Virtual design and construction by Trimble Sketchup

I have used Sketchup in the way that most people do not do. Because, I am in the construction industry, my work is to use Sketchup to promote collaboration between our clients (owners), my consulting team and our sub-contractors. The collaboration can be done in 3 ways.

I call this process "Piece-Based Assembly Modeling". This process is very simple. Firstly, changing all data in our purchasing department into components within Sketchup. All specification, cost, time, and installation manual and so on will be embed into these components. The key is to plan ahead about the breakdown items of Bill of Materials (BOM) so that after I finished assembling the project prototypes I can get very precise BOM in the form of very detailed breakdown cost with more accurate than ever before. Imagine you can count the number of nuts and bolts if you want to...and I think it is awesome.

1. Piece-Based Assembly Modeling

Construction pieces in our real world project

Virtual construction pieces in our virtual warehouse making by Trimble Sketchup

Google Drive is the free cloud technology we use for our work. A hyper link of each construction piece is created to link Sketchup model with all stakeholders via GMAIL and Google Drive. Now Sketchup model, project stakeholders and information are seamlessly integrated.

This VDO shows the method of Piece-Based Assembly Modeling.

Sharing information is the key, Sketchup model will serve as a gate way for all stakeholders to share their ideas and information. This photo shows how Google Drive can promote the collaboration between my engineering team.

Engineers are assembling a biogas plant in virtual environment. The goal is to find precise Bill of Materials and to simulate the sequential process of the construction to make sure that the project is going to be built without any problems in the real world.

A group of young engineers are making a 3D Construction Model.

Virtual construction project was assembling at our office.

All required data are embed into components in Sketchup. Each component will represent a construction piece in a real world project. We can count them and manage the data in the way we want to, for examples, estimating project cost, planing and evaluate resources, sharing information with cloud technology and so on.

Engineers from our company and owner are discussing about how to make a virtual construction project in the real wold.

Piece-Based Assembly Model or Project Prototype

The VDO shows one of our 3D Construction Model. We used outliner to show how the 3d model will help us to manage the project.

A construction drawing is exported directly from the model. This process can reduce time to draw construction drawings dramatically.

Layout 3 is also great for doing construction drawings

This structure is also created in Skethup, our propose is to promote visualization of all structures for those workers who are new for the work.

Workers are assembling a biogas plant in a real construction project. They know how to assemble because they have seen the finished project in the virtual environmental before.

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