So far I have used SketchUp for a lot of things, but a 50-minute presentation wasn't among those. Besides, one of the big no-no's for "classic" Powerpoint presentations is having too much happen on-screen (flying-in arrows and the like). Given the dynamic 3D interface of SketchUp I was curious if flying around inside its space would be too confusing for the audience. I just had to give it a try and see if it works.

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.

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These are some impressions from the graduate commencement 2007 at UMass. I am just showing a very small portion of the ceremonies (which were extensive, well organized and beautifully ceremonious) - look for more pictures of the festivities to appear soon on the UMass site.

Protests during the 2007 UMass Graduate Commencement

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