DIFFERENT STROKES (IMAGE MAKING)

 The marvels of mobile computery.

I didn't use text prompts, still seems a backwards way of approaching visual thinking to me. But I did use the AI features built in to Samsung Gallery, which at last gives me another way to create collages, now that PIXLR wants to limit my free quota to 3 per day.

I use collages habitually now to condense the images I create, ideally down to 4 per day, which is one row at my normal zoom setting. I have a text diary app which I use most days to summarise my activity, but the image gallery is vital to flesh this out in visual terms.

Dubai is not experiencing a heat wave. The temperatures are moderate for this time of year. But it's still a few degrees higher than UK. Of course I don't have AC here. Should I get a fan? Would the few days of heat relief justify the storage space in my small glat. (isn't it revealing that LLM jiggery poker still can't auto-correct an obviously first letter typo like that... Even when the correct letter is right next door on a standard keyboard)

Something about the arrow of time perhaps. 👀⌚ 🏹 🔙

 

Nesting my infill family into a Wall-hosted Window template. It's all fixed size for the moment.

Bring in the nested item and lock it in place. Delete the cut opening that is supplied by default. Replace this with two voids: an extrusion with stepped corners, and a blend with pointed head. I need to find a better hatch pattern for flint cobbles (plus render image) but it's getting there.

How to achieve the lime finish across all interior surfaces is a bit trickier. Maybe I won't worry too much about that for the moment, just paint the reveals, head, sill and give the wall an internal plaster layer.

 

Whenever I go to catch a bus, or to cross the road into the park, I glance down the road and see this picturesque group of cottages huddled up together quite close to the road edge. I get the feeling that they once stood on their own, a small hamlet, just a short distance from town, on the edge of the Goldings estate.

I decided to venture a bit further into the AI features that Samsung have given me, then used some of my old PIXLR tricks to tone down the saturation, and give some gradation from left to right, also a bit more black outlines feeling.

Why bother? Well partly because the photograph was all in shadow. Also the hand-drawn look conveys the mental impression I have rather better. It's a bit like the Gordon Cullen townscape books of yesteryear. Less is more. A stylised sketch communicates on a human level the emotions we feel about a familiar picturesque view.

I still have reservations about doing this with AI, but I'm not a puritan. I've been using graphics software for 40 years now, so it's really a question of clarity. Do you know why you are doing it? Are you getting some value? Do you still control the process and use your visual experience to shape the outcome?

This was not just "a button push." Probably a dozen clicks and two or three slider adjustments. Ten minutes work including reflection time. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, but I'm happy with it and it took much less time than the process I would have use a year ago

 

 

8.45 Sitting in the park, quite cool with a moderate breeze. Hence the later start for my morning walk. I passed by the butterfly garden again. Took a photo, slightly more zoomed in than last time. Processed this to create two versions. One is just a crop, the other an AI assisted re-imagining.

Close by, I took a shine to the tree roots cracking up the tarmac. One day this will be a candidate for repairs. Right now I see it as a picturesque reminder of the passing years.

Back home, over a cup of coffee and my daily meds, I fired up Revit. First off, put a bit more work into my collection of Gothic families. This file is in the cloud and should be my starting point for every new variant.

The next variants I need are for All Saints, Basingstoke, my local church. First off is the East End. The size and proportions are about right, but the tracery pattern at the top needs work.

 

 

WALKING WINDOWS

 

Same walk, same Revit window but different approach.

 On the walk I took a shortcut through the Community Orchard, not to save time, just for the variation. Plums, pears, apples of different varieties. They won't ripen for a couple of months yet I think. Will I get a chance to sample a few straight off the tree?

Watch this space. 🤣🤣🤣

 

After my walk I worked on a Detail Item family to provide a basic parametric setting out for the round Window from yesterday. This is important because it you are seeing it out from scratch and changing the overall size, it's very easy to make a mistake in alignment that compounds itself.

I started by trying to do it all in one family, but quickly got in a bit of a mess. Then I realised there is a repeating geometry that could be treated as a nested family. I think this is workable now. Just one master radius parameter to control the whole array.

I don't intend to make the solid geometry parametric, but if I nest this detail item I as a background, that should give me a solid reference as I scale elements up or down to suit the context. (manual resizing of the family)

Let's see.

 

 

Further progress on the round window at St Leonards, Sherfield on Loddon. I nested the Detail Item from yesterday into a Generic 3d template and proceeded to create sweeps.

It may seem counter-intuitive to use sweeps where extrusions would do, but a sweep is more stable. It doesn't have the tell-tale push-pull arrows which are so useful sometimes, but when nested into a parametric family... Apples can turn pear shaped.

I had to adjust the size and position of the smaller circles slightly. Easily done by changing the divisors that relate everything back to a master radius. Just starting to work on the outer surround. More tomorrow perhaps.

I took my walk very early while it was still cool. Bought some milk at the end and then back home up Jacob's Alley. Next to one of the money laundering /people trafficking businesses that have become so popular on our high streets. My apologies if this one is 100% legit.

I think of them as a modern-day version of the vikings.

 

Towards the end of my morning walk (clock wise for a change) I stopped at one of the new plastic benches and spotted this view down to the main gate of Goldings Park, now "War Memorial". Foreshortening compresses the distances. The glazing in the background is a good 15 minutes walk away. Not sure why the flag of Wokery has to be paraded at the commemoration of the fallen heroes of my father and grandfather's generation.

The world looks subtly different, when walking in the opposite direction. Glancing sunlight and reflected glare on the White Hart as I head down the old road to London. Easy to imagine it as a coaching inn. The blue plaque is from the previous day. Music is such a magical extension of the human experience. Curwen is just one of many who have tried to represent it on paper. For me to make progress as a young teenager I had to develop my own diagrams to represent the chords and scales I wanted to play on the guitar.

Back home, after the obligatory lie-down (I did set off at 6.30 am) I continued with my "Infill" family. Changed the category to Windows, added another extrusion-like sweep for the stepped external surround that completes the limestone framing that will be set in a flint-cobbled wall.

Baby steps.

 

 

 

ROUND AND ROUND (BUS TRIP)

 Not sure what to think about yesterday. Resuming my explorations by bus was a huge positive. The fact that I only visited one church less so. A bit worrying that I felt exhausted by the time I got home. Let's see how the next outing goes.

St Leonards (Sherfield on Loddon) is an old church, but "improved" almost beyond recognition by the Victorian architects Woodman (1865) & Hugall (1870) It would be inconceivable to commit such sacrilege today, but I rather like it. Why is it that we can only build in the Gothic manner with the strictest of conservationist hats on? Is a century old approach (modernism) morally superior to the Gothic revival of a century and a half ago

 

Local materials and craftsmanship that has stood the test of time. There are memorials from the eighteenth century inside and a very nice old organ on the north side of the choir. The altar piece and east window also impressive. Will future generations look back at our humble village structures with such admiration? Not just for the skill and artistic value, but also for the invocation of a time of confident achievement? 

 

 

Sherfield Church End is the location of St Leonards church. Sherfield Court is the manor house, right next door. Pevsner dates it at 1700 with wings from 1922. Private house? There is a moat with island backing on to both church and house. Could be a picturesque gesture? No indication of medieval origins.

The wall between house and church is a tall affair in English Garden Wall Bond. Looking quite battered. I'm looking forward to tackling that round window in Revit. Will I model the stepped edges in the void cut of the window family? That would allow the the host wall to be flint on the outside. Complicates things and leads on to similar treatment for other windows. The perennial LOD dilemma.

The bus ride from Basingstoke is pleasant enough. Winding through private housing developments. Sherfield Park is the last of these, in a classical style, vaguely reminiscent of the schemes promoted by the King when he was still a prince. No information about the architects.

 

Next day I got up quite early and did my "standard long walk" through the park (about 45 minutes) before the temperature got up too much. Most of this walk can be done keeping to the shadows.

Chill out for a while. Received a fruit bowl from my daughter in Florida (via M&S) Had a nibble, then decided to tackle the round window from my most recent church visit. I made the mistake of starting with a drafting view within a project. Then I had to rebuild this as a modelling in place. Errors creep in.

A detail family could have been nested into a generic/window family. No need to repeat the setting out. Maybe I will try again tomorrow. Maybe I will tackle a different tracery pattern. Maybe I will nest the tracery into a wall hosted window family.

I continue to represent the "infill" family as 3 extrusions of different thickness. Glass, Ribs and an intermediate layer that elaborates the basic rib layout. It's a gross simplification but saves a lot of grief with geometry that refuses to form in Revit.