A new home for SketchUp

[jbacus]

@fionmacool said:

Now if Trimble would just sponsor some humorous SketchUp videos to help push their new acquisition.... I wonder who they could get to do that.......

I for one am curious how Charles Edouard feels about this change of ownership.

john
.

[thomthom]

@solo said:

Base camp and October fest need to overlap.

+1

[tallbridgeguy]

@jason_maranto said:

It seems like this may be a good thing for many people -- however it's not likely I will be allowed to continue doing SketchUp/SketchUp Pro video tutorial series... I think the draw for my employer was the name recognition of Google, Trimble may not carry the same weight for them.

Best,
Jason.

Jason that was I was worried about...I teach this at the local university and all I have to say is it is a Google product and they load it on the computers. Now I have to say, please load this software from Trimble..

Maybe Trimble doesn't like being loaded for free on university computers...

[Marian]

@unknownuser said:

It's too late but why not like like Blender for the next time?
each users give 1$ = 30 millions $ or 10 $ = 300 millions $ then users buy SU!

Well maybe not exactly buying SU...but I have another idea.
How a about a "tip jar" for the developers or a Community funded feature.
We all want some features in SU, lets say we pick 1 or 2,something doable, and send it to the SU guys and pay them from the donations gathered.

I know it sounds a bit naive, but it's more plausable than entirely buying SU. Plus it would create a stronger and tighter relationship between the developers and the community.

[boofredlay]

@thomthom said:

@solo said:

Base camp and October fest need to overlap.

+1

+2

BaseOctoBeerFesTrimbleCamp

[Gaieus]

Rich, would you please also register BaseOctoBeerFesTrimbleCamp.com ?

[tallbridgeguy]

Just an FYI, I'm sitting in a university clasroom giving a final exam in Sketchup to engineering freshman. (part of a cadd/visualization course)

I really enjoy the way sketchup works and I think my students were getting the hang of 3D visualization. You know how hard it is to teach Civil/Construction engineers visualization!

I lobbied to get sketchup as part of the course but maybe I have to go to an autodesk product. Autodesk gives free software licenses to students and it would be easy to teach 3ds max but I would really miss sketchup.

[brookefox]

It would seem that a good part of Trimble's interest in SU is as they said: to incorporate the engine in their products. We all know the value of that and of growing the beast rather than letting it stagnate. Similarly, as folks have observed, there is no reason to assume there will be no flow in the other direction, from their other SW into SU. Right now, just a bucket of possibility. Here in the northern hemisphere, it's spring time.

[TIG]

Who's said [yet] that Trimble having got some "philanthropy" ?
Let's give them a change before we all jump ship

[mitcorb]

Hi to John Bacus:
I wish you and your team good fortune.
You may need to take a look at your signature,eventually:

"John Bacus
Product Manager | SketchUp
Google, Inc.
Boulder, Colorado
jbacus..google.com"

Edited above to kill the link

[Ecuadorian]

Just one recommendation for the team:

K.I.S.S.
Keep It Simple, Sir.

[pbacot]

@tig said:

Who's said [yet] that Trimble having got some "philanthropy" ?
Let's give them a change before we all jump ship

Yeah if they don't know already what sort of user base they've acquired, it's going to be fun enlightening them. I say our agitators start off with a Let's get Acquainted Basecamp ASAP.

[tald311]

@tig said:

Who's said [yet] that Trimble having got some "philanthropy" ?
Let's give them a change before we all jump ship

Agree! We should have faith. This is a good thing.

[denbost]

I'm worried.
Google has the talent and resources to support software of this scale. Can Trimble really match that?
I'm very glad to hear that most (all?) of the SU team will be joining Trimble here in Boulder.

Is Trimble going to make 3D models for their GPS units?

-Dennis B.

[Lobster]

From what i have read so far;

Bring it on!

[jo-ke]

Very surprizing news. 1. April is over, so this is real. I think Edson is right, what he is saying, Let's give them a chance. May be we'll get a great version 9....

@edson said:

I must say I was stunned by the news. sort of like hearing your dad or mom say they are splitting and you will be on your own.

however, on second thoughts, it always seemed to me that google was not allowing the sketchup team to develop it as far as it should go or, rather, as we wished it to go. for one thing, many of us have hoped LayOut could be further developed to allow us to abandon whatever CAD app we are using at the moment.

thus I am mildly optimistic about it. let's hope sketchup becomes stronger, faster and better after this.

[jbacus]

@mitcorb said:

Hi to John Bacus:
I wish you and your team good fortune.
You may need to take a look at your signature,eventually:

Thanks- I appreciate it. Definitely a renewed sense of optimism around here. I haven't changed my sig yet because until the deal closes, I'm still technically a googler. When that sig changes, you'll know the deal closed.

john
.

[Arv0d0g]

Get your wallets out....whenever this sort of thing happens, the losers are the users.

[Will03]

Whelp...

I'm reminded of the big stink we all put up after google bought SketchUp and we had to switch from the SketchUp Pro forums to the SketchUcation forums... which turned out not so bad after all. I mean I still hate and avoid the Google Groups help section for SketchUp, but we've still hung on to the community here at SketchUcation (even though I'm mainly a lurker ).

I'm sure that Trimble will be looking for integration with their devices and software, and frankly I'm looking forward to that. Expanding my business using my SketchUp Skillz will be a pleasure, as long as Trimble allows us to come their way easily, and not vice versa (ie; try and give their current software users a hand up over the SU users)

Lastly, and I'm sure that everyone will want this: For a Trimble rep to come into the forum here (or post on their site) and definitively say that they will continue to develop SketchUp as a stand alone 3d CAD program. That would really put my fears to rest!

[Jeff_LCI]

Hello everyone! My name is Errin from Limitless Computing and we make the mobile app SightSpace 3D.

I am actually excited about all of the possibilities of a match between SketchUp and Trimble and here's why. I have a background in satellite imagery/GPS/GIS and am familiar with Trimble. They are very strong with geospatial and could take SketchUp in many ways we have not even thought of. The ones that immediately jump out to me are how SketchUp could be used to augment Trimble’s geospatial (3D satellite imagery) and laser scanning (3D modeling). This could give the SketchUp team new opportunities.

I am baffled, though, why Google did not see the great possibilities of a SketchUp-3D Warehouse combination for their new Google Glasses Augmented Reality project. Streaming real-time 3D information about buildings and products sounds like a win to me.

I think this will ultimately be good for users (and hopefully 3rd party developers).