MockTab is an experimental Mac driver for a few families of Wacom drawing tablets that no longer have official support on modern macOS releases. Testing has covered only a limited set of hardware configurations so far, but the project shows potential for expansion.
Free and open source.
The app icon uses live Illustrator effects that keep its underlying wireframe fairly simple.
Trimble SketchUp Pro can generate 3D terrain models using elevation data from many regions around the world. Sometimes the resulting geometry needs cleanup and refinement for better flexibility. Below as a summary of how an application called Side Effects Houdini (a beloved procedural powerhouse of the visual effects and game industries) can help.
First, fetch some terrain data, which in this case originates from SketchUp’s Geographic Location network service. (This appears to require a paid version of SketchUp Pro, as Trimble no longer offers a standalone version like SketchUp Make.)
Pressing the “Add More Imagery…” repeatedly might lead to a more data density than necessary. Each blue tile is a discrete object with no knowledge of its neighbors. Redundancy abounds.
These tiles could benefit from some reorganization. To begin, unlock each of the “Location Terrain” geometry objects, then select them. (Note: the 3D layer is called “Location Terrain,” not “Location Snapshot,” which just contains raster aerial images. And low resolution, at that.)
Next, choose File > Export > 3D Model… and specify a Wavefront geometry (obj) file format.
In the Export Options dialog box, enable “Swap YZ coordinates” so that the Y axis points upward. Stick with meters as the units format. Enabling texture maps seems to be of limited use, as each tile gets its own jpeg file. (Houdini’s compositing system (COPs) could probably handle a procedure to recombine the individual images.)
As an aside, routing the .obj file through Pixologic ZBrush’s DynaMesh system produced something resembling the aftermath of a termite infestation.
Below is a sample Houdini node network for importing the SketchUp terrain, cleaning it up, then exporting a refined version. This method harnesses Houdini’s heightfield model, a system of portraying detailed terrains using surface-like 2D volumes.
Houdini’s heightfield operators can emphasize major contours for illustrative purposes.
The final nodes in this network convert the terrain to polygons and saves the geometry as an AutoCAD Drawing Interchange Format file (dxf).
Next, import the newly-minted dxf back into SketchUp. Enable drawing origin preservation to ensure that the freshened terrain slab remains positioned exactly where it should.
Finally, enable edge smoothing in SketchUp to hide the model’s gridlines and make the terrain look more natural.
Optionally, project a higher-quality aerial texture onto the fresh terrain. Google Earth Pro can be a good source for such imagery. (SketchUp’s finicky process for texture mapping is worthy of its own discussion.)
SketchUp > terrain > obj > Houdini > heightfield > dxf > SketchUp > heightfield > dxf > SketchUp
This isn’t necessarily a practical or advisable solution to cleaning up a slab of virtual terrain. But it turned out to be a fairly quick and repeatable approach in this case.
Navajo planning principals follow the concept of “hozhó,” which involves restoring beauty, harmony, and balance in life. This diagram for Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle Community School in Bloomfield, New Mexico, attempts to convey those Diné society founding principles in a graphical form.
The design brief contained an explanation of these planning principles, and an architects’s quick sketch of what the design should look like:
A plugin from Astute Graphics called MirrorMe provides a method to replicate, distribute, and fuse shapes dynamically for instant symmetry.
In a 2013 DEVELOP3D presentation about ideation, former Luxology/Foundry executive Brad Peebler describes how simply adding symmetry offers a remarkably easy way to generate and explore design ideas, particularly with a suggestion of an organic origin:
By default, Illustrator’s Type On A Path tool positions text characters along the baseline of a path shape. But aligning along a path’s midline may offer more flexibility for adjustments.
To change this behavior, invoke the the menu command Type > Type on Path > Type on Path Options, then choose “align to path: Center”.
Many of the Wacom drawing pens I’ve used over the years have failed in the same way, gradually developing a stress fracture within the plastic barrel. When that crack widens, the stylus’s internal circuit board can slip out of place and cause the drawing nib to retract unexpectedly.
That crack in the plastic casing leads to a mushy feel to the pen, loose enough to make the pen feel wobbly and unsteady. An unstable nib produces unreliable drawing results, spewing digital ink all over like an irritated cephalopod.
Reseating the barrel will temporarily fix the problem, as will a dab of plastic glue. So far, a more reliable solution has been a simple nylon cable tie.
Unsightly, but effective.
Other stylus models like the rotation-aware Art Pen don’t seem to be as susceptible to such a break, though the inner structural design looks identical.
A bare corporate staffing diagram, or org chart, tends to express little more than an organization’s hierarchy, meaningless to outsiders. Or it may inadvertently make a statement about the institution’s convoluted bureaucracy.
This 2013 diagram attempts to convey the capabilities of a flat-level corporation, calling attention to the specialities of each contributor.
The diagram’s basic structure of boxes and lines originated in OmniGraffle, a Mac drawing application well suited for visualizing relational information.
OmniGraffle’s connection lines can anchor themselves to magnetic points on each piece of geometry. Adjusting the position of the objects produces tension and slack in the connection lines.
Next, the rough OmniGraffle diagram went to Adobe Illustrator for cleanup and refinement. As of version 6, OmniGraffle’s vector export discards layer structure. But Illustrator’s selection tools can quickly isolate elements and sort them back into layers.
A shaded circle in the layers palette indicates that the layer, object, or group has a dynamic effect attached. The appearance palette contains a list of these applied effects and provides a way to adjust their parameters. Objects placed within an effect-laden container inherit those graphic styles automatically.
Many paths are simple two-point Bézier curves, easily adjustable using Illustrator’s pen tools.
Here are some design concepts to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Architectural Research Consultants, Incorporated.
The logo’s bluish rectangle containing lowercase lettering has remained unchanged since 1976.
Unsightly Morto Ambulanteante drawing from 2008:
Gloppy brush smear in Scribbles drawing application:
Preliminary design idea:
Cartoonish depiction of Chris Walas’s Brundlefly creature from the 1986 David Cronenberg film The Fly. Drawn using Scribbles.app in 2008.
Wrinkly feline project constructed using Pixologic ZBrush 4 and The Foundry modo 701 in 2013:
(The human-headed, lion-limbed, mythological desert beast fond of riddles is a Sphinx. The kind that meows is probably a Sphynx.)
Originating as a sphere in ZBrush, the kitty model grew increasingly detailed with sculpting techniques and DynaMesh topology tools. Unrefined ZBrush geometry can become dense, inefficient, and extermely slow. Fortunately, ZBrush offers various utilities to drastically simplify mesh information without sacrificing surface detail.
This project employed the process of subdivision re-projection and 32-bit displacement maps.
The cat’s yellow eye color and texture originate from a manipulated image of a human iris.
A morph map in modo controls the eye’s level of pupil dilation.
A spherical magnet deformer gently squishes geometry out of the way, carving out a comfy socket for the eyeball. This allows the eye geometry to swivel around without intersecting with other meshes.
The eyes remain synchronized to each other using channel links. Morph maps and linked deformers ensure that the surrounding facial tissue stretches and slides as the eyes move.
A simple facial rig provides a limited range of motion to the jaw, ears, and neck.
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is one of the world’s leading nuclear and energy research facilities. This 2014 ARC diagram was part of SNL’s Five-Year Facilities and Infrastructure Plan (FY 2015-2019), and attempted to visually describe the labs’ organizational framework.
Cleaner, simpler quasi-isometric design alternative using Adobe Illustrator:
Two-dimensional diagram version from The Omni Group’s OmniGraffle design application.
Three-dimensional variations of the diagram used weight containers and deformers within The Foundry’s modo application. In modo, a weight container specifies which of an object’s polygons are susceptible to effects like squishing and twisting. The nodes in this Modo schematic view depict the strength and range of some twist and bulge deformer effects.
Once wired together, polygons within a weight container (depicted in red below) will bulge and twist more readily than other polygons. Such effects can be animated over time and are non-destructive, making it easy to revert the source geometry back to its original rest state.
In the end, SNL strategic planners decided to stick with their existing in-house diagram:
