Daniel Tal

Daniel Tal, ASLA, is a professional speaker and a registered landscape architect with over 17 years of experience. He is a 3D modeling and visualization expert, has authored two books with Wiley and Sons: SketchUp for Site Design and Rendering in SketchUp and is the tech-editor at large for Landscape Architecture Magazine. Tal runs a 3D modeling and visualization studio for Stanley Consultants, a 1,000 person multi-disciplinary engineering firm. Read more about Daniel.

Hiding Edges: Part 2 - Selection Tools Extension

In Part 1 of this series, I showed a view of a model that had an overload of edges on display, distracting from an otherwise compelling view.   In Part 1 I showed how to get rid of obvious edges, like those along the curved walls, using the Eraser tool plus the Shift (or Ctrl / […]

Hiding Edges: Part 1- Eraser Tool

You’ve taken the time to create an elaborate SketchUp model, and have the perfect view you want to share. And what sticks out – muddy line work and blurred objects, like those circled here. Distracting, in what’s otherwise a compelling view. What’s needed is to get rid of all those visible edges within the various […]

Tools on Surface Extension

I love extensions. And Tools On Surface might be my favorite (along with Soap Skin & Bubble which I’ve mentioned before and will mention again). This is one of SketchUcation’s extensions. See our post on how to get SketchUcation’s ExtensionStore. Why Tools on Surface? We all know SketchUp’s native drawing tools: Line, Rectangle, Circle, 2 […]

Skatter Extension: Part 2 - Realistic Trees and Rendering

In Part 1 of this series, I introduced Skatter, the amazing extension that allows you to mass-place objects onto surfaces. Specifically, with Skatter you can create detailed, vast forest plantings, lawns, and similar vegetation patterns. In this post, I’ll show a quick demo of using Skatter to generate a quick mass vegetation planting for a bridge […]

Skatter: Part 1 - Vegetation Mass Placement

When I first came across Skatter, I cheered out loud. This powerful extension allows for easy mass placement of objects, in particular vegetation, onto a model surface. And since its first release, Skatter’s ability to generate vast forested areas has become even better. And while excellent for placing many, many trees and shrubs into SketchUp, Skatter’s real power […]

Joint Push Pull: Part 2 - Examples

In Part 1 of this Joint Push Pull series, Bonnie showed some simple examples of what you can do with the Joint Push Pull extension. I’m going to show a few real-world models where I’ve been able to use JPP with awesome (and fast) results. Massing Model This master plan model has a number of faces […]

Secrets of Push/Pull

You might think that a post on SketchUp‘s Push/Pull tool would seem very basic. But while Push/Pull is probably SketchUp’s most-used tool, there are some features you might not know about. I’ll talk about a few common options – these are easy to perform and can save you modeling time. Double-Clicking After you Push/Pull your initial surface, you can double-click […]

Park Pergola Design 17

In Part 1 of this series, I showed how to create the curved, horizontal cross beam for the 3D pergola. And in in Part 2 I showed how to make the vertical supports.   In this part, we’ll finish up the pergola by adding the tilted cross-beams along the horizontal beam.   Design the Beam […]

Park Pergola Design 13

In Part 1 of this series, I showed how to begin the park pergola design, by modeling the curved horizontal beam that follows the pergola path.   In this post, I’ll show how to model the vertical supports for the beam.   Design One Support Draw the cross section of the support like this:      The extension I used for […]