- How easy/hard was it?
I found some elements of SketchUp to be easy and some elements to be more difficult. The initial rotation and movement was not intuitive but it felt more natural after a little bit of practice. I mainly worked with the rectangle, push up, and move tools, which generally acted as I expected them to. I also used online resources to learn how to copy and paste objects with the move tool and pressing “option” so that my windows were uniform.
- what elements particularly bogged you down?
The main areas that bogged me down were the chimney and roof extension. I tried to make the chimney go straight up, but just did not find an appropriate tool to do this. For the roof extension, I tried the technique in the tutorial video but the roof went out on one side and in on the other, making it appear very unlike a house. I created a practice SketchUp to try and make it work but ultimately left the roof confined to the edge of the wall.
- what compromises did you have to make?
Keeping the roof confined to the edge of the wall and the chimney coming out at an angle were definitely compromises. I also would have liked to know more about adding in bushes and trees. I tried to create sections of grass and gravel on the ground that corresponded with how it looks in real life using the line tool to divide the space. I found that this technique worked some of the time but not in other instances, and it was unclear why. Finally, in real life, the driveway slopes upward towards the house and I was not able to make this happen in my SketchUp (yet).
- What humanistic uses can you envision for this tool in the areas of research or teaching?
Reconstructing historical buildings based on archaeological and literary evidence would be a great way to make use of SketchUp. Seeing a model of a building as it actually looked is a useful way to see a historical site and think about how it would have appeared and functioned at the time of its use. For example, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, I did the virtual reality tour in which I wore goggles and was given a 3-dimensional impression of the city of Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The makers of this activity must have used a software similar to SketchUp to create the activity and provide visitors with the experience of being transported across centuries of time to witness a sacrifice at the Temple.
In addition, one might employ SketchUp to create a fictional world from a work of literature. Different people reading the same novel might create an environment with different features and it would be interesting to note how people interpret the description provided by the author.
Tip: the door of my house is located inside the section where the garage and living room come together and is a dark reddish shade. To do this, I drew a rectangle and pushed it back with the push tool. Then, I used the paint tool to color in red the space that became part of the wall perpendicular to rectangle I pushed back.
