Cork Star Pupil appears on Google Earth

One bright spark student from St. Angela's College Cork has become the first person to challenge our position as most prolific Google Earth Modellers in Cork City, Ireland. Niamh Shanahan, (who received minimal training from us as part of a work experience week) has produced 3 excellent models (so far) of old shop buildings in Cork. We love the competition. Keep it up Niamh! Check her models out on 3D Warehouse and Google Earth... (Make sure the "3D buildings Layer" is switched on in the left hand side panel.) Learn about the 3D building layer here

Check out the full Cork City & County 3D buildings collection here

Black Tie Building, St. Patrick's Street, Cork City.

Falvey's Chemist, Bridge Street, Cork City. 

Music Store, St. Patrick's Street, Cork City. 

Switching on the 3D Buildings Layer
in Google Earth

Good Move Trimble!

This is a good thing- it needed to happen. SketchUp is foremost an AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) tool. Though Google is not an AEC company, it is understandable why Google wanted to buy it and turn it into a Google Earth-model-making-machine, and with SketchUp 8 integrating not only Google Earth and 3D Warehouse but also Streetview they have done awesome work.

But Google Earth modelling is only one tiny part of SketchUp's capabilities. There is so much more potential for this platform. Google was not the right company to take it to the next step.

(Note: Lovers of free software need not be alarmed as free SketchUp will remain free.)

Authorised Training Centres hope to get a lot of support to spread the goodness that is SketchUp in their own countries/ regions. I get the feeling that Trimble, with an understanding the AEC market, knows the importance of this. We are very curious to see how interaction with Tekla, their BIM (Building Information Modelling) platform will play out. This could be very very big....

SketchUp is a great brand. The people who work there are awesome and we hope they will grow in strength with their new owners. We are behind you!

Coder Dojo- Above all: Be cool

James Whelton is cool.

James Whelton, a programming enthusiast, started a programming club in school. Inspired by the interest he received regarding all things code, James came up with the idea of providing a club for kids to learn coding skills... for free. Hats off, James.

With the support of Bill Liao, a gifted Social Entrepreneur an incredible new concept was born: Coder Dojo

Bill Liao is cool.

I have attended the CD workshops on two occasions* and both were mobbed with enthusiastic kids. Last time, I even gave a hand to someone who need a little help with HTML... I never thought of myself as being able to teach that subject, but it was just the basics so I was able to be of assistance... Just goes to show that its always worth just turning up at events like these.

*December 17th last, I gave a demonstration of SketchUp and the MakerBot to the kids of CoderDojo. We printed off a model of Shandon, a landmark building in Cork City, in the Rebel County Colour: Red

Coder Dojo was an idea waiting to happen. If you wish to contribute, there might just be one near you. There are now Coder Dojos in London and San Francisco!

Below are some images of the model as printed at Coder Dojo

Watching Real life on Google Earth

Found this video on Digitalurban.blogspot. Very nice concept indeed. I was just thinking recently how beneficial it would be to have a webcam on a building site to monitor progress on a job. This is taking things a whole lot further.... Some people will not like the idea of being "watched" but as evident in this video, it's possible to make the live information anonymous. Comments very welcome.

Dublin now on Google Earth

We're delighted to see such activity relating to an Irish city on Google Earth. Well done to all contributors to this fine collection of models. Lets have the same thing for Cork! Please let us know who's interested in a coordinated project to get Cork City on GE.

Main contributors: The Picture Works, City Trip Dublin, and others....