Autocad and the Growth of Fluffy-Muffin

How's Everyone doing? Just wanted to give everybody an update on how stuff has been going. I am just now getting over a pretty bad cold. Right now at school we are working on putting together the early pages of a CD (Construction Document) set. Apparently one of those first pages is a Demolition plan. Basically what we're doing here is taking the survey, editing out a ton of information we don't need, and then highlighting things like ares to be demolished, staging areas, trees to be removed, and ares to be protected. It makes you think a lot about all the measures that must be taken to ensure safe work to people and the environment during construction.

In other news the Fluffy-Muffin website is going great! Still growing. Here is one of our popular comics. I can't express how much fun I have working on this website!

come check us out at the Fluffy Muffin and please like our Facebook Page to show your support! Until Next Time~

Playing with Thea

Today I have been playing around with Thea Render a bit. Here is one of the Example Models I applied some material to and rendered. This could turn out to be really fun!

This image is composed of three textures. One for the floor, one for the Thea logo, and one for the white tiling. Other elements is that the entire model is surrounded by a box with a light emitting surface made to look like a window so you see that reflection on the surface. Time to go play more! Until next time~

Internship Applications as Practice Portfolios

Yesterday I submitted an application to another internship and I came to realize that as I apply to internships it becomes a little easier each time to submit "sample work" It's an abbreviated portfolio so to speak. Now the last internship I applied to I was even less satisfied with my application than this one,but this one I have started to think about the style I want to show, and themes and types of works I want to put forward. Here is what I submitted yesterday.

The reason for these particular pieces is that the call for applications specifically mentioned the adobe suite, CAD, and Sketchup, so for this particular submission I didn't include any Rhino or physical model building.
Until next time!

From Beginning to End: Sketchbook

This post is going to be the first installment of projects that I have completed from "beginning to end" meaning the initial concept phase up to the making of a final prototype project. The first project is a sketchbook I made for my girlfriend for Christmas. Alice does all the comics for our website Fluffy-Muffin so I thought I'd give her this to make it a little more official.

The first phase obviously was thinking up what to do in the first place. This is what some of the initial sketches looked like.

I kind of mulled about on this concept for a week or two then ended up going in an entirely different direction and decided to go strait to a RHINO model. First I was going to go landscape orientation but decided on portrait just because she usually likes that better.

I then exported these vectors to autocad and simplified it to make a CNC laser cutter compatible file. All that really means is making the lines you want cut to be red and a 1.00mm line weight and the lines you want etched in blue. everything else should be on a no-plot layer.

The cuts came out fairly nicely.

Then here is the final product after staining, sanding, and glue!

I am definitely going to make some variations of this in the future. My next one I am planning to use cut stainless steel on the front rather than wood stained a different color. I'll let ya know how it turns out!

Until next time!

Mastering Autocad

So today in between classes I've begun to go through my autocad book i mentioned in my last post. So far, its pretty nice. I'm only on page 10 as of now but the pictures and diagrams are very clear and helpful. Even though I'm going through the basics right now I am still learning little things that I didn't know before. And what has it brought forth so far? A polar array of an offset polyline. Amazing, possibilities...

Until next time!

10,000 Views! A New Day.

Hi everyone! Today my blog hit the 10,000 view mark. It's pretty funny, more people come the more you post...and spam your facebook status. Anyways today I'm just going to give a quick update about the NEW quarter so far, some NEW books i'm getting in, and a NEW view on high organization!

So far this quarter I've had a few lectures, just introductions into hydrology and site engineering, site restoration, and two quick studio sessions on neighborhood design. For the site restoration class we are going through a series of different natural ecosystem types and looking at the best ways to go about restoring them from man made disturbances. Unfortunately this has yet to yield any good pictures...Anyways, what I'm finding really interesting about the class is towards the middle of the quarter we are going to start a real life restoration project as a class at Ballard in Seattle. I have no idea how we are breaking up the assignment class-wise yet but it is going to be a new experience for sure. I will keep you guys updated as we go.

Books

So to compliment all these new classes I've purchased some books that are recommended and one that I've been wanting for a while. That book is Mastering Autocad 2012. I feel pretty confident in my basic autocad skills but in terms of advanced use, I am nowhere near where I want to be.

The other books I am still waiting for in the mail are Site Engineering for Landscape Architects,by Steven Strom, Kurt Nathan and Jake Wolandand and also Soil Design Protocols by Timothy A. Craul and Phillip J. Craul. At first I bought these bad boys at the local University bookstore and they seemed rather interesting at first glance. But of course they were a good 50 dollars cheaper on Amazon so I returned them. I'll let you know how they turn out!

Other News

In other news the Fluffy-Muffin website is coming along nicely. We have fixed a few bugs like getting the images not to flicker when you hover over them. We have also been able to get the links to the Facebook Page and the Tumblr and the Twitter all set up so that's good. The biggest thing we are having issues with now is getting enough content up for google to be able to accept our site as legit so we can get advertising up.... hopefully that will happen sooner than later.

Well Until Next time when I have more pictures to show!

When the Rhino Terrain Trial Expires.

If your design program is anything like the Landscape Architecture Program at UW then you have run into this dilemma, or one similar. It's this. Some software is free to students, software like autocad, or pretty much any Autodesk software, some is deeply discounted, such as Rhino 4.0, Adobe Suite, and well pretty much everthing. The issue? Sometimes even though the original software is deeply discounted the plugins (ad-ons that make the software a whole lot more helpful) can cost just as much if not more than the software's original price, even when discounted. I've found myself in this very situation when redoing a project last quarter where we used the Rhino Terrain plugin for Rhino 4.0 to import GIS data directly into the model in 3D. BUT now my Rhino Terrain trial has expired...what to do? Well here is a work around that is MUCH more work but gets the same thing accomplished more or less.
First thing you want to do is to get your GIS data properly clipped, oh and if you take any GIS course you can most likely get a year license for free. If not, you might be stuck using a school PC or you are just SOL.

Next thing you want to do is download the trial plugin of Rhino Resurf. Now what Resurf more or less allows you to do in this case is to fit a NURBS surface to a point cloud....something not built into the naked Rhino. Now what I did here most likely isn't the most efficient way but its a way nonetheless that I arrived at through trial and error! I then opened my data set in ArcScene and turned the contour lines into a 3d model and exported the scene as a VRML file. Luckly Rhino cad import this file type, the only issue is that everything comes in unaligned, but with a little tweaking its not that big of a deal. You can then have the 3D contour lines exported form arcscene, using the point tool to make a point cloud, then use the Rhino Resurf plugin to make your nurbs surface! Viola!

Downside? Well with this data I had to raise the buildings manually which can take a while if they are on a slope as shown here but there is another way if you know your way around 3DS Max outlined here where I got some of my help from. Hopes this helps people in the same boat. There is always a work around!
Until I have unlimited funds for software!

Working from the Sunny State

So yesterday I submitted my final model for my Rhino modeling class and here are a few pictures of it. A couple things I definitely could have done better if I summed up the motivation was variate the fern rotation and scale a bit more, definitely should have done a better job on marsh grass. Somethings I still need to figure out is how to make face-me objects, for those of you who don't know what that is, it is just an image that turns and always faces you as you are orbiting the model, I don't think it does so well with shadows though. If you didn't see the earlier version you can check out a picture here. Anyways I may continue to work on this model for a piece of portfolio as it is not quite up to standards as of yet. Take a look at some of the pictures below! AND if you would like to support me take a look (and by take a look I mean click) some of the advertisers on my page!

Other news. So I had my telephone interview with the firm I mentioned previously and it seemed to go ok. I don't know if I'll be selected but the interviewer and I seemed to hit it off well. I hope to get the position but I am ok with not getting it too. If I don't I'll find something somewhere else soon! I'll keep you guys updated. Also on another front, my partner and I have decided to submit to the ASLA awards the Orcas St. Housing Project later in the New Year. I hope to be more thoroughly involved in the submission process and I think it's going to be a good experience winning or not. Some things to be aware of if you find yourself in a similar position is the 50 dollar fee to become a student member of ASLA and the Entree Fee for the project itself! You can look at some of the PRE REVISED graphics in my earlier post here. Until next time!

Final Submission

So today me and my partner put together some pages of 11 x 17 to submit to our professor for grading. These pages will also be given to the city of Redmond to show and consider at future meetings concerning the park system. Hopefully its helpful. Comments are welcome! Until next time~

On other notes, so far California has been great. Pretty cold down here. Tomorrow I have that phone interview. I actually looked at the land8 lounge blog for some tips on what types of questions to expect and what types of questions to ask, but they all seemed geared more towards professionals seeking jobs, not a student looking for an internship. I'll let you know how it goes! Wish me luck!

Tree[D] and Arbaro

Supposed to be learning about flamingo nxt renderer today

Productivity

Have you ever been sitting at your desk with mountains of work piling up around you?

RHINO 4.0!

Hey guys, if you dont know what this is, then go buy the student edition of RHINO 4.0!

The Woes and Goes of GIS

So we've started using GIS for composite mapping now and it is FUN.