Dassault buying sketchup?

EscapeArtist · 4 Mar 2012, 19:53

Be careful what you wish for. The business model could shift and SU could be pushed in a different direction, become pay only or any number of other undesirable changes.

hellnbak · 4 Mar 2012, 20:15

I for one would welcome the new ownership of SU, but not to a huge, bloated company. If it were taken over by a smaller, stable company, one who would charge a reasonable price for the program, that company would have a lot more riding on the success of SU, and hopefully would put more effort into seeing that it lives up to it's potential than the huge already-owns-half-the-world type companies, where SU represents only a very, very tiny portion of their revenues.
Providing that plugins could still be written for it, and maybe even incorporating some of the better plugins (with much deserved compensation for the creators), and that the new improved program was completely backward compatible.
This will never happen, of course, and I don't pretend to understand anything at all about how these things work.
Just my opinion.

sonder · 4 Mar 2012, 21:32

Do you really think the price currently is high? I mean the price is the same as it was when it was first developed by At Last. Since then I think there has been one request for an update fee that was something like $85. I don't know about you, but that overall cost of less than $600 over the past 10 years certainly beats the $9000 min I would have spent on Autodesk.

I would be worried about the change. Google has done a lot for SU over the years with new developments, Google Earth coordination, 3d Warehouse, etc. Seems like a lot of time investment to sell the product off, especially when you see how big the user base is globally.

tomot · 4 Mar 2012, 22:48

WOW! If true, that would capture the feelings of one of my favorite analogies: my mother-in-law driving off the pier in my Mercedes.

I was very happy when Google bought SketchUp, I thanked god.. that AutoDesk did not get their grubby hands on another takeover. Unfortunate, the Google SketchUp team has been a dismal failure, I don't think anyone of them after reading a user Wishlist, did anything about the wishes.

Since version 4:

I have not seen any performance increase in SU, on the other hand bugSplats have increased.
A long time pet peeve of mine: Why is the Settings menu titled Model info, never been integrated in an all encompassing Preference menu? and why is it stuck under View>Animation? Scene Transitions is the only title that deserves to be in that menu, because its related to Animation.
The List of Rubies has grown so long, its crying for a Plugins1 & Plugins2 Menu.
The Ruby API definitions contain priceless example of bad English grammar, often mixed with Ruby computer speak.
The Ruby console has only limited value, it can't evaluate expression, only $ values, it contains no connection to the standard Ruby reference. If you have ever been misfortune enough to cut and paste code but inadvertently forgot and "end" in a the pasting procedure, good luck in trying to find that error in the console.
Most other API languages can do a reset and reread the code from within the running program, Not SU.
And my favorite:.... All you have to do is learn another 2 languages to create a visual dialog box.

that being said, I don't relish another buyout either.

pilou · 4 Mar 2012, 23:37

Dassault has yet DraftSight in 2D and 3Dvia Shape as free programs

Mike Lucey · 5 Mar 2012, 02:02

Wow Tom! I bet you feel better after getting that off your chest However I think you might be a little hard on the current dev team. I know for a fact that they do their best with what they have, particulary John B.

From what I can see, with my very limited understanding of the SU innards, they have to work with a system that was never intended to be doing anything like it currently does. I've been using SU since v1 and remember the rejoicing when transparency became available.

It's been mentioned many times here that SU probably needs a major change of engine to bring it where it should be going. I'd compare it to a suped up 4 cly 1600cc racing car that is competing with v8 3000+ cc super powerful racers. It's in the race and doing well but the hell is being tweaked out of it and there is only so much tweaking can be done. However, the team owners, Google, are happy as it really only needs it to get around the track, not win any races, because they are not in the racing business. As we all know, they are in the advertising business

So maybe a new racing team that racing is their sole core business takes over ownership and provides that badly needed engine change we would be looking at a winner! I imagine the new SU with the v8 could still carry plenty of adverts AND they would be seen more as they would be in the winner's spot more often

jason_maranto · 5 Mar 2012, 11:39

I imagine the first thing that would have to be dropped is the Google Earth-centric mindset/toolset.

From there it would have to be driven by the primary markets that are paying for continued development via SketchUp Pro and the tools they want/need.

If you are a Google Earth modeler this could be a bad thing -- if you are an Architect/Arch Viz specialist this could be a good thing... but it certainly should be obvious that something big has changed behind the scenes if it were to come to pass.

Best,
Jason.

Jean Lemire · 5 Mar 2012, 18:15

Hi folks.

A few ideas.

Dassault system is the publisher of Catia.

Actually, Catia is at V5 with V6 around the corner, if not out already.

I saw a demo of V6 a few years ago and it showed a feature that looked identical to SU'S Push/Pull tool. Maybe they cannot copy that since there must be patent or copyrights of this feature, among other things.

Maybe the only way to be able to use that is to buy SketchUp.

I hope not since this could be the end of SU as we know it. They would probably incorporate it inside some larger scale software like Catia.

Catia's price is close to 20000 $ per licence if you add all required modules to do something useful.

Catia's is very slow to start, is complex and couterintuitive. Its learning curve is very steep.

Unless they propose a free simple program, we may see SU disapear.

And, finally, it will not appeal to the vast majority of people since many do not know Dassault System or think they are providing only professionnal programs for professionnal users.

I hope it is an unfounded rumor.

Just ideas.

tomot · 5 Mar 2012, 18:40

@mike lucey said:

Wow Tom! I bet you feel better after getting that off your chest

Yes I do Mike! ...but you know really deep down, I wont give up on SketchUP

jason_maranto · 5 Mar 2012, 18:41

Since I already pay for SketchUp Pro I'm not concerned if the free version disappears -- although I seriously doubt it would. And I have no fears of SketchUp being destroyed... It would be foolish for any company to turn away over 1 millions users, many of whom might be converted to a pro/pay package at some future date.

My concern would only be whether they intend to keep what is already good about SketchUp and improve what is not -- a commitment that Google seems to be lacking in either the will or resources to make. Dassault has the resources and the will to create professional 3D packages... something Google (apparently) does not, so in that sense I am for such a sale.

Much more so than I would be if SketchUp was sold to a company like Autodesk.

Best,
Jason.

solo · 5 Mar 2012, 18:46

I'm not buying this rumor.

Two words: Google Earth. nuff said.

jason_maranto · 5 Mar 2012, 18:49

I would agree except Building Maker has made SketchUp largely irrelevant for Google Earth... except for the occasional prestige items.

That said I also do not buy the rumor, however it certainly is intriguing.

Best,
Jason.

hellnbak · 5 Mar 2012, 19:17

@jason_maranto said:

Since I already pay for SketchUp Pro I'm not concerned if the free version disappears
Best,
Jason.

That's kinda cold, Jason. Very few SU users can afford the pro version

jason_maranto · 5 Mar 2012, 19:26

Let me ask you -- do you care if the Pro version disappears?

I know we have had this conversation before

However you may be right, my wife thinks I'm pretty cold in general too... I rather think of myself as being pragmatic -- business is business.

Best,
Jason.

hellnbak · 5 Mar 2012, 19:38

@jason_maranto said:

Let me ask you -- do you care if the Pro version disappears?

I know we have had this conversation before

Best,
Jason.

Yes, I would care about those that use the Pro version. I would also care because if the revenue producing version disappeared, the free version would soon follow.

But, having said that, I don't want to become one of those that jump on anything anybody says about anything, there's way too much of that happening all over the web nowadays. So how about we just end this here.

No offense intended.

Steve

tomot · 5 Mar 2012, 20:46

@jason_maranto said:

Let me ask you -- do you care if the Pro version disappears?
However you may be right, my wife thinks I'm pretty cold in general too...
Jason.

Very funny.....It seems this was never a problem, when we were all newly weds

jason_maranto · 5 Mar 2012, 20:52

Yeah, her pet name for me is Spock because she thinks I have the emotional range of a Vulcan, in her eyes I'm too logical -- but we've been together for nearly 15 years so I think we are doing OK

Best,
Jason.

tomot · 5 Mar 2012, 21:25

that's too .... too funny, your in the wrong business, you should be writing one Liners for Leno!

Gaieus · 6 Mar 2012, 06:18

@jason_maranto said:

I would agree except Building Maker has made SketchUp largely irrelevant for Google Earth... except for the occasional prestige items.

That's nonsense. Do you know how extremely few places BM is available? Also, a good BM workflow also incorporates SketchUp as you need to tweak that model to be really good - if you care about the quality at all.

I do not think that the free version made any "harm" to SketchUp. In fact, the free version was that made it well known finally and one of the most used 3D modelling software in the world which resulted many-many 3rd party developers to (also) develop tools for SU (exporters for their products, built in stuff etc.), make skp or collada or any other native SU generated file types usable in their applications - even plugin developers would not care that much (in fact, many of the authors on our forums do not even have the pro version).

Also, if there is not the free version, I would not be here either. I had not even heard of SU before Google released the free version. What a loss would it be!

Alan Fraser · 6 Mar 2012, 07:56

I wouldn't give any credence to this rumour either. As far as I can see, the only reason that Dassault would bother to buy SketchUp would be to kill it off. They have their own version...3DVIA...complete with their own version of the 3D Warehouse (Link ). 3DVIA also uses their own 3DXML format as its primary form, which I'm sure they would want to retain.
The only use they would have for SU would be to cannibalise some of its more useful and user-friendly features before casting it adrift.

As a side issue, I'm not certain about the continued love affair between SU and Google Earth, at least in the long term. We've already seen on these forums a number of mapping softwares that use auto-generated 3D buildings of entire city districts. It's still in its infancy, but the results are very impressive and almost certain to get better and more affordable. Long term it's difficult to see how laboriously building cities by hand could possibly keep up, however enthusiastic the userbase of contributors or the usefulness of apps like Building Maker. I mean, much of the aerial data on GE is already almost a decade out of date.
Building Maker itself is really only of any use where you have the 4 different Iso views available; and frankly these are almost as scarce as the areas covered by the auto-generating systems. There are only 4 available locations in the entire British Isles...and even London isn't one of them.

Of course, as Gaius points out, to produce really good results of 3D buildings on GE, you need SU anyway; but this is really a pro or semi-pro architectural use of SketchUp...not the mass-effect, populate-the-globe use of SU that Google originally envisaged.