My “Wow cool” thoughts are not trying to talk about new software but stuff that I have only just discovered or finally had the time to sit down and use. For Google Sketchup I remember downloading it when it was first released by Google. It didnt grab me as a “Wow cool” solution as I had no use for it but it seemed nice enough but a bit limited. Im no 3D artist and I found that I really couldnt visualize how to get the results I wanted so I left it. Now roll forward to today and I tried the current version to moke up some construction projects I have planned. I finally took 10 minutes to watch the videos google provide and I am very impressed by the power of this free software. The videos take you quickly though creating models quick and easy. Within 15 minutes I had produced my first half decent model, complete with materials applied, As the project was for my garden, 5 minutes later I had figured out how to add the results into my back garden as an object exported into Google Earth. So now I could view the object in 3d planted against the satellite imagery of my property. Also it was really easy to ensure my design was to scale thanks to some easy control of measurements.
if you want to try some simple 3d object creation, want to do it for free, with a real easy to use toolset then Google Sketchup is a great tool. To go find more head to http://sketchup.google.com/
