In 2007 I was tasked to set up a surface coatings plant in Malaysia for Surface Technology plc. We had already taken a lease out on an old warehouse, and I was given a list of the plant and equipment that was required to achieve the necessary production capacity.

The trick was to develop a layout for the factory that maximised the available space, optimised the production flow, and conformed to all relevant environmental and health and safety legislation. I developed the 3D model to plan the factory, and commission the plant and equipment.

The 3D model was accurate to the millimetre, and it proved to be an essential tool for the job. In some instances, we saw that ideas developed in the planning stage just weren't going to work once they'd been included in the model. On other occasions, we realised that it would be far easier to upgrade the specification on some of the plant.

A great example of this was the overhead crane. The designs from the model made it easy to generate specifications for the tendering process. DeMag were offering the best deal, so I asked them to give us two quotes on the crane - one for a small unit which spanned the electroplating line (the original idea), and another which spanned the whole plant. It turned out that it was going to cost exactly the same amount for both, yet the latter give us more operational scope. DeMag themselves were a bit dubious that it was going to fit in, but based on the model it could. It did fit in, although I must admit it was really close, and I was sweating a bit when the main beam got swung up!.

I can't stress just how useful the model was. The LPG plant and associated pipework, the compressors / air receiver and pipework, and the electrics - all designed and specced courtesy of the model. The pits for the archimedes screws and the phosphate tank were marked out using the design from the model.

It didn't end there though. I then used the model to output the Engineering drawings that the Department of the Environment and the Department of Occupation Health & Safety needed before they could give us the green light.

I also used the model to generate a fly-by presentation that we used when we were out meeting our future clients. It allowed us to explore the 'virtual' factory and show them what we'd be capable of providing for them.

I'm happy to say that the plant has been a real success story, and the team are currently doing a fantastic job providing the surface coatings for the Oil & Gas tooling industry in south east Asia.

There's various ways to do 'virtual tours'. Many of them involve using Javascript, Flash or Java to just pan round and give a 360 degrees view. Not exactly the kind of thing that stands out much.

In this instance I wanted to show the user that it was worth making the journey down to the showroom for a chat, that it wasn't just some wee office, and that there would be plenty of examples of the furniture for them to see and touch.

I had already created 3D examples of some of the furniture for another project, so it was relatively straightforward to create the showroom itself and add them in.

One of the beauties of Sketchup is that you can apply photos as textures on surfaces. I could take photos of the inside and outside of the building and paste them on.

This example also demonstrates that it's possible to set up 'Scenes' and create an video animation of the model from any view and angle. In this instance, I used compression software and an advanced codec to turn the video file into a Flash video file.

It automagically streams down to the user when they click the image on the client's website.

Click on the images to the right, or here to view it.