
• SketchUp Plugin download

Visiting this building was quite amazing. Not only is its shape and facade a glamorous sight from the outside, being inside makes me want to go to department stores again. It is refreshing to see a store filled with so much natural light that there is no need anymore to ask a sales attendant to escort me outside to check for a sweater's true color.

While the main building consists of a locally common concrete structure, the facade is made up of wooden ribs that in turn support the glazing. The most interesting feature is the modular (and apparently cast) spacer system between the ribs, which also clamps the diagonal cables. The facade is hung from a central steel spine on the top floor and the number of wood lams reduces towards the ground floor.

Pictures

Specs

Location: Schildergasse, Cologne, Germany

Built: 2005

Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Engineer: Knippers & Helbig; Façade: Büro Mosbacher

Fabricator: Hochtief Construction

Links

• Peek & Cloppenburg
• Short article with plans on arplus.com

Please note: All information above is accurate to the best of my knowledge. The intent of this presentation is simply to showcase interesting wooden structures that I have photographed. I have not been involved in the planning or construction (unless mentioned above). All images are © A. Schreyer. You may use them for any non-commercial whatsoever as long as my name appears in the vicinity of the image.