Bad News for Architects in the next ver. of Google Sketchup
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I suspect this is the beginning of the end of the pro version: way to see how many dedicated pro users really exist before dumping the rowdy bunch we are.
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Let's not jump to negative conclusions just yet, remember he also said "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by many of the changes we've made",
, I would trust him on this one. -
I'm hoping you know something we don't Pete!
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If i remember well when i had skp 5 i was hoping for great improvements to skp6 and when comes out.. it was almost the same...same happened with skp7 which i almost find slower than 6 and i even don t use it..
To believe they made great improvements I have to see first..
My most wanted improvement is supporting high polys models...if this is fixed i almost don t need anything else..of course an integrated render engine will be high5,but that s something more difficult and much expensive .
My 0.002$!Elisei
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Well, I have the Pro version so I'm more interested in what's actually coming - proper 64 bit and GPU support and therefore real improvements in performance maybe? I'm happy to pay for software that has real value and is up to date.
I'd rather Google actually made money from Sketchup and then had a real incentive to keep supporting it. Ever since they bought @Last the momentum just seems to have slowed down IMHO
John
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@unknownuser said:
For those of you who depend on the importers we plan to remove, we'll be providing an optional download that enables them again. But remember! This installer will only be available for a limited time, and it will not be supported at all in our next major release.
This statement in the post seems to indicate that it's not going totally away if that's hope to any of you.
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What are the ramifications for the Education Side of SU? I teach SU to Interior Designers at a private college and they use Google FREE Version (they are students after all) and they import their Acad Floor plans into SU For their presentations. This sounds like it would seriously interupt their work flow. I do not COLLADA at all, so I guess I need to look at it, but Some answers to these quesitons would be helpful.
Let's all sing
If you like Using Collada. .. or getting caught in the rain. . .If you like using PRO sketchup. . .if you have half a brain. .. -
Also, why not keep a version of SU7 around and import using that - you could open the model in SU8 afterwards?
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@tomsdesk said:
I suspect this is the beginning of the end of the pro version: way to see how many dedicated pro users really exist before dumping the rowdy bunch we are.
tom,
you are the second to suggest that but i do not see any grounds for that assumption in the quoted statement. they are saying the dwg/dxf import will come out of the free version and that it will be kept in the pro. thus in what way this amounts to dropping it? -
Hi Ed, I too "fear" along with Tom, but would be happy to be wrong. The support for importing dxf to "free" Su will not be supported, perhaps implying changes to the v8+ database. The stated difficulty they are having with dxf, suggest that for 3d to grow, it may have to be dropped.
I have not heard of "collada", is it a text file like dxf? My software has no support for "collada". Is there a dxf2collada utility?
In fairness to Google, v7 included dynamic components, and a better layout (neither of which I use). Each of us have unique ways of using Su, but for some of us Architects, Google is just not growing in our direction:-(
I suppose like a lot of other software in my system, I may just have to stop upgrading Su versions, and hope that other products will fill the gaps.
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DWG drawings other people send to me are often so poorly drawn and cluttered that I've had to spend entire hours doing clean-up before being able to use those lines in SketchUp. Not anymore. Now I export those drawings as bitmaps from DoubleCAD XT, reverse the brightness in GIMP, and set the proper scale in SketchUp. A much cleaner start
.BTW, mhtaylor does have a point. Even if in the future you receive a file in a new dwg format SU7 can't open anymore, you can always convert it to a previous version with the free utility EveryDWG. Just make sure you keep the SU7 free installer in a safe place before it becomes abandonware.
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actually the free version outputs collada already
export as KMZ, rename to .Zip, unzip and there's the model as a DAE Collada File already.the main issue is, Collada is not a well supported format.
Today I tried to use the collada I got out of the google earth export. it's hard to find anything that does support Collada, (other than Max, Maya, Cinema, Lightwave.. erm I don't have that kinda cash actually). I've found plenty that outputs it tho.the better supported format is OBJ. almost everything opens OBJ. so why not use that???
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@drewpoeppel said:
http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2009/08/coming-soon-in-google-sketchup.html
As an architect I could care less about import export of 3d models. COLLADA? I want to be able to use my working drawings to build my model. A BIG step back for me. I cant justify the price of Sketchup Pro. Now what do I do? No updating for me. Blarg...Hi Drew,
I could see the point you make if you were talking as a student, hobbyist or non commercial user but coming from an architect I fail to understand. SU Pro is by no means expensive by any stretch of the imagination for professionals, even in 3rd World countries.
I would not be surprised if Boulder have to look at ways of 'paying their way'. Currently it looks to me that they are the poor relation to Mountain View. Maybe if GSU was degraded to some extent from the architects / engineer's and enhanced from the Google Earth and hobbist users point of view, they would see more sales of SU Pro and in turn more funds being available for the further development of SketchUp as a whole.
I am aware of quite a few large professional offices that have just a couple of copies of SU Pro and the balance (in one case 15) using GSU!
I feel quite the opposite to what Tom says could be the case. As big as Google is, they probably require to see their acquisitions paying their own way at some point. That's normally how these firms become large in the first place. Normally these objectives are achieved over a 3 year plan.
Unless we see GSU made less useful to professionals using it for commercial gain we may indeed see the Pro version becoming a lot mre expensive in order to pay the salaries of the guys at Boulder. It makes some sense if thought about.
Oh! and I have thought that maybe this was 'the plan of action' at the initial take-over by Google and the decision to provide the free version. If so, it was a brillient strategy as it has achieve huge .skp market penetration, to a level now that is probably unstoppable!
Mike
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I cannot really comprehend the dwg issues (if I used Sketchup for work or commercial I would rather be able to pay for it than in my current state)
@unknownuser said:
We originally designed the Free and Pro versions of Google SketchUp for pretty different groups of people.
So most people do not agree to Google's new interpretation of this sentence.Mainly I wanted to tell that I noticed a discussion in the SU help group, where someone angered Sketchup Guide Barry. A bit irritable, Barry could not conceal some details about the new features:
@unknownuser said:
I hope to see SU improved in v8. Why has development slowed under
Google? I wish it was still owned
by people who care about architects!Because we look at questions regarding performance on the crappiest
graphics card known to the planet Earth?
bIt's only a guess, but the SU guides have mentioned several times that they are working with full speed on something (secret), presumably a better performing rendering engine...
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Hi Mike, You are beginning to sound biased towards Google. That's OK, I am too most of the time, but it is also OK to lament the passing of "free" dxf import into Su. Guess I an one of those few poor Architects that don't have enough cash around to spend a few hundred dollars on anything if I don't have to:-(
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I've heard that Blender is going to have dxf support soon. But its interface is very complex. I don't know programming, but an easy interface for blender like sketchup's one would be fantastic.
It's just a dream, but...
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I was only saying: We're a rowdy demanding bunch, us design professionals, besides to a man being mostly poor (or cheap because we've been poor...a lot). One way to get more of us to buy pro is to cut such an important pro feature from the free version (seems to me I've been in agreement with a lot of you, so far anyway :`)
Then I was saying: We're a rowdy demanding bunch, us design professionals, besides to a man being mostly poor (or cheap). And we will still be poor (or cheap) even with this change in the free program. Sales will surely not meet typical corporate expectations (you can't think I'm too far out of the ballpark here, unless you have been asleep for the past twenty years :`)
Finally, I fully agree that Google bought SU to make a profit, and boy have they...but not to make a profit selling SU to a rowdy demanding bunch, us design professionals, to a man being mostly poor (or cheap) (surely, considering all the professional issues that were ignored from 5-6 or 6-7, you can at least see my point :`)
I hope I'm wrong...but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for corporate magnanimity. (What I would do, if I had a pot money buried in the backyard, is prepare for the sale of pieces of a dismantled SU pro :`)
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Not knowledgeable of Bender, but Dxf I/O with a interface is something I have never seen. Most of the time a program will just read, or write a dxf file. Maybe Blender will have options to modify entities subject to your requirements. That would be good, not difficult. There will probably be a "default" I/O that is the way programs currently work. It also means that you can go from a dxf generated by any program into Bender, something no render software that I know of will do (not that I know of many).
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Well, ya can never know for sure but I see the silver lining here.
How many were upset when @Last sold to Google?
Then GS free was released, many a grumble from the @Last paying crowd. [IE:woaaa... limited/no funds for development....SU will die]
Now it seems GS is taking a serious turn to Develop.
Well, having been a Pro user for a number of years, what I have read sounds like the GS folks have gotten serious about their little piece of software.
Nothing wrong with that, in fact quite the opposite.....perhaps little ole SU will wow us all again!
Guess me glass is half full :~)
Best,
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Tempest in teapot. If the software is making you money, pay for it. If you pay for it you get the features you need to make money. Simple. We expect to be paid for the work we do, why is Google any different.
I am also hopeful about this development as it has been a while since I have seen that there is life at Google for SU.
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