Description
Digital design and analysis tools support decision systems and the overall planning process in every discipline in the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) realm, especially when principles of Building Information Modeling (BIM) are involved. At BCT, we develop a variety of software solutions, plugins/extensions and other tools that are summarized below on this page:
Extensions (Plugins) for Trimble SketchUp:
- Centroid and Area Properties Extension (Schreyer) – Calculates centroids and area properties (such as Moment of Inertia) for any face in SketchUp.
- Place Shapes Toolbar Extension (Schreyer) – A toolbar for placing basic shapes (primitives)
- Plugin Loader (Schreyer) – Adds a possibility to load plugins for SketchUp on-demand.
- Ruby Code Editor (Schreyer) – A Ruby script editor for SketchUp, which allows to script many aspects of SketchUp.
- Sketchfab Uploader Extension (Schreyer) – Provides uploading of 3D models to the Sketchfab website, where they can be viewed using WebGl.
- SketchUp News Extension (Schreyer) – Keep an eye on SketchUp news and tutorials from blogs, forums, and tweets right inside SketchUp
- Unwrap and Flatten Faces Extension (Schreyer) – Unwraps shapes and lays arbitrarily oriented faces flat on the ground.
General Optimization:
- GA Optimization for MS Excel (Schreyer) – This optimization tool implements Genetic Algorithm optimization into Microsoft Excel.
Wood Connection Structural Design:
- DOWEL – A Software to Simulate Dowel-Type Connectors in Wood or Other Materials (Schreyer) – Simulates the cyclic structural behaviour of a single-dowel connection.
Documents
- Schreyer, A. 2015. Architectural Design with SketchUp: 3D Modeling, Extensions, BIM, Rendering, Making, and Scripting, 2nd Edition. John Wiley & Sons
- Schreyer, A. 2014. 3D Modeling and Virtual Mockup Building as Teaching Tools in AEC Materials and Methods Curricula. ASC 50th Annual International Conference held in conjunction with the CIB Workgroup 89 – March 26-28, 2014 in Washington, DC
- Trimble Technology Lab
Involved Faculty
- A. Schreyer, UMass BCT