A new home for SketchUp

paddyclown · 24 May 2012, 08:48

I am intrigued by this new development in Sketchup history... i have been a user for a while now & it has become a core tool for my architecture business.
I have also used the tool as a teaching support for groups of young people in social reinsertion programs.
In both contexts it has been so valuable for several reasons: (not in order of priority)
1 - ease of initial learning
2 - cost, whether free for the students, or a reasonable price for a very small architecture outfit in the Pro version.
3 - ease of capture of google earth terrain
4 -the wonderfully rich plugins available from an extremely talented & dedicated community.

Like so many of others that I have read on various blogs & forums, we all seem to share worries on these (& other) core principals of what makes sketchup so special.

I have been 3d modelling since about 1988 (yes, on a mac with no hard-drive) when i used the then revolutionary modelshop software from paracomp (later bought by macromedia) which was a precursor to sketchup in so many ways: A no frills, easy to learn, intuitive & value for money product... & we all know what happened when it got bought by macromedia... RIP.
I, like so many million other users out there rely on Sketchup to remain accessible to ordinary folks who do not want & cannot afford Autodesk et al. & their huge unwieldy products which are surely useful for corporate architecture/engineering... but akin to killing a fly with a bazooka when it comes to small & medium size bespoke buildings... We don't need, or want full BIM, just reliable easy software to quickly sketch-up & work up projects that we can communicate to clients who do not understand working drawings !
A bonus would be easy extraction of 2d drawings for contractors, but only if that does NOT involve a huge price hike & loss of ease of use ! BTW the current Layout is sooooo like pedalling in molasses that it is next to hopeless (yes, I have tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I just can't get it to be smooth enough, so short of taking up smoking again, I gave up...)

So ? The real question is, does Trimble care about us small users, or are they only interested in their corporate clients to the extent that they will let sketchup share the same fate as modelshop ?

Let's hope the core team of developers really will be allowed to keep some freedom & not be marshalled into the big-boy rigid world of BIM bam boom & large price-tag licence programs... good luck guys, 'cos i think you'll need it to keep the faith !

(www.multiplicite.fr)

etobic · 24 May 2012, 13:14

wow the pompidou viewer looks really awesome - it seams to work in google chrome only but anyway...

any ideas how tro structure this code and add my own collada model in it?

<iframe src="http://pompidouviewer.appspot.com/viewer.html?Pompidou/nomeclatura_torrecildosimplificada12.dae" scrolling="no" width="645" height="460"/>

notareal · 3 Jun 2012, 16:03

@mark h. said:

Hey Mike,

Thanks for calling this out. This is an important point, and we want people to understand what is happening with the 3D Warehouse. I am going to try and chase down some more detail here; I'll do my best to clarify, but I might be a bit hamstrung in what I can share because the sale of SketchUp still has not been approved.

Incidentally, that's also why us SketchUp folks can't comment too much on some of the conversations here.

Best,

Mark

@mike lucey said:

Just read through the - Transfer of licenses and personal data to Trimble - here, http://sketchup.google.com/usernotice.html

This paragraph has me a little confused!

[i]'Opting-out

Wow...

@unknownuser said:

UPDATE (29 May 2012): Google and Trimble anticipate the transaction to close on or around 1 June 2012. After the Closing Date all users who continue to access or store content in the 3D Warehouse will do so under a revised Terms of Service. You can read a preview of the Terms of Service here. Users will continue to be subject to Google's Privacy Policy, and will also be subject to Trimble's Privacy Policy.

I'll assume everything is still fine... sky did not fall Anyhow, congratulations for closing the deal. Hope to hear some positive development news soon.

michaliszissiou · 5 Jun 2012, 10:52

Yeah LOL
BTW, the use of the term DPI isn't accurate here. We should use PPI instead.

And you still don't understand what you see. I can feel your pain. I lived with this pain for six months. But I may be stupid.
The truth is that what I learned all these months is much more than what SU can provide to me.
During these months I also learned Zbrush and 3dcoat. And everything between them. Do you have any idea what this means?
All these because of my love to this 3d world.

jason_maranto · 7 Jun 2012, 16:59

The expected fallout from the sale to Trimble has materialized for me -- I have been moved off SketchUp/SketchUp Pro by my employer, which means that will be one less Pro license updated for SketchUp 9.

Best,
Jason.

Mike Lucey · 7 Jun 2012, 17:08

@jason_maranto said:

The expected fallout from the sale to Trimble has materialized for me -- I have been moved off SketchUp/SketchUp Pro by my employer, which means that will be one less Pro license updated for SketchUp 9.

Best,
Jason.

Hi Jason,

Care to expand?

Mike

pbacot · 7 Jun 2012, 17:13

Noooooo, Jason!

brodie · 7 Jun 2012, 17:21

Sorry to hear that Jason, you've added a lot to the community. I hope SU 9 will bring you back into the fold.

-Brodie

jason_maranto · 7 Jun 2012, 17:21

My employer (VTC) is skittish (understandably) about SketchUps development future at Trimble and I have been asked to begin teaching a competitors software package(s) instead...

Since none of us know what the future holds I can't blame them for taking that position... I expected as much, and said so early in this thread.

I have a limited budget for software purchases and I tend to reserve it for packages I am teaching, so it is very unlikely I will update my Pro license -- it would have to have some pretty compelling updates/new features to justify the purchase since the package I am replacing it with is many times more robust already (the excellent SketchUp plugins notwithstanding).

Best,
Jason.

Rich O Brien · 7 Jun 2012, 17:50

That's genuinely sad news. I also hope they reconsider as I point alot of people towards your videos.

pbacot · 7 Jun 2012, 18:01

Yes, Jason. I wish to thank you for all the help in videos and forums! We will all continue to benefit from your work, new and old, I am sure.

jason_maranto · 7 Jun 2012, 18:02

Thank-you all, I suspect they are going with a "wait and see" approach before jumping back in the SketchUp pool -- in the meantime they don't like to have me idle. But I will certainly be keeping my eye on things here and I will keep them (VTC) up-to-date with any new developments. Also thank-you for directing users to my videos -- that more than anything would convince VTC to stick with SketchUp (they follow the numbers like any business).

Obviously I have quite a bit emotionally invested in this software and community, so I do hope Trimble makes good on it's promises and the doomsayers are proven wrong.

Best,
Jason.

Edson · 7 Jun 2012, 18:59

@rich o brien said:

That's genuinely sad news. I also hope they reconsider as I point alot of people towards your videos.

rich,
would you tell us where those videos can be found?

Edson · 7 Jun 2012, 19:01

@jason_maranto said:

The expected fallout from the sale to Trimble has materialized for me -- I have been moved off SketchUp/SketchUp Pro by my employer, which means that will be one less Pro license updated for SketchUp 9.

Best,
Jason.

very rash decision. how can they do that if nothing has changed?

Michaelv · 7 Jun 2012, 20:30

@edson said:

very rash decision. how can they do that if nothing has changed?

Because in the absolute a lot has changed and that is what creates the worry for some and the reaction in others.
Trimble much like Google is a business, so in that sense it's the same.
Google did what they did, so there is no more unreasonable expectancy as to what they would have been doing, we know what it is and what it was. Trimble "will do" so it's always less real in the future than in the past, besides they haven't been really very forthcoming as to what they will really do so far.
And I think most of all is the business model. Google has time and time again shown that their business model is to make something available to the community (maps, search, email, earth, etc..) and then find a way to capitalize upon it, that is their model, and so was the model with SU as well. So implicitly, we placed a certain value in that.
Trimble so far is an unknown and certainly has not proven anything in these terms. They have a very traditional business model it seems, develop their company and their brand on a "sell products" model. That doesn't mean they won't do it, and they said they would, but for them it's a bit of a paradigm shift. So we have to hope and believe in the mean time. The quicker we see concrete action and confirmation, the better.
Google is rich and a well known name, that has impact as well. Trimble as known as they may be is much less known in general, especially worldwide.

All that plays a role, most particularly in any business decision, whether it should or not.

There will be an impact as we see here. We should just hope that Trimble will react strongly and show that it is progress indeed, and that we will lose no people and gain a few.
At this point they are either fine with that as they had an entirely different objective all along and are just trying to lose as little as they can in this maneuver.
Or they are genuinely motivated to move along the direction that it was, and that the team wants. Then the quicker they show it, the least we'll lose, but time is of the essence, and very quickly so I'm afraid. Worse of all, it's a vicious circle (the more we lose, the more people will move away).
Please, please react quickly and make people feel comfortable with commitments.

thomthom · 7 Jun 2012, 20:50

@jason_maranto said:

Thank-you all, I suspect they are going with a "wait and see" approach before jumping back in the SketchUp pool -- in the meantime they don't like to have me idle. But I will certainly be keeping my eye on things here and I will keep them (VTC) up-to-date with any new developments. Also thank-you for directing users to my videos -- that more than anything would convince VTC to stick with SketchUp (they follow the numbers like any business).

They are jumping boat before it's sinking?

"The sky is falling!" -Chicken Little

Rich O Brien · 7 Jun 2012, 21:02

@edson said:

@rich o brien said:

That's genuinely sad news. I also hope they reconsider as I point alot of people towards your videos.

rich,
would you tell us where those videos can be found?

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jason_maranto · 7 Jun 2012, 22:30

Certainly don't take my situation as anything other than my situation -- my services are in demand, and I have to choose carefully the packages I support because I only have so much time. They are interested in having me do a competing package, and I have no solid information to offer them as to why they shouldn't move on from SketchUp.

Trimble hasn't proven anything yet (in regards to SketchUp), and all anybody knows for sure is they are not likely to be able to grow the software's visibility at the same rate Google was able to... so at the very least a 3D market share contraction should be expected for SketchUp -- and it may be severe if Trimble makes the wrong moves. We all know it is just as likely that SketchUp is absorbed into existing Trimble software and never updated again as anything else... all we have is a few optimistically vague statements to go by, made by people who are not actually the decision makers at Trimble. It certainly would not be the first time things went that way after a big acquisition...

I've said before, I would have been much happier with Dassualt... there's a track record there that you can make some sort of predictions based off of -- with Trimble we are all grasping at straws, and hoping. In lieu of some solid facts or a track record I have to agree with the judgement of my employers and put my energy/time into another package. There is a bit of gambling happening here, but it can't be helped with what I do...

Best,
Jason.

OG1 · 7 Jun 2012, 23:41

Jason, this must be a bit difficult for you to change on to another program. I feel for you. I think your boss is right though, to take that direction. Trimble bought Sketchup for a reason. I'm sure they wouldn't invest in a product and not apply its use to their product. But then again, I could be wrong. Logic tells me that they will use it for their purposes (whatever they may be as I don't know). My heart wishes they will just improve it and keep it alive for all of us.

I have a friend who is in the process of taking exams to be a Google Certified Sketchup Instructor. Does this have any merit anymore? Or did he just waste his time and money? I sure hope he didn't. That would be sad.

Mike Lucey · 7 Jun 2012, 23:59

Just noticed the 'Moving onward, moving in' post in the SketchUpdate Blog. http://sketchupdate.blogspot.ie/2012/06/moving-onward-moving-in.html

Looks like John and Susan are happy looking. Don't know about Brad .... but would you with all those broken PCs awaiting repair