We now have the symposium website and the registration up and running – feel free to browse it and make sure you tell all your colleagues about it. The 2011 Wood Structures Symposium will be an exciting venue with experts from the University of Innsbruck in Austria presenting on Passivehouse construction and Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) [...]

In my quest to make my content more audience-specific, I recently started cross-posting wood-related news, readings and updates to the @timberengineer Twitter account. Similar to what I have been posting already about wood to my @alexschreyer account, I will in the future be posting more wood-related content under the new account. So to make a [...]

Please upgrade your browser One of the greatest benefits of having a 3D modeler like SketchUp is that creating and sharing explorable representations of real-world objects is extremely easy. It was therefore just a matter of time before Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad appeared on Google Earth. So before the real building gets taken [...]

In a press release published yesterday, Tom Vilsack, current USDA Agriculture Secretary, laid out plans to increase wood use in buildings. This is of course great news for anyone related to wood research, manufacturing and construction but above all it’s great news for the environment. After all, wood is the only major building material that’s [...]

APA (The Engineered Wood Association) just released an iPhone/iPod Touch app, which gives easy access to its product reports. Another feature is a “click to call” button to reach APA’s tech support. Here’s the official announcement: The first APA App – featuring APA Products Reports®, is now available for iPhone®, iPad®, and iPod touch® mobile [...]

Please upgrade your browser SketchUp QR from Alexander Schreyer on Vimeo. As you may have noticed, I have been experimenting with QR codes lately. There’s just so much fun you can have with these little black-and-white icons. For your Friday enjoyment, here is a list of where I have used them so far: 3D QR [...]

Interior perspective by senorjerome, on Flickr (CC) I meant to create a concise visual comparison of all available rendering software for SketchUp for quite a while now. To keep things organized I only added one video per software as well as links to the manufacturer’s websites and the current (February 2011) published cost. All prices are [...]

I hope you all are enjoying a wonderful Valentine’s Day today. If you are still in need of a (slightly geeky, I admit) card, then go ahead and use the image above (larger image is here). Check it out with your cellphone and see what it says. It’s a bit late for a present today, [...]

While browsing through construction-material supplier catalogs to get some data for my classes, I came across some hand-drawn instruction comics. These were safety-related sketches of goofy-looking construction workers illustrating mostly what not to do. I am sure these kinds of illustrations exist in other industries, too. And there’s nothing wrong with exaggerating visuals to make a point. [...]

Now that the world cup is getting closer by the day, it was time for me to get my gear ready. After all, I have to support Germany in this one. As it turned out, this was also a good opportunity to create some graphics with SketchUp and try out printing them on fabric with [...]