SU7 news!

CraigD

We're quite the pessimists.

But Google boys, if you're reading along, I'm willing to pay for a serious and useful update - and I'm fairly sure that goes for many of my fellow SU users.

So ... get to it, you lazy frappucino slurping code monkeys!

Amen.

Haa lol ...Well many of us are also smartwater drinking, rock climbing, bicycle/motorcycle racing, hardcore road running, skiing, mountain biking, fitness monkeys who give that all up on a regular basis to work our butts off making SketchUp, Layout, Stylebuilder, 3D Warehouse, and Google Earth as good as possible.

We understand your frustrations with the pace of development at times (and you can see that when we do things like give FREE upgrades to SketchUp Pro 6), but I can say that we are working very hard, and continuing to brainstorm many new and interesting things for all of the SketchUp faithful. So...please continue to keep that faith in us!

The SketchUp team is strong and our goals are often difficult to achieve...so we do appreciate encouragement as much as we appreciate learning about your frustrations.

Some of the things we plan to do will not be as important to one person as they are to another, but know that we are trying to do a good job by all of you. ...especially the SketchUp faithful.

Cheers,

 - CraigD

Burkhard

Who's one and who's another. What direction is forced? Where are the interrests?

Stinkie

@craigd said:

Some of the things we plan to do will not be as important to one person as they are to another, but know that we are trying to do a good job by all of you. ...especially the SketchUp faithful.

Mmm'kay. Sounds reasonable enough. You know what? Throw in the high poly support, and we wont whine about the Style Builder etc anymore.

Seriously, though, it's indispen ..., indispan ... We can't go without it. And neither can SU itself, I believe. If the poly limit is, errr, releived - well, that might very well seriously boost SU's popularity. I think. Would be nice.

lewiswadsworth

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

marching steadily in the direction of GE

....no doubt about it.

So Lewis...cannonball what are you using??

Sorry, I was away this morning...teaching a bunch of graduate architecture students 3D design using Rhino 4.

That should answer your question though. It's a shame...one of my greatest frustrations is the lack (as far as I can tell) of a real forum(I hate to use the hackneyed term "online community") of dedicated souls like SCF but devoted to Rhino. Blender is another matter though...those guys have found religion.

Of course, on Thursdays I teach a different set of grad students 3D design using SU, but they immediately start asking me how to do various things ("I need a smooth curve like this, I need to model thisGehry thing for studio, I need to be able to make a model thiscomplicated, I need to get thisrendered like a photo...") and I end up spending time trying to explain how to get their vestigial models into another program. And then I must grasp for reasons that they shouldn't just use some other program from start to finish.

I really hope, Craig, that you guys have something great to show me at Basecamp. It's hard being an advocate for a program I rarely use for my own work now.

numerobis

...high poly support for google warehouse?!?

solo

There are many requests it seems so why not help the folks at Google out and make a list of the three most important features you would like to see in a new thread, this way we can tally up the totals afterwards and give them a clear indication what us old faithful truly need?

Stinkie

Excellent idea.

Stu

forget it

JuanV.Soler

...especially the SketchUp faithful.

Now,
it depends who holds that faith .

@last or Google ?

Obviously it is Google .

So the way has been to get you tube inside .

At least the 7th version will clarify that once and for ever.

God willing it could be soon seen .

the last .

Solo,
it has been spoken so many times ...
and the 7th is done by now ...

lewiswadsworth

From something Aidan said to my yesterday at the AIA convention, I think we should all consider Youtube export in 7 a given.

Aidan was actually quite enthusiastic about Youtube videos from SketchUp, and shocked that anyone wouldn't be.

Now, I know I wrote "Aaarrrrggggghhhh!" or something earlier at the prospect, but even prior to talking to Aidan I'd begun to reconsider.

One of the graduate classes I teach for fellow SCF member Diego at the BAC is called "3D Modeling & Illustration." I cover SketchUp techniques but also the way SketchUp is used (or should be used, given my experience) in an architecture firm as a design development and illustration tool. Final project for the class is a month-long development of an architectural scheme followed by a presentation, which I require to be a digital slide-show of some kind with supplemental animations. I am not prescriptive concerning the programs used for that presentation...Powerpoint, Open Office, Layout, whatever.

One of my students this last class, which ended Thursday, did his presentation entirely using Google Docs.

Notice this provision in GD:

http://docs.google.com/support/presentations/bin/answer.py?answer=94194&topic=11968

My student's show was really effective. I already use the Google Doc word processor and spreadsheet functions. Now I'm thinking I might use this GD Presentation/Youtube combo myself next time I have to present a multimedia item...you can be certain at the very least that the embedded Youtube will work in a Google Doc Presentation, and that's more than I can say for video files embedded in Powerpoint or Acrobat slideshow (always a hit-or-miss undertaking in my experience). Of course, there is that stupid trademarked insignia in the corner of the video, but after a moment you stop noticing it. If you are clever, you mask it out with a filled shape.

So, on second thought, I think I'm not unhappy at all about integration between SketchUp and Youtube (and thereby Google Docs). One more free and useful tool.

kwistenbiebel

Lewis,
I agree, a Youtube connection can be cool and useful, but you will kindly agree that the handy ones among us already can put a SU video on Youtube easily if needed without it being an 'new feature' in SU 7.

On the other hand, even the handiest one among us, using SU, won't be able to model a really high poly scene without SU going fuzzy.

It's about priorities, and to me Google doesn't set them right.
Did anyone ask for a Youtube connection?

Regards,
Kwistenbiebel

solo

Or a GPS tracker so you can see where you are modeling on Google earth?

lewiswadsworth

They are a for-profit company that gives away major applications for free.

Ask yourself: why should they care what you want, or I want? You should have seen the crowd around the Google booth.

All right, you're on your own now. No more news from me.

kwistenbiebel

...I wonder how long it will take 'till Google Sketchup simply will become a web application.

kwistenbiebel

Too bad, I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for taking the effort at AIA to ask the things we are all curious about.

We can't be blamed being a tough crowd, as the thing that binds us here is 3D modeling.
If this would have been a GE forum, our comments would have been out of place...

But I guess you are right. We represent just a niche market.
(for the record, Autodesk got really big by providing soft for this 'niche')

remus

Cheers form me as well lewis, i enjoyed reading your mini interviews. Good to hear from the people themselves as ell.

dudekracked

is there a possibility that su7 will be free for commercial and private use?

Gaieus

Already SU 6 is free for both private and commercial use. There was a restriction in the free version of SU 5 (could not use for commercial purposes) but there is none in SU 6.

Alan Fraser

Good morrow, gentles.
Well, I'm finally back (and unjetlagged) from the AIA, having spent the full 3 days there. The FF booth was right next door to Autodesk and about 30 ft away from Google...and we had plenty to talk about with both. I spoke with Aidan, Bryce, John Bacus and Peter Saal. We spoke about stuff I can't repeat here and there is much that they still can't tell me directly...but these are good guys...fully committed to the kind of SketchUp that most people here have grown fond of; and I am fully convinced that developments in that field will continue.

It ought to be remembered that SU never was an AEC-specific tool, it was developed as a general-purpose modeller-far-all. It just happened to get latched onto by many architects and the like because it deals very easily with rectilinear shapes, which is their main stock in trade....and of course many of its developers come from an AEC background.
The fact that it was acquired by Google makes perfect sense. It will continue to develop aspects which some here might see as just eye-candy, but that doesn't mean that it won't continue to develop tools specific to AEC and related industries. I can't tell you what I know...or even if I know any more than other beta testers...all that is covered by the NDA. But I can tell you that I'm optimistic about the future.

In any case, many of the things that some people regard as eye-candy actually turn out to be pretty useful to other people, or even to initial doubters when they dig a little deeper. Google is a web-based company, so it ought to be no surprise that everything they own is going to serve that end to some degree or other. The YouTube link is one such case. It fits right in alongside other stuff like Google Docs Google Apps and Google Gardgets.

It has been a while since the last version...about 16 months...but that is quite reasonable. Adobe averages 18 - 24 months and I don't see much wailing and gnashing of teeth and predictions that there never will be a new version among their userbase. The program is simply too sophisticated these days to expect an upgrade same time every year.

Am I just shooting the breeze? Well, some of you may remember that a couple of weeks ago I advised someone to wait on investing in anything to put an interactive SU model on their website...then I protected my NDA by showing a 3D Flash file I did a while ago which rotated when you pulled the mouse across it. Well, guess what. http://sketchup.google.com/download/plugins.html#gsuwebexporter
FF will be impimenting this technology fairly shortly.

Frederik

Thanks for the heads-up, Alan..!!
Very interesting reading indeed..!!