Quantcast
Bonnie Roskes

SketchUp expert

Areas of Expertise:

  • 3d modeling
  • geometry
  • training
  • consulting
  • consulting
  • speaking
  • training
  • writing

Biography

Bonnie Roskes is the founder of 3DVinci, a company that provides 3D design training for all ages and stages. Her books for design pros on SketchUp, Piranesi, and OneCNC have attracted a loyal following, and her SketchUp project books for kids K-12 are making 3D modeling and geometry accessible and fun for teachers, parents, and kids. Bonnie's practical, hands-on focus is based in her education in structural engineering and years of experience in bridge design.

Books

Google SketchUp Cookbook Google SketchUp Cookbook
by Bonnie Roskes
March 2009
Print: $49.99
Ebook: $39.99

Google SketchUp Cookbook: Rough Cuts Version Google SketchUp Cookbook: Rough Cuts Version
by Bonnie Roskes
November 2008
OUT OF PRINT

Blog

Bonnie's blog posts are hosted at:
http://3dvinci.blogspot.com/

Symmetry of Fall Leaves

November 22 2009

My free November project for the Math Forum is up. It involves using a photo of a leaf, tracing around half of it, and investigating the overall symmetry of the leaf. By combining the leaf models you get from a few different photos, you can create a nice collage of… read more

Waybe: SketchUp Models to Paper

November 17 2009

Those who have subscribed to my SketchUp Projects of the Month since September got my project on how to take a simple SketchUp model and unfold it, in order to create a paper model. (If you're a subscriber who signed up after September, email me and I'll send you this… read more

Upcoming November SketchUp Projects

November 09 2009

On November 15th, subscribers to our Projects of the Month will be getting a fantastic batch of projects! If you haven't signed up, what are you waiting for? You get 36 projects (3 per month for 12 months) for $36 - that's $1 per project. A no-brainer, IMO.Here's what's on… read more

Challenge Yourself!

November 03 2009

Design competitions are a great way to exercise and show off your modeling skills. Every so often Google hosts a competition with cash prizes, such as the recent shelter design contest, or last year's bridge modeling contest, which I helped judge.But if you're in it for the bragging rights and… read more

Geofix: Awesome Geometry Toy

October 31 2009

This is a little delayed, but I visited the Didax booth last week at NCTM, and found some cool toys. What I took home was a small set of Geofix tiles - a set of interlocking polygons of equal edge length, which can connect to form Platonic and Archimedean solids,… read more

Math Teachers Dig 3DVinci

October 22 2009

I'm in beautiful Boston, MA today and tomorrow, for the regional meeting of NCTM. This morning, Jon Choate and I gave a talk on 3D geometry with Google SketchUp. We had one of the larger conference rooms (about 300 capacity), and it was standing room only. At some point they… read more

Escher for Halloween

October 21 2009

I got this model from a teacher named June Still-Flores, who created these triangular Escher tiles after working through one of our September Projects of the Month.Here's part of what June wrote:I want to thank you for all the information you have about Sketch up. We are a small school… read more

October Projects are Ready to "Ship"!

October 14 2009

On October 15th, subscribers to our Projects of the Month will be getting their second batch of projects. (The September projects were described here.)If you haven't signed up yet, here's some incentive to do it soon: the $24 per year price will go up to $36 next month!Here's what's on… read more

New Math Forum Project: Escher!

October 13 2009

SketchUp + Escher = Skescher?Here's my October project for the Math Forum: creating Escher tiles based on a square. This project appeals to math students, but also kids in art or graphic design classes. I let my own kids loose with this project, and they had a blast (though the… read more

Modifying a Push/Pull

October 13 2009

In addition to writing about useful plugins (see here, here, and here), I also like to write about features within SketchUp itself that most people don't know about. The subject of this post is the ever-popular Push/Pull tool, which you can modify with the Ctrl key (PC) or Option key… read more

Teen Center, Designed by Tweens

October 09 2009

Mike Valler works with the Boys & Girls Club of Greater New Bedford, and has been showing his kids how to use SketchUp. Here is the design the kids came up with to fill the space in their new teen center. All of the furniture was designed from scratch, so… read more

What a Great Way to Start off the Week

October 05 2009

Willy Felton is a teacher who is using my ModelMetricks and GeomeTricks materials with his students. I blogged about him before - see One Teacher's Opinion.) He sent me a link to this YouTube video he made showing what his students have done:There's nothing like seeing the fruits of your… read more

Raised Fret Model

September 30 2009

A reader named Walter Page sent me an example of what he recently created with Joint Push Pull, a free SketchUp plugin I described last week. Walter created a cylinder with 27 identical raised frets:Here's a quick description of how he did it:The pattern repeats over 5 faces (highlighted below),… read more

Photo in Frame: One Teacher's First Attempt in SketchUp

September 25 2009

I got an email from a tech-ed teacher named "Mrs. V," who told me:I tried your poster lesson for my VERY FIRST try at SketchUp. (Just myself, as a teacher/learner, not with a class.) I attached the drawing. It was fun and generally I had no problems with the directions… read more

One Teacher's Opinion

September 21 2009

Here's an email I recently got from a teacher:After teaching Geometry for years I have been looking for a way for my students to play with the shapes that are so central to the subject matter. Daniel Pink in a "Whole New Mind" talks about how the skills of the… read more

Multimedia

Webcast: Showing Off Your Models: Presentations in Google SketchUp
May 14, 2009
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes. Cost: Free Google SketchUp is a free and powerful 3D modeling application, and it's easy to start right away and quickly create impressive models. But SketchUp has many presentation features that most users don...

Bonnie Roskes