Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I work for a CAD software company (Nemetschek North America), so naturally I use our CAD program to draft out ideas, as well as the pad of paper on the nightstand.

One program that is great that is also easy to use and free is Sketchup, not sure if y'all are aware of it. Sketchup was recently bought up by Google, and they have a free version for Mac and Windows here:

http://sketchup.google.com/

HTH

Thnks dave, will check it out, i'm sure many members will find it useful

Thanks Dave, a freind showed me it just recently, but I havent had a chance to play with it too much, but on first viewing it's very easy to use.

Do you know wether you can save drawings in a format that can be viewed in explorer (say .BMP files etc) so that they can be posted here.

Warren

I think in - save as - you may have bitmaps and jpeg options.

Did you see my awful attempts in paint! lol

Downloading it now... will try play with it tonight

I have tried to download it, seems like it works, then when I try to run it, it says driver size mismatch and nothing happens. Anyone else having this problem or any clues.

Thanks

Driver may mean youor OpenGL driver for your video card. Sketchup is heavily dependent on the video card and OpenGL to show the objects that you are modeling. You may look to update your video drivers.

thanks dave,

I just got in by clicking OK OK OK about 10 times. It's a cracker of a program. My brother in law who is a drafter/civil engineer is here and he has been playing and he reckons it's great "its got layers!!"
Even strarted drawing grow beds and tanks in a greenhouse!!

Thanks for the link!!

Did the basic tutorial. It's pretty cool. Reckon its time to scetch my planned system

No problem with my copy - works fine, just gotta get used to it all!

here is my first attempt at using this software - a very basic system (no pipe work)

and a second attempt, WITH primative pipes work

Be sure to check out the solar lighting feature. If you align your model with N/S you can get an accurate idea the way the sun will light up your system. This is in Window->Shadow Settings. The free version can set your lat/long through Google Earth's current view. This feature is in the help for the Window menu, shadow settings, Help->Index->Window menu->Shadow settings.

Another cool trick is if you don't know the orientation of your house relative to NSEW you can change the date and time if day to the current one then rotate you model to match the shadows you see in the real world. I've been meaning to do this because at a certain time of day the front of my garage makes a shadow straight across. If I noted the date and time and had the lat/long set correctly I could figure out the exact angle my house makes (it's somewhere around SSW).

WOW Aqua mad! That's a fantastic effort for your first day. I'm still trying to put cylinders inside a box and line them up hehe.

Great software I've got a few friends onto it already.

Keep the tips coming.

OK Questions

How did you copy a Jpeg. I used print screen-paint-paste. As you see had problems as the cut n paste doesn't fit background. I could have centred it but really, the background shouldn't be there.

And the lines, the little dude in the picture.

Also, see the cylinders arent lined up. How would you centre a line of groups like my towers (round objects) In this I just pullled them out of the floor but if i detailed it I'd want to be making a group to copy.

This is a scaled model of my greenhouse. Where the seat is is definately subject to change.

The front corner is Northern Aspect (best sun for us to you folk who live on the wrong side of the world ) The back two walls are reflective Mylar, a roofing paper white side in. They're also ply backed with pink batts insulation. The back wall above tower height will be cheap ass solar panels which I'll share once I've made em...