Bored + SketchUP = AWESOME!!

[Delphinus]

Saw that in that other thread and was sort of surprised by the lack of gooshing comments, glad to see you posted it again.

LOVE this. The surfboard is a nice touch, haha.

Not sure what to think of the oval shaped tank though. The theory of it looks absolutely awesome but I wonder about the long-term practicality of it. Harder to keep clean, you get weird distortions when looking at things that are not directly in front of you, and so on.

Problem with going with acrylic though is I don't think you can get an open top like that.

[Parker]

Do Want!

[Lampshade]

Lol, like the tank. if you get really bored check out the light up addon for sketchup. You can simulate lights, and import spec's from current bulb, LED's, etc. It can show a Lux reading everywhere it projects to, or just modeled pictures showing the lit area's.

anyways... 1 month free trial, give you one month of crack for aquarium planning in sketchup.

[yellowworld]

Originally Posted by Lampshade

Lol, like the tank. if you get really bored check out the light up addon for sketchup. You can simulate lights, and import spec's from current bulb, LED's, etc. It can show a Lux reading everywhere it projects to, or just modeled pictures showing the lit area's.

anyways... 1 month free trial, give you one month of crack for aquarium planning in sketchup.

I was looking at that, now that someone said something I guess ill have to give it a try now, any idea how easy or hard it is to use??

[Lampshade]

Originally Posted by yellowworld

I was looking at that, now that someone said something I guess ill have to give it a try now, any idea how easy or hard it is to use??

It took a lot of playing around to figure out. Biggest thing is that there's no natural light, well, that I could get working. So if you want ambient lighting, you have to add it in. As for making lights, I originally i just designated a sketchup color as an emitter, and that worked fine, after getting used to it I found it easier to add in emitters using the tool, and it allows you to change the color output based on the color you paint the emitter.

[yellowworld]

Originally Posted by Lampshade

It took a lot of playing around to figure out. Biggest thing is that there's no natural light, well, that I could get working. So if you want ambient lighting, you have to add it in. As for making lights, I originally i just designated a sketchup color as an emitter, and that worked fine, after getting used to it I found it easier to add in emitters using the tool, and it allows you to change the color output based on the color you paint the emitter.

Alrighty then, guess ill give it try sometime this week and see what we get

[yellowworld]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Not sure what to think of the oval shaped tank though. The theory of it looks absolutely awesome but I wonder about the long-term practicality of it. Harder to keep clean, you get weird distortions when looking at things that are not directly in front of you, and so on.

Problem with going with acrylic though is I don't think you can get an open top like that.

The tank started as an 11 foot long 3 foot wide rectangle then i bowed out both sides, Im not sure about how viewable it would be, I know that bow fronts are bad to look at but you have to move around you can't really pull up a chair and stare. it would be interesting to see how it would work.

I think that the acrylic would support and open top but i think i would have to use a massive eurobrace with perhaps a cross brace or two in it. I don't think it would have to be enclosed fully otherwise you wouldn't be able to put anything in it.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by yellowworld

I think that the acrylic would support and open top but i think i would have to use a massive eurobrace with perhaps a cross brace or two in it. I don't think it would have to be enclosed fully otherwise you wouldn't be able to put anything in it.

Hahaha, of course. I'm just thinking though of all the larger acrylic installations I've seen over the years and I can't really remember any where the top was completely open. The bracing has been enormous on all of them to the point where I thought that aquascaping has got to be a bit of a challenge. I could be wrong though, maybe it depends on the thickness used..

[yellowworld]

I wonder what the max thickness would be for this to still be able to achieve such a tight bend at the front end of the tank, I know that you can get it as thick as you want it basically but how much would say a 3 inch thick sheet bend before it would start to tare when its heated

[untamed]

Originally Posted by yellowworld

I wonder what the max thickness would be for this to still be able to achieve such a tight bend at the front end of the tank, I know that you can get it as thick as you want it basically but how much would say a 3 inch thick sheet bend before it would start to tare when its heated

I doubt you would have to use anything as extreme as 3" to make that. I think the more realistic problem you would have is that single sheet max length without custom sheet creation ($$$) is 8 feet.

As for the bend, it seems like a pretty shallow bend to me. Easily done with 1" stock...as for 3", I have no idea. The trouble with a shallow bend is that it distorts over a pretty large area. I expect you would have 1 foot (maybe more) of really distorted viewing directly at the end of the tank.

I would still do it though. It is a great plan. Eurobracing wouldn't be a problem.