[Edu-sig] anyone using Python with Sketchup (free Google tool)?

[kirby urner]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Lee Harr <missive at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Is there an advantage to using SketchUp over Blender?
>

Hi Lee --

I've been meaning to reply to this.  I have only the utmost respect
for Blender, which I've tackled a number of times.  I mostly cut my
teeth on POV-Ray (stills, but with loop constructs and frame saving),
then VRML (+ XML = x3D), then some other formats, the key theme (for
me) being simple spatial geometry, like the rhombic triacontahedron
and like that.  Here's there weirdo kind of stuff that gets me going:

http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/12/coffee-shops-network.html (top
one by me, bottom by Russell Towle)

Actually, it hadn't really occurred to me to compare them, as I think
of Sketchup as 3D etcha-sketch, whereas Blender is more about multiple
objects with independent motion, or at least has that ability.

But then I suppose Sketchup, programmed in Ruby or Python, does have
this ability to run more of a movie, more than before. [1]

I'm awed by this movie of Blender autogenerating whole cities, ala
'Inception', something I'd put beyond the bounds of even Sketchup Pro,
but I could be mistaken (none of my current friends seem to have it).

One possible advantage of SketchUp is the awesome on-line library of
contributed buildings, other structures, which you can just download
and snarf.

My friend Trevor has been productive with Sketchup, in doing this
retro-seeming movie of a never-realized concept in housing (looks like
Uru, or that Island in Myst [2]).
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2009/11/4d-house.html

John Driscoll picks up on a lot of the same themes (similar
architectural memes):
http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2010/05/architect.html

As for myself, I came down in Visual Python, which is hard to beat for
easy of use right out of the box:

>>> from visual import *
>>> sphere(radius=1)

and bammo!, you've got an interactive window open in OpenGL.  Arthur
and I used to argue about whether it oughta be in the Standard
Library.  I took the conservative line and bellyached about bloat, but
I secretly agree with him:  VPython is one of the cardinal flagships,
one of the major floats in the Python parade, worthy of its
cheerleaders.  Which isn't to say it couldn't do more.  Will it record
successive frames out to disk, at perhaps only a fraction of its rate
in real time?  I'm pretty sure not, yet that could be useful.  Where
there are frames, there are movies.

> I tried getting in to SketchUp a few times but I never got
> to the point where I could do anything very interesting.
>
> Also, it is not really free. SketchUp Pro cost about $500.
>
> Blender, on the other hand is totally free, and has
> Python built right in. There is an editor where you
> can write Python scripts. They have put in a huge
> amount of work on the Python API for their new 2.5
> series. There is also an interactive interpreter window
> built in.
>

You don't mention what you've been able to do with Blender.  Cool
stuff?  The learning curve is pretty steep.  I'm not thinking
either/or.  I'm thinking work out in Sketchup, get your feet wet, then
move up to Blender maybe.  Or take the VPython route.  Or....

Kirby

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaoImXPMtE  ("got more, than we
had before...")
[2] Cyan Software / http://uru.us.ubi.com/