Preface Page
Preface
In 2013 I decided to start a new career creating architectural artwork in 3D. I had been interested in architecture and its related arts since I was a child, and on turning fifty realized that if I wanted to pursue a career I really enjoyed, time was running out. Since Classical architecture is one of the styles I most enjoy, I started by working on teaching myself how to create the Classical Orders using SketchUp.
As I devoted myself to this task, I found myself inundated with notes on how to translate the manual instructions found in old classical treatises into the commands and techniques necessary to get the same results in SketchUp. It was at this point that I gathered all the notes together in one document, and started to organize them so they made sense.
At about this time I discovered an article about a book that I thought could solve all my problems, Renaissance Revit: Creating Classical Architecture with Modern Software, by Paul F. Aubin. Though it was for another software program, I thought I could simply translate the commands and methods over to SketchUp and then get started with my artwork. So, I went to the bookstore, and started browsing books on Autodesk Revit and realized that my plan would not work, as Revit is a parametric modeling program, which is very different from the way SketchUp (or any other CAD program I’d used before) worked. The effort and cost needed to purchase and then teach myself Revit, then try and translate that information over to SketchUp, then translate the methods in Renaissance Revit over as well, just did not seem a logical path to follow.
As a result, I went back to my notes, but with the added idea of matching the Revit book with one for SketchUp. That was the germ of this work.
Thank you,