The LEED Accredited Professional 3.0 vector logo collection contains every official LEED AP logo created by the USGBC in vector format. The logos can be downloaded in Adobe Illustrator file format, which allows for complete control over the size and style of the logo without loss of clarity. The LEED Accredited Professional 3.0 vector logo collection is available for download absolutely free. If you require the logos in another file format, please contact us, and we will be more than happy to make additional file formats available for download. … continue reading LEED Accredited Professional 3.0 Vector Logo Collection

During a recent trip to New York City I visited the infamous Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was my first time at the museum, and unfortunately the glass atop the atrium was covered. The large volume of space that is normally full of light was a dark void, perhaps for the first time in the building’s existence. Already disappointed with the fact that I would have to make another trip to New York City to experience the true spirit of the structure. I was further disheartened by the quality of merchandise sold in the museum’s gift shop. Most of the items in the Guggenheim gift shop were everyday items with an image of the Guggenheim slapped on it, similar in fashion to the image of Mickey Mouse in a Disney gift shop. … continue reading Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Graphic by Ted Naos

Have you ever considered what function the background on your computer’s desktop serves? I doubt it. Many people treat their desktop’s background as an expensive picture frame that displays imagery of their family or maybe a sports car that they will never ever be able to afford, but why not ask the desktop what it wants to be? It seems that the background of your computer’s desktop is an opportunity that architects have not yet capitalized on. In fact, I do not know of any profession that has thought about using the background of their computer’s desktop as anything other than a picture frame. This article discusses ten ways that you can make your desktop function for you. … continue reading Rethinking the Function of the Architect’s Desktop

Augmenting aerial earth maps, or Augearth as it is called by its creators, is the resultant of a research effort at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Augmented Environmental Laboratory. I discovered the results of the research while visiting the Google Earth Blog, which is a must bookmark for architectural 3d modelers and illustrators. I am writing about this, not because I don’t feel like finishing the dozen or so articles I have sitting in the queue, but because the researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have brought to the forefront a new type of visualization that will not only change the way we view architecture and the world, but our process. … continue reading Augmenting Aerial Earth Maps: Are Architects Ready For An Augmented Reality?

Today’s download resource is a 3D Apple Power Mac g5 & Cinema Display combo complete with keyboard and textures. The model has a low polygon count and makes use of textures for most of the detail. I have had 30 or so of these computers in a model and render times and Open GL performance has not diminished. The model is supplied in dwg and fmz file formats. The FormZ file is completely textured, and materials are set up in the model, requiring only minor tweaks. This is the only computer I use in my renderings, because it is dead sexy and instantly makes any space cool. … continue reading Download: 3D Apple Power Mac G5, Cinema Display & Keyboard

This is the first of what is hopefully many video tutorials that focus on techniques associated with architectural rendering. This particular video tutorial is a two part video that shows you how to take raw digital photographs, and Photoshop them to be high resolution background images for your renderings.   Below the video is a brief description of tools and shortcuts used, and how to use these tools. … continue reading Video Tutorial: Create Your Own Sky In Photoshop (part 1)

This is the first of what is hopefully many video tutorials that focus on techniques associated with architectural rendering. This particular video tutorial is a two part video that shows you how to take raw digital photographs, and Photoshop them to be high resolution background images for your renderings. Below the video is a brief description of tools and shortcuts used, and how to use these tools. … continue reading Video Tutorial: Create Your Own Sky In Photoshop (part 2)

While cleaning up the images for the previous article Download: Sky, one of the things that bothered me was that my digital SLR camera produced a small amount of noise and grain in the image.  Although the Florida skies are beautiful, the sun is also very bright, which can make it difficult to capture a photograph without pixel artifacts in the image.  I don’t have the money to buy a new camera with better features or lenses to correct the problem, so I began to research the internet attempting to find a cheap quick solution to my debacle.  The answer is a beautiful piece of software, which is a Photoshop plugin called Noiseware, and was developed by the fine folks at Imagenomic. … continue reading Imagenomic Noiseware: Quiet Your Images

It’s not just important to be a talented renderer,  developing a great set of resources is essential, and allows you to spend your time on design rather than modeling a lamp. Time spent searching the internet for the perfect sky could be better spent developing a stronger proposal in order to win a new commission or simply meet a deadline.  This posting contains many high resolution (3,000 pixels wide) images of skies that are open source and free to use. Over the years I have developed a plethora of graphic resources that I keep in my satchel (LaCie Little Disk 500 GB Portable Hard Drive, designed by Sam Hecht), and I will continue to organize these resources and post them on this site absolutely free! … continue reading Download: Sky

This is the first resource of what I hope to be many in the Graphic Download page.  The LEED Certification Logo Set is a set of 2d and 3d logos that I have created for visualization purposes and for LEED presentation slides.  The 2d logo set is pictured below and includes all four of the LEED logos in Adobe Illustrator vector format.  At the bottom of the page 3d files of the LEED logo are available in dwg and fmz file formats.  If there are other LEED graphic resources that you would like to see added to this site, please contact us and we will do our best to track them down. … continue reading Download: LEED Certification Logo Set