Bad News for Architects in the next ver. of Google Sketchup

mhtaylor

Also, why not keep a version of SU7 around and import using that - you could open the model in SU8 afterwards?

Edson

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?

honoluludesktop

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.

Ecuadorian

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.

Khai

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???

Mike Lucey

@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

Aerilius

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?
b

It'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...

honoluludesktop

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:-(

pichuneke

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...

tomsdesk

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 :`)

honoluludesktop

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).

Charlie__V

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,
C

kmead

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.

kwistenbiebel

For the first time in a long period I am POSITIVE about GSU development.
There are enough signs in the sky that Google is taking a turn with Sketchup and that they are doing some serious work on it for version 8.

The best thing is that Google is openly communicating about development now. (see the dev Blogspot)
That means they are proud enough of what they are doing.

I expect the Collada/DWG announcement (not the coolest announcement I admit) is the beginning of a longer series of open communication about v8 by google.

HPW

@unknownuser said:

There are enough signs in the sky that Google is taking a turn with Sketchup and that they are doing some serious work on it for version 8.

My understanding of the blog post is that we will see a V7 update (Free to V7 User) soon with the removed DWG-Import (and a seperate install for it).

And in future V8 Major release this feature will be removed.
I do not see other announcments specially for V8.

So we will see what V7 brings other than the import-change.

dedmin

Collada support is very positive - a lot of companies are improving their support - Blender, SolidWorks, Modo etc.
The real problem is Autodesk's monopoly and arrogance! If dwg is a standard - make it open standard! About Blender - this hype about the difficult interface is nonsense! Actualy it is very easy if YOU READ ABUT IT! There is coming a new version with a lot of improvement in the UI side ! Read this http://www.blender3darchitect.com/

kwistenbiebel

@dedmin said:

Collada support is very positive - a lot of companies are improving their support - Blender, SolidWorks, Modo etc.
The real problem is Autodesk's monopoly and arrogance! If dwg is a standard - make it open standard! About Blender - this hype about the difficult interface is nonsense! Actualy it is very easy if YOU READ ABUT IT! There is coming a new version with a lot of improvement in the UI side ! Read this http://www.blender3darchitect.com/

I still think Blender should get a 'sketchup UI skin'
But Blender will never be able to level the default presentation power Sketchup has.
No one does instant model presentation better than Sketchup and that alone makes Sketchup a killer app, especially for design communication!

pichuneke

@kwistenbiebel said:

@dedmin said:

Collada support is very positive - a lot of companies are improving their support - Blender, SolidWorks, Modo etc.
The real problem is Autodesk's monopoly and arrogance! If dwg is a standard - make it open standard! About Blender - this hype about the difficult interface is nonsense! Actualy it is very easy if YOU READ ABUT IT! There is coming a new version with a lot of improvement in the UI side ! Read this http://www.blender3darchitect.com/

I still think Blender should get a 'sketchup UI skin'
But Blender will never be able to level the default presentation power Sketchup has.
No one does instant model presentation better than Sketchup and that alone makes Sketchup a killer app, especially for design communication!

I fully agree. I have used Blender a little, and its very powerful, but has a very difficult learning curve and it takes you a lot of work to start using it (at least me). In other words, its interface is non-intuitive. Perhaps in a month you can manage very well with it, but for a newbie... a newbie likes the interface of Sketchup.

dedmin

Blender is not any difficult that any other 3D software in the same class. But with Collada you can import from SketchUP to texture and render - there are very good free renders for it. You ask to much - free, easy and powerful! No way...

pichuneke

@dedmin said:

Blender is not any difficult that any other 3D software in the same class. But with Collada you can import from SketchUP to texture and render - there are very good free renders for it. You ask to much - free, easy and powerful! No way...

You can find even OS free, easy and powerful, like Ubuntu Linux. Or tools like firefox, Openoffice... Anyway I don't know programming, I was telling an idea. And in fact I never use dwg/dfx for my desings, but I am giving my opinion as I see that, as a bad new. I have exported skp to blender without Collada before, so for me Sketchup free is getting "smaller".