Sketchup Architecture and Device Creations

I’ve noticed a few familiar names on the 3D warehouse and figured some others may have an interest in it too, so here is a place for us to share Sketchup buildings and designs we have created. I enjoy creating realistic models of both buildings and individual devices, so I guess I’ll start. These photos are hosted on my website if you want to see a larger version.

First off is a DMP 690 Security Command keypad that I modeled off of a few that I own.

This is an incomplete, generic office building. The exterior is complete, but most of the inside is empty. Four stories, plus a basement, with a large interior lobby/atrium. (Fictional)

This next set of photos is from the ‘pride’ of my Sketchup models. I started this early in 2012 and it is still a work in progress. It is a detailed model of the Johnson Outboards building in Waukegan, IL, inside and out, based on blueprints, photos I took, and memory from all of my times I ‘went to work’ with my dad there.

General Overview of the building, with original 1926 part near the front and newer 1959 section at the back of the building.

Close up of one of the shipping docks. In real life, this was built in 1972

Fire department sprinkler connection equipment seen in the previous picture

Interior shot of one of the doors to the many motor testing cells. In real life, built in 1959.

Interior shot of the newly constructed (1995) interior of one part of the building

Hope you guys enjoyed! I’ll post some more of my models if there is any interest. Feel free to post your Sketchup models here as well.

You my Sir, are talented! I make animation in blender. Would you be interested in letting use those amazing models? With credit of course :wink:

I’d rather not let people use my more detailed models of entire buildings. For privacy reasons, the OMC Johnson Building model is certainly off limits. However, I’d be happy to let you use some of my smaller models. I have some available already on the 3D Warehouse and will probably add more in time. 3D Warehouse. If you want me to make something for you feel free to ask :smiley: .

Those look great. Reminds me of some of the models people create for custom content in that old game “Sim City”. I used to be really into that game and I remember how there was a community online that created custom content for it, such as buildings.

Nice sprinkler apparatus, too. Bonus points if you can tell me what all of those parts are. :wink:

I’m not real familiar with the actual terminology for some of these so bear with me.

The device labelled “R11” controlled a main sprinkler riser directly on the other side of the wall.
The device labelled “S2” was a section valve for the same sprinkler riser. About 30 feet down the wall was another valve labelled “S1” for the same purpose.
The unlabeled valve on the far left corner did nothing. It was connected to a proposed “Riser 13” (there were 12 risers in total) that was never constructed and remained a five foot tall ‘stump’. This was for the possibility of another addition. The two nozzles on either side were both connected to this unused riser.
The two-headed… thing and the single connector next to it were all for various fire department connections.

Pretty close! Without seeing the actual picture, its hard to say exactly, but the 3 hand wheels seem a bit odd all clustered together like that at different elevations.

The technical name for them is a “wall post indicator”, the wall mounted version of the Post Indicator Valve (PIV). The purpose for these is not to control the riser itself, but the incoming water service. Starting at the street you have a municipal or private water main. From there, a fire service line comes off that and runs to the building. The first valve you hit is the PIV. It normally stays open, but can be closed to shut down the system from the street. These valves can be in the form of a post or wall mounted wheel. After that, the service hits a backflow preventer, which has two more valves on it (OS&Y) before the riser starts. How many risers there are really depends on the building, building size, and what kind of system(s) it has. Sometimes you have a riser manifold with many risers, other times its just one. Each riser has its own isolation valve to control it, typically a butterfly valve or OS&Y.

Those two things on either side of the wheel on the bottom left look to be drains. I’m guessing the right one is the ball drip drain for the FDC and the left one is the main drain. The FDC (fire department connection) is the double ended device you see, that style is known as a siamese connection. It is there for the fire department to connect to and pump extra pressure into the system. Not sure what the little hex-shaped thing is to the right of it, I’d have to see an actual pic to know for sure.

I’ll post a real picture of that area tomorrow. That model is pretty exact to their positions on the wall. Some of the valves were installed at different times, with the unused riser added later, so that could explain the strange difference in heights. So to clarify, turning those valves would not shut off water to that part of the sprinkler system served by the riser? That was what I originally thought, but now I am slightly confused.

No, you were partially right, I was just being more specific and technical. Sorry to make it confusing. What I was trying to say is that depending on how the systems were designed, you could have multiple risers being fed by one underground service or one underground service feeding one riser. Those PIV valves shut off water coming in from the street. So depending on how its arranged, by shutting that valve you could being shutting down just one riser, or possibly the whole entire system.

Just like with fire alarms, sprinkler systems are divided up into zones. Zones can be designated in different ways. You could have a single riser that feeds “zone controls” that isolate the zones with a valve, or you could have multiple risers feeding different zones. In some large industrial buildings you can even have more than one underground service coming in, each one feeding one or more risers to designate zones, which is what I suspect is going on here.

Okay, thanks for the information. Three city water mains, a pumped feed from Lake Michigan, and a recirculating system feed water to this building. I assume the 12 risers are divided over the city mains, possibly evenly with 4 risers per main but more than likely not. Each riser has several sections with valves which I assume are like the zones you were talking about. To complicate things, that large water tower you see in the first image in that building’s set fed water to the sprinklers in case of emergency. So that’s basically what went on in that building, a big complicated mess :lol: .

Here’s a real picture of the apparatus for FireFly.

Ah, okay. It is very obvious that the PIV on the far right was never put into use. The other two have tamper switches on them, you can see the wiring, while the other does not.

That little thing next to the FDC almost looks like a single-inlet version of the Siamese. Its not often I see the two of them installed together.

Firefly, What are FDCs for? Or all of that stuff for starts… :roll:

Make a topic over in the fire suppression section and I’ll gladly answer any questions you have. :slight_smile: I think I’ve high jacked kcin556’s topic enough already. :lol:

Absolutely not :smiley: ! Your information is very appreciated. It’s nice to have an actual example for the explanation of these systems instead of always talking in the hypothetical.

Here’s a model of the other OMC Johnson plant in Waukegan, IL. This was designated as “Plant 2” while the one posted in the previous post was “Plant 1”. This is an exterior model only as this facility closed before I was born and was demolished in 2009, and is now designated an EPA Superfund site.

The “World Headquarters” building.

Air circulation vents for the metal die-casting facility.

One of my more ambitious projects, a 95 story skyscraper complex.

Main lobby of the complex.

One of the escalators and stairways to the B2 basement level.

Street level entrance to the underground parking garage.

View of the stairway entrance on the 91st floor

And finally, an “x-ray” view of the building core with the floors hidden, showing the exit stairwells and elevator shafts, along with the truss structure at the rooftop mechanical level.

I would love to do some physics test on this, could i get it?

That’s some really nice work. I like it!

Nice work. Can you import autocad or rfa (bim models) files into sketchup?

Like I said earlier, I don’t want to give away the actual files of my larger, more detailed models.

Thank you!

I use an older version of Sketchup, so I am not familiar with some of the newer features. This information page should be able to help you: http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/36217

Brandon you should really play with a game engine SDK sometime… I think you’d really have fun with that. You’d be able to go a level beyond SketchUp since instead of just drawing buildings you’d be able to create a world you can interact with instead of just looking at a static model.

I’ve used Source SDK before to make levels for a video game… pretty neat stuff.