The Nearest Stars Project: Uploaded to Warehouse

click here to go there.

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The Nearest Stars Project, now with 2001 Monolith

I scaled the stars to three sizes, smaller, same, or bigger than Sol. I also decided to go with the 2D text. I think I’m about ready with this, or too bored to continue, same thing.

Note the absence of stars on the far side of Alpha Centauri. Is there a void here? I’ll check my work.

The caption should probably be changed to the Twenty Nearest Star Systems, as many of the stars have smaller companions not shown here.

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The Nearest Stars Project (Part III)

This is nice, but still a ways to go. Still, I didn’t expect to get this far in a day.

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The Nearest Stars Project (Part II)

I’ve got all the stars in now. I’m going to check the angles and distances and then color them. That should be ready tomorrow.

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The Nearest Stars Project (Part I)

As a science fiction fan and space enthusiast, I’ve long been interested in having a computer simulation that would show the nearest stars in spatial relation to one another. Sketchup allows me to finally do this, in a way that I can navigate between the stars as with my own starship.

As you can see, I’ve only got a handful of stars so far, but my goal is to put in the twenty nearest stars. Right now the stars are all yellow and the same size (.2 light years, obviously not to scale!). I hope to show stellar classes by color, and distinguish between dwarves, giants, etc.

It’s been slow going so far, but it should be done by tomorrow. The goal is to upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse, though I wonder if anyone else is interested in this sort of thing. We Shall See.

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Spheregrid ‘tool’ for Sketchup

While working with Sketchup, I’ve noticed that making spheres and positioning them properly is somewhat of a chore. So I made these sphere components with coordinate grids to help in positioning them. I think it will make things a little easier, and you may see more spheres and domes in my future illustrations as a result.

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Single Stage To Orbit

with exhaust tail:

using wood to make a more ‘interesting’ exhaust tail:

All right, Enough! I swear, this is the last one I’m going to do on this (today at least):

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Google Sketchup 8: What’s in it for me?

I just downloaded Google Sketchup 8 and don’t see much to commend. It’s slower and the capabilities are the same while the controls have apparently been moved around a bit. Sort of like the typical Windows ‘upgrade’ then.

Here’s the monkey house exported in Version 7:

And here it is in Version 8:

I don’t see much difference in rendering, do you?

I was hoping for 3D printing support, but I don’t see it. Anyhow, I can get that from CADspan for free too. And usually plug-ins don’t slow down general application operations like upgrades do.

I think I’ll skip version 8 and see what they have for version 9.

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It came from the Future

Lots of movies talk about time travel, but this one finally did something about it:

(Or maybe the ‘D’ fell off.)

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Welcome to the Monkey House (From Dayton to Sketchup)

Or, “What happens to monkey houses when you forget to use components.”

Perhaps you’ve read of this place in the news. It’s a 140 year old monkey house in Dayton, Ohio, kind of a local landmark. I guess they’re spending federal funds on it and everybody is upset. Anyhow, I looked it up on Google Maps and did a Prtsc on streetview. I don’t know about spending government money on it, but I’m a sucker for unorthodox architecture.

Then I went to Warehouse and searched for it, and didn’t find it. I couldn’t believe that omission, so I tried to make my own octogonal monkey house. It didn’t get very far, because after making the base, I tried to make the upper part by shrinking a copy of the base and loading it on top. But I forgot to make the base a component, so the top got stuck to the bottom like so:

*Sigh.*

Anyhow, I was able to remove the second stage (not story, notice there are three) and do the following:

Sheesh! That render looks like it was done in MS Paint. Here’s another, this time with shading and shadows and more trees:

Just in case they decide to tear the thing down, it would be cool if someone archived it photographically. Then maybe someday it could pop up in a hypergrid world.

Anyhow, I just finished reading From Elephants to Mice, which discusses the intelligence and personalities of chimps in great detail. So I hope the monkeys were treated well here. Perhaps, back in the 1870s, there was wilderness enough in the Dayton area for them to roam free, coming home in the evening only to eat and rest peacefully for another day. That would be cool.

Dayton, by the way, is where the Wright Brothers grew up, so there’s an interesting tie-in with this site (ie, blog header photo). Come to think of it, it was built around the time they were born, so they probably went to it as kids.

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