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Conceptually, skylights are an easy thing to understand; they brighten a home with natural instead of artificial light. But for designers, adding a skylight to their project raises a lot of questions. This was especially apparent to me when I visited the Velux booth at both the Greenbuild tradeshow in late 2009, and also the International Builders Show early in 2010. Designers and builders had an array of questions for the Velux salespeople, and there were dozens of sample skylight products and installations on-hand to demonstrate exactly how skylights work in a real project.

But not everyone interested in a Velux skylight can get to Greenbuild, or the International Builders Show. That’s why Velux contacted us to learn about how 3D Google SketchUp models might help them reach a wider design audience with accurate and timely information about their products.

Reaching designers online
Velux’s marketing team has done an incredible job of crafting a clean, helpful website packed with information for professionals looking to evaluate and specify Velux’s products. However, when they first reached out to us, they were thinking about how to expand their marketing beyond their website and reach designers in other online places. In early 2009, we launched a Google 3D Warehouse collection of Velux products as SketchUp files, useful tools for designers and builders looking to integrate Velux skylights into their projects. This early experiment was successful; over 40,000 Velux products were downloaded from the Warehouse during 2009.
Encouraged by the initial success of that project, Velux decided to work with us to show designers how to take advantage of the 3D tools we created. In 2010, we have accordingly launched these two programs:

• Interactive Skylight installation file: To recreate the hands-on experience that designers seek at trade shows, we crafted a SketchUp file that animates the various stages of a Velux installation. This presentation clearly identifies the exact steps necessary to successfully specify and install a new skylight. This file has become an invaluable tool, not only for designers wanting to interact with the product online, but also for Velux’s sales reps in the field. No SketchUp expertise is needed; folks can just download the file and click through the Scene tabs, much like clicking through a Powerpoint presentation.

• 60-minute video tutorial series on how to use Google SketchUp to design with Velux Skylights: Because Velux spends so much time at the tradeshows explaining how their products work, they imagined that they should be doing the same thing online. And given the success of reaching new designers with their Google SketchUp files, Velux asked us create a video series that taught people how to make use of the SketchUp files and also explained the general process, features and benefits of using skylights in a project. The series is a part of our Sketchup Show and it will soon be qualified for AIA and USGBC continuing education learning units. You can watch the three episodes at these links:

Designing a Roof and Adding Skylights
Create Photoreal Renderings with IDX Renditioner
Presenting Your Designs in Google Layout

Watch the case study video of this real-world project