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With all the hullabaloo about Personal Fabrication lately, scads of committed SketchUp modelers are getting very excited about turning their digital models into honest-to-goodness, physical things. The idea is thrilling, but the process of actually going "from idea to object" can be intimidating. The PF train is just leaving the station, but with a little bit of help, anyone who knows their way around SketchUp can climb aboard. I promise.

People use Google SketchUp for all sorts of things. One of them is geo-modeling - making photo-textured models of real-life buildings that appear in Google Earth. For some, geo-modeling is a hobby; they get a kick out of building something that provides a real benefit to the people in their community. Local geo-modelers are the unsung heroes of the virtual world - no longer.

THIS from the two New Yorkers who designed the Glif, a tripod adapter for the iPhone 4. It's a hunk of rubberized plastic with a threaded bushing that will ultimately retail for $15. Last week, its designers hoped to raise $10,000 through the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. In the first three days, the total contributions were $70,000. Fund-raising will continue until November 2nd. Tom Gerhardt makes interactive kiosks. Dan Provost works for frog design, a product design company. The two are long-time friends; they have never moved an idea all the way to production on this scale before.