| 9-24 I like to look for design inspiration in natural objects and plants. Here in New York acorns have been falling from oak trees for a few weeks. Acorns have beautiful iconic shapes. As I was turning some over in my hand I started to wonder what an acorn-shaped house might look like. I brought some acorns into the house and placed them in a little bowl next to my computer. I started trying to model a truncated acorn (I'd decided to leave off the pointed bottom as it just wasn't practical for a house shape) and the following image is my first attempt. 
This was OK but I wanted the top cap (the roof) curve to be a little smoother so instead of drawing the curve freehand I used the curve tool. The next image shows this shape with my first attempt at a door and windows. 
While I was satisfied with the acorn shape, the door and windows didn't feel at all right. My acorn was starting to look like a Turkish pasha's pleasure palace. I sat there staring at the model, feeling quite frustrated, when I had an inspiration to use the techniques I'd developed over the summer to cut organic looking shapes into other shapes. My first attempt at this is shown below. After having this breakthrough I went off to bed feeling quite pleased with myself. 
The next day I worked on the front door, and although I came up with a solution, I'm still not certain how I feel about it. Judge for yourself. It is a difficult challenge because the curve of the wall means the rectangular door needs to stand free of the walls. 
I put enough work into the door that I decided to leave it -unsatisfied as I was- and go on with the rest of the model. The next two images show an intermediate stage fairly close to the end of the design process and the final model. I made a lot of use of layers and grouping which really helped make the modelling feasible. Correct use of layers and grouping can't be stressed enough for the SketchUp modeller looking to move their skills to a higher level. 
 9-17 Getting back to work on developing this wiki. I would love to have some collaborators in developing the site so if you want to contribute information or a model please create an account and start adding! The three images below are from models I've created recently. (Click on an image to see a large version.) They are all available in the Google/SketchUp Warehouse. The images represent how I've been trying to push the envelope with SketchUp. I've been particularly interested in producing models that look more organic and random. The middle image is of a type of model where the final shape is created by removing elements (cutting away) rather than adding.
9-6 Wow. I didn't do any work on this site for 4 months. I guess that means I had a good summer. Actually, I did have a great summer and part of what made it great was time to play around with SketchUp and a place to share those experiments in Google's 3-D warehouse. The models I created this summer, and uploaded to the warehouse, can be found here. If you haven't had a chance to explore the content of the warehouse you should definitely find the time to take a look. Lots of really great models, along with, I must admit, a lot of dreck. Google/SketchUp could do a better job of organizing the models but they are off to a good start.
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