Sketchup's future
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I love using sketchup as a modeling tool but i feel its starting to become stagnant when it comes to improvements. The plugnins that users are creating are amazing but is google relaying on their merits for help in keeping the program up to date?. My worry is that since google bought the program to bring in models into Google Earth, they dont have urgency to improve it as it seems to work well for that particular goal.. I am hoping I am wrong but the last several news letters show very little on what has, or will be improved upon.
Im interested to hear what others think.
Thank you
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Well, they recently overhauled the internal rendering engine to make it more efficient. LayOut was a highly anticipated addition and has only been a part of SU since version 6, and really made more stable in version 7.
We'll have to wait and see what 8.0 brings. Hopefully more greatness. I'm personally hoping for even more Ruby improvements for the ruby developers and more UI improvements. And greater ability to deal with large models would be cool too.
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My guess is that SU "free" will remain simple as is useful for Google Earth. As part of the last release, Google had for the first time, (at least as I can best recall) wrote about improving SU in the future. Their actions suggest that "Pro" features will be develop along the lines of "LO", dxf import-export, and dynamic components. I would not be surprised to see the development of animation as a "Pro" feature. I suspect that the only improvements we will see in SU "free" are those that can not be separated from "Pro". We need to keep in mind that SU is a modeler, not a drafting, illustration, or rendering tool. "LO", which is a separate application is a SU presentation tool, not a drafting or illustration program. If Google decides to invest the time and money to substantially increase SUs functionality, it will probably be designed for, and compensated by its "Pro" users.
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I agree that better managing of large models is a must! The addition of better animation capabilites would also be welcome. I dont care much about the rendering as that already works for me with Vray and Maxwell render but I do think they need to work on the ability to model more complex shapes.
As for Free and Pro, I dont really care about the free version... Let that stay as it is as you get what you pay for
And if they had significant improvements i would not mind paying even more for the Pro version. -
@chris fullmer said:
We'll have to wait and see what 8.0 brings. Hopefully more greatness. I'm personally hoping for even more Ruby improvements for the ruby developers and more UI improvements. And greater ability to deal with large models would be cool too.
Ditto!
Developing SketchUp as a platform is something the users will benefit much greater of in the long run. That and sort out current bugs and UI annoyances. (Yes, I'm looking at you Toolbar Chaos and Shadow Bug)
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