Anker Stein in Sketchup

Set #6 as it's packed away for storage

I wanted to post some images and discuss my current block project.  I started on this a few weeks ago when I discovered a new type of construction block that's apparently been around since the 1870's.  Not wood or plastic but a type of synthetic stone.  These blocks, called Anker Stein, which translates to Anchor Stone in English, originated in Germany, and have gone through many revisions and iterations but they are still being manufactured using the same old methods.  I have yet to purchase any of these blocks as they're very expensive, but I was so enthralled with them that I immediately began constructing them with Sketchup, which is a free 3d modeling program I've used for years.

I've been working on this for the last couple weekends, and it turns out there is an absolutely huge number of block variations, which in this way makes it more like Lego than the Treehaus wood blocks that I've been building with the most of late.  With so many blocks to model, it took a long time just to get something I could start to build with.  I'm far from getting all the blocks available, but I have enough now that I've been able to build something nice.  The church that's pictured here is a plan that I found on the Anker website.  I think it turned out really well. 


Once I had it built (a time consuming process in itself) I've spent quite a lot of time tweaking the lighting and materials and experimenting with the various style settings that Sketchup provides so that I could get just the right look.  I think these renders look incredible, and are far better than some other cad-type drawings that are being used currently for displaying these models and for making building instructions.

Left side is a rendering with Sketchup, on the right side is Anker Cad

I don't know if this is something other fans of these excellent blocks will find useful, but I'll be interested to know what people think, and willing to share what I've managed to create.  Sketchup is an excellent program, but there's a lot to learn to become proficient with it, and it's not purpose built for making block castles as are the cad programs that have been used for this in the past (though from my research it looks as if those programs are hard to come by now and have issues).