A new home for SketchUp
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@alan fraser said:
A generation ago, many designers spent all day standing at a drafting table. [...] It's positively aerobic compared to what goes on today.
It could be possible that we'll be moving away from computers again. I mean, most people don't work anymore in front of computers big like refrigerators, but it tends to go into the direction of screens almost as flat as paper and the computer either inside the screen or inside the phone.
I could imagine that modeling with gestures and sixth sense technologies could be like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzFpg271sm8&t=1m
Far more physical! (if we want to make our future like this) What is the purpose of technological progress if integrate virtuality/computing so much into the physical world that the technology becomes almost invisible? The only thing that remains is that we can overcome the limitations of matter! All virtual reality objects can be more precise/perfect, and they can be annihilated, multiplicated and reset to any historic state!
I wish that SketchUp and Trimble try being on top of current technology and make the modeling experience more connected to the physical object.
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@alan fraser said:
Many of the best artistic solutions are the result of 'happy accidents' as we try to imperfectly replicate on paper what's in our heads. In most cases these surpass the original vision.
[aside]This would also make a wonderful quote to epitomise the whole British building industry - all gung-ho and gongs.[/aside]
@alan fraser said:
If all that thought modelling achieves is to save the trouble of moving a mouse or trackball around, then that's even worse.
That's a pretty sad thought. The computer is the closest thing to a brain and the internet the closest to a global brain. And yet its only perceived use in this area is some kind of remote control for an invisible prosthetic hand.
How about this? Many buildings are designed to provide the maximum permissible square feet. Within this, areas are allocated based on square foot allowances per person (including allowances for circulation, toilets or whatever). These allowances are rules of thumb that seem to work (happy accidents) but does anyone really know? What is considered excellent may actually be mediocre.
But if the computer is given access to components like desks, toilet pans and human models, reusable regulations and other restraints, designers can set criteria like: workspaces as big as possible, toilets as small as possible, cost less than 20M Drachma, completion by July 2012. The computer then has its opportunity to compute and display design solutions. Contrary to conventional wisdom automating this part of the design process produces not one-size-fits-all but millions of possibilities that need to be reduced by applying new and resetting existing critieria - which might be called thought modelling.
Movable and interchangeable 3D components are an important part of this kind of idea. So it may be off-the-wall but at least not off-topic - new home new use.
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Yes, I can certainly see the point and usefulness of that scenario, Chris. But surely that could already be achieved with present technology...some kind of Super-Revit that treats the entire building like some kind of parametised part? Just enter all such requirements into a ginormous spreadsheet and let it rip; no electrodes necessary.
Personally, I'd prefer the kind of systems that others are hinting at...large, dafting-board-sized monitors with pinch, flick and squeeze technology that merge seamlessly with other devices...and preferably with the kind of easy-on-the-eye display now being developed for E-Book readers.
Where thought-modelling might really come into its own is for people with certain physical disabilities who would have problems with flicks or even present input methods. And I can certainly see thought-control being of use in software that has to deal with rapidly-changing parameters...like navigation or weapons systems. -
@alan fraser said:
large, dafting-board-sized monitors with pinch, flick and squeeze technology that merge seamlessly with other devices...and preferably with the kind of easy-on-the-eye display now being developed for E-Book readers.
.this, but i think the size wants to be ledger (maybe larger - 18x24 or arch size, for fixed placement) - tough book e-ink reader for PDFs, DXF, DWG, and 3d? job site slates. with measuring tools (drawings would be to scale to begin with), notation tools, etc. basic email / messaging on board. ability to do area / linear / volume calculations. and maybe they talk to the leica disto type lasers / measuring devices.
currently the iPad works for some of this - but it is too small, and too cumbersome to attach notes / mark ups with a finger (typing is OK). works great for photos, 3d drawings ported over from SketchUp to SimLab, PDFs, etc.
big slate in the job trailer, smaller slates, connected to the job trailer server via wifi, and a dropbox like file server that can sync the slates. waterproof (tricky, as a touch screen is nearly useless when wet), maybe with a stylus in addition to finger gestures.
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I suppose, how we work (design) in the far future will depend on how we evolve. I read here that we have finished evolving here but don't think this is the case as people are getting taller by the generation. I would be curious to learn if the gray matter is also increasing.
We have all seen the various images of what humans may look like in the far future but I came across a new one today. At least this 'future' human has an enlarged 'Spatulate Index Finger' ..... ideal for working with a Mac. No comment on the other enhanced appendages
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@alan fraser said:
Yes, I can certainly see the point and usefulness of that scenario, Chris. But surely that could already be achieved with present technology.
Well I agree that it could but it requires a radical change in approach, something as radical as turning counter service grocery stores into supermarkets, where enabled by bar codes much of the system is essentially the interaction of suppliers' labels and customers' selections based on need, budget and so forth.
A similar approach in the building industry is more suited to the characteristics of the Internet than a proprietary application understandably tied to its computer aided design drafting (CADD) origins (and of course there is always the uncertainty about owners' intentions).
@alan fraser said:
...some kind of Super-Revit that treats the entire building like some kind of parametised part? Just enter all such requirements into a ginormous spreadsheet and let it rip;
A new approach would be to select from what is available what fits with the design criteria. Only a machine can handle the vast number of identities and data from diverse sources; so that is the first hurdle to overcome before embarking on the more mind expanding criteria element.
@alan fraser said:
... no electrodes necessary.
Yes I read the post again and I apologise for misinterpreting it. (Electrodes somehow seemed to inspire discussion of computers supplementing or augmenting* the human mind)
*extract - All of the features of NLS were in support of Engelbart's goal of augmenting collective knowledge work and therefore focused on making the user more powerful, not simply on making the system easier to use.
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For some update:
After review FMX 2012. The world of film making is going up side down this year, they're moving to virtual production. And the best thing is...
After some proved successful inproduction. Most of the stage designers in film are converting to SketchUp! There're a lot of those film makers talked about SketchUp everywhere.
http://youtu.be/xD71XVbUWOY - at 0:18
http://area.autodesk.com/fmx2012#ooid=RxZDNvNDqppgJdMmwmZyVD3jxsnwiYg5&ootime=30m30s - FMX2012 Upside Down Worldbuilding for Independent movies @ 30:30 and many times.I don't know what Trimble have in mind.
But please, Mr. John Bacus (I hope you're still monitoring this thread)... informed this to Trimble. There're a lot opportunities there too. I think they need to be informed a lot about SketchUp possibilities to widen the vision, SketchUp is not only useful for just GIS or AEC anymore.
Leave them now is like throw away money and a lot of exposure to software and Trimble
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So after learning of the Trimble deal in Catchup and being stunned. I read though this whole thread.
Some say it's useless. Well this is a forum so discussing is never useless, it's the purpose in fact. If nothing else it shows what people think, feel, wish, etc..
Now is it useless to the deal and the future, who knows? In any case it is pure speculation.
Having done many similar deals in the software arena, and with M&A, I personally am nonetheless very worried, (hence part of the "stunning") and yet that is more speculation anyway. We just don't know the future, period, and it could be anything.So why stunned, since after all it is just a piece of software and it goes from a private company to another, and according to the posts here (as I just learned) Google was not super supportive to start with. Well I can put it this way. Outside of the specialized building community, which will find a solution to its needs regardless, and speaking for he hobbyists and masses, Google for all its flaws helped expand on the vision of making design easy and simple, yet modular, flexible and powerful accessible to a wide number of people. It helped create a repository of existing models and it helped (directly or not) to create a pool of talents to further the product (short arguably of doing it themselves). For that they can be commended. Google also has a track, even though they are private and for profit, to give people in general access to technology. Their business model being a derivation of that principle in most cases.So while they could have done better it seems, I believe that they contributed significantly. And that is done and acquired.
So that is what was good about Google and how it further helped the great original software that SU was.Now we're here at a new fork in the road. Who knows what will happen. Trimble doesn't seem to have the mass benefit business model at its core, it doesn't seem particularly concerned with the visionary issues of simplicity and flexibility. Actually they rather are in a very narrow specific sector of the world of design . This said, could they further the global cause? Of course they could, it's possible but it would also represent some change and departure from where they seem to be. Will it? We hope. Are they saying they will, yes they are, so good.
This notwithstanding it may be too that the design focus narrows (more towards buildings, etc..) as the result of corporate and business decisions, and while that may still be good for our pro building designer friends here as they expressed it, it may change the focus nonetheless. thus the hobbyists, the woodworkers, the ironworkers, and all the other vast numbers of SU users may not benefit as much. It may also be that they retain or realize and even capitalize on the much broader audience that they now acquired. Time and actions will tell, and it seems the pressure from the team will certainly be there. Great!In the mean time I think it is incumbent upon us, the community of user, to make sure they perfectly understand who we are, if they haven't already.
that was wisely started already with the poll of usage type.
As such I will start a thread where we can show what SU means to us. Hopefully it will also help them get a real picture. It will also be an homage to the SU team and give them standing points should they ever need it in the future.It is kind of similar to new feature list in a sense but not quite. As for wish list I would say, keep it with a friendly interface at all cost, no specific, complicated, dedicated, esoteric solutions (autocad?). SU thrives on its simple and intuitive interface, it should be a priority for SU as well as us plugin developper. I know it's hard, for once the piece of code work, it's only half done, but I believe it is important. Also keep it widespread (multi platform not only compatible but identical, there are already gaps forming) and flexible (Ruby API is awesome, C, C++ or other is okay as long as it's an option, not a replacement (again simplicity, not regression, yes C might be more powerful, but for some of us, it's would just stop the creativity, as an extra option, great!)).
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@michaelv said:
As for wish list I would say, keep it with a friendly interface at all cost, no specific, complicated, dedicated, esoteric solutions (autocad?). SU thrives on its simple and intuitive interface, it should be a priority for SU as well as us plugin developper.
+1 The simplicity of the interface is imho what makes SU so popular, it's the cad equivalent of being given a pencil, paper and ruler; basic tools that do their job without bogging down the design process by burying a command three layers down in one of several menus so the action ends up being slower than actually just drawing what you need.
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Simplicity no longer stands for SU. A screen packed with plugin dialogs of all different kinds and overlapping functionality. Well, there is a whole world around SU that has done what Sketchup was lacking. For daily use in an architects office SU is not just plug and play if you like to keep up with your colleagues.
Far from simple is the material palette for Mac (OSX) users. Incredibly slow, clumsy and unfriendly to use. And often enough posted about is the general slowness of working with a larger models. In 2012 other applications can materialize a complex model in a matter of minutes, nicely arranged in a hierarchy of grouped materials. Other applications can have dozens of detailed trees in a model hardly slowing down your workflow. And there are many more frustrations that Sketchup should have gotten rid of by now.
Sketchup is great for its modeling tools that are intuitive and work so well with instant visual feedback in shaded perspective view. I had a forum discussion on the Vectorworks board a while back and there the general consensus was that working in a 3D wireframe in projected views was really best. They were all used to it. To them a shaded perspective as a modeling environment would would be a step back. Obviously nobody really takes Vectorworks as a 3D app very serious anymore although once (as MiniCad years ago) it also had very promising tools combining 2 and 3D. The same could happen to SU if development is stalling. If SU does not move ahead with the qualities it already has it will also eventually be a package for just the accustomed users.
The new home for Sketchup may arrive just in time. Lets hope Trimble is the right company to move ahead.
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There is one thing that was very inviting to me, when I started with Sketchup:
I few buttons, easy to learn, SU grows up with me and the plugins I installed each time.
When I look at the buttons at blender I'm confused because I can not start without a tutorial. That's the point why so many people like sketchup because, it grows up with the user. -
@jo-ke said:
There is one thing that was very inviting to me, when I started with Sketchup:
I few buttons, easy to learn, SU grows up with me and the plugins I installed each time.
When I look at the buttons at blender I'm confused because I can not start without a tutorial. That's the point why so many people like sketchup because, it grows up with the user.+1
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@ThomThom:
Your +1 says a whole lot more than my +1, but I give it anyway.
Where is the wisdom in making a tool so complicated as to discourage a significant group of potential users? Unless it is some elitist notion to keep the usergroup small, rather than advancing the knowledge base of the industry with diverse talents. -
First, let me apologize for not reading all 48 pages, so I may have missed something I am touching on.
@thomthom said:
@marian said:
That's wouldn't be a bad idea if that means that it would make more stuff compatible with SU and SU remains intact.
That pinpointed my concern - I hope I can still do the same with Trimble SketchUp as I can with @Last/Google SketchUp without it becoming filled with features for disciplines I don't use.
I like the basic and generic design of SketchUp - with plugins being the method of adapting the core platform to my needs. My fear are big-features applications like 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD and Revit.
I hope SketchUp remains simple at core - and this acquisition will enhance it's powers as a platform where Trimble offer their solutions (as customer options). As long as it remains as a lean simple platform other developers, like myself, can use it to develop our own solutions custom fit for any particular need.
I can appreciate this thought for the most part, and I do support you plugin creators. However, I was hoping that one day Sketchup would be also include 3D Virtual World modellers and animators into their program design.
With that said, I see your point of view ThomThom. It would be great to either have 2 seperate versions, OR, have some of you talented people make scripts for those of us who do use Sketchup for a totally different platform than architecture. (although, architecture is also important to us who use this for Virtual World product creation.)
I'm going to stay optomistic, and hope for the best for all of us. It would be a sad day indeed if Sketchup were to be turned into something useless for the massive amount of people who do use this program for VW creations.
Yes, I can use Blender, but Sketchup is much more user friendly.
@sorgesu said:
snip
Since it was Google that introduced the idea of a free version of SketchUp snip@last had a free version. That was my first introduction to Sketchup.
I have been using Sketchup for Virtual World product creation since 2006. I know thousands of others who do as well. Folks from the sites we create on make their own plugins to suit the needs we need to produce compatible meshes. I don't know why more of these people do not sign up and be part of this forum, and show that Sketchup is indeed used for things other than architectural purposes.
In any case, I hope my wishlist will still be valid, and I hope Sketchup stays productive for all of us, and maybe one day, some of you script writers will make more plugins that I can use!
So far, those of you that have, have made my life so much easier, so thank you!waits to see what happens with the rest of you
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Yes indeed as it is SU is kind of evolving away from simplicity as one adds on plugins after plugins.
Part of it is the implemented plugin management that is limited and has reached it. I think the creators thought of plugins as a great thing, they may not have envisioned how far it would blossom and expand.
Even me as a user if I had "kits" of plugin and toolbars, it would already be much simpler. I could use my archi kit when I work on buildings and house, my woodworking kit for that, my sketchy physics kit, any combination thereof and so on.
At one point I tried to work on "super toolbars", a similar idea, which would have greatly simplified the interface when one has many plugins, but the API is not powerful enough it seems to allow to do that in a ruby plugin (no control over interaction outside of the design window), or I'm not skilled enough in programming to manage it. All it means though is that it is possible for someone with higher access (creators) (I know Jim did it on PC, but still not workable on Macs and he still had issues, you have to create text files, it's not drag and drop for example)
There are plugins that are generic (useful almost always) and some more specific. Some that are either better implementation of existing tools (so they should replace (yet only if one wants to), not be extra) and some that could be regrouped as various options of one tool.From a programming standpoint (and product design), making thing simple is a philosophy. It is not easy at all. It's not easy in design (figuring out what is more intuitive, what is the ranking of actions, all without hindering realm of possibilities, providing simple, good feedback) and certainly not easy in programming. A substantial effort is necessary. That is what made the original difference with SU.
Someone asked "where is the wisdom in making a tool complicated?" It's not that, it is that the tool is very complex, so the minimum interface is complicated. It requires tremendous effort in design and implementation to go the extra mile to make it simple. It's like musicians, the good one can play great, the great one can go beyond playing, they can fake mistakes to make them funny, they can fake mistakes to create something special, but to master mistakes requires a higher level of mastery than to not make any.
This is the same (and I know I'm guilty of it myself) you can write a plugin that does what you want, but then to make it do the same thing with less complexity, with more intuitive input, with more streamlined actions is more complicated in most cases than to just do it in the first place.
And that is what people that call SU a toy don't get. It looks like a toy, yet it's more advanced than stuff that looks like you need to be a rocket scientist to use. And to make it look like a toy was not only progress but a tremendous effort on top of it.
I'll take an example:
As an engineer, to design a box, I can think well I need to determine x, y, and z for the first corner (input 3 numbers), then three side lengths (another 3 numbers input, then vectors for the directions of the sides, etc.. Nice, I can a get a great CAD that can do plenty.
Or I can say wherever the mouse starts is the first point, and wherever it ends gives me all information I need (oh and maybe my feedback window can accept input to fix these lengths), then just push pull and there it is. Now if I need to fine tune (notice that the basic is done first, and then the advanced refinement later, vs all options given at first) then I can rotate, move, scale, etc..
Now guess what, when I create a sphere in the first instance I have to enter a ton of parameters again, figure out where the center will be and all). Some may start to recognize great and powerful CAD software at this point. /sarc off, no name given.
In the second instance I'd use the same tools (scale, move, etc..)
See how complex it is to be simple.
There are few products in the world that have been lucky to be made like that by design, SU is one of them.As for creating plugin for the VW crowd, I think it's a matter of use. It is hard to create a plugin for something one either doesn't need or doesn't understand (see the simplicity issue above). Some can create plugin on demand, and it happens. But I think each group of user has to organically refine its own set of tools.
Granted ruby is not as "simple" to use as one may wish. I wish there was a simplicity rule applied to programming languages too, it has been tried many times too (and there are scripting languages too), but it is just a very very complex task. Ruby is very much going in the right direction, and is already quite an achievement, that is why I'd wish that in SU it didn't become replaced by C (C++, Java, etc..) or other more "technical" languages, even if arguably they are more powerful (or more widely used by programmers). Now they still could be a secondary option for the most advanced programmers, to do the most powerful features. Again a design issue. -
@unknownuser said:
Yes, I can use Blender, but Sketchup is much more user friendly.
From the point of a blender user, blender is the friendlier.
For instance, SU isn't that friendly to me, especially when having to deal with snapping options.
How can anyone compares these two apps? Blender is a huge application, containing almost any function you may like. Not just a modeler.
SU lacks of very important tools, like a decent UV editor. Neither some addons in SU are comparable with blender (artisan, UV editing etc)
On the other hand, blender does huge steps on the SU direction these days. It's the bmesh new builds. Learn about them.
To my good friends that develop these SU excellent addons: Learn python scripting.And... we can still use SU and export to blender via TIG's excellent obj exporter. I'll keep saying it because it was a great help to me.
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@michaliszissiou said:
@unknownuser said:
Yes, I can use Blender, but Sketchup is much more user friendly.
From the point of a blender user, blender is the friendlier.
For instance, SU isn't that friendly to me, especially when having to deal with snapping options.
How can anyone compares these two apps? Blender is a huge application, containing almost any function you may like. Not just a modeler.
SU lacks of very important tools, like a decent UV editor. Neither some addons in SU are comparable with blender (artisan, UV editing etc)
On the other hand, blender does huge steps on the SU direction these days. It's the bmesh new builds. Learn about them.
To my good friends that develop these SU excellent addons: Learn python scripting.And... we can still use SU and export to blender via TIG's excellent obj exporter. I'll keep saying it because it was a great help to me.
People are biased to what they like most.
I can say Sketchup is more user friendlier to me then Blender, because I tried them both.
For all the things you listed for Blender that makes it GREAT, doesn't make it easier, for me, to learn.I have this same learning curve with the SU plugins I get free and buy. Which is why I take my time to learn each one, at a time.
This, in turn, makes learning Blender all that much more easy for me.I didn't say I didn't LIKE Blender. I do. I use it when I need to. When there are no plugins made for Sketchup that will do the job I need done.
It doesn't help that my IQ went from a 136 to about a 72 due to a disability.
So, yes, Sketchup is much more user friendly. For me.
Edit to add: [from my prior post] I was hoping that more VW creators would join this forum because they have made plugins for SU that might be useful to some people here.
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@unknownuser said:
@last had a free version. That was my first introduction to Sketchup.
Sorry to contradict, but @Last never had a free version. What they did have was an unlimited trial of the retail version that worked for 8 hours actual modelling time...same as the Pro version now. Susan ought to know...she'd been using SU for years by the time it was sold in 2006. In fact, like some others of us, she'd already started marketing content for SU a year or two prior to that date.
I would agree that SU is far more intuitive to learn and user-friendly than Blender. Blender might seem user-friendly to those that have already mastered it; but as far back as a decade ago it had the reputation in the 3D community of being the most unintuitive modelling program out there...and I don't see that's much has changed since then, powerful though it may be
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@alan fraser said:
@unknownuser said:
@last had a free version. That was my first introduction to Sketchup.
Sorry to contradict, but @Last never had a free version. What they did have was an unlimited trial of the retail version that worked for 8 hours actual modelling time...same as the Pro version now. Susan ought to know...she'd been using SU for years by the time it was sold in 2006. In fact, like some others of us, she'd already started marketing content for SU a year or two prior to that date.
Don't be sorry. Thank you for the correction. It seemed free to me, since I was able to use it for so long. I got it before @last sold to Google. (obviously?) But I mostly tried to learn AutoCad, and was using an architectural program while I dabbled with getting to know Sketchup. I only know what I myself experience. And my apologies to Susan. Had I actually known her, I might have known that she (and you others) "ought" to know. It was just a simple comment I made with what little knowledge I had.
Anyone else?
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@michaelv said:
As for creating plugin for the VW crowd, I think it's a matter of use. It is hard to create a plugin for something one either doesn't need or doesn't understand(see the simplicity issue above). Some can create plugin on demand, and it happens. But I think each group of user has to organically refine its own set of tools.
Granted ruby is not as "simple" to use as one may wish. I wish there was a simplicity rule applied to programming languages too, it has been tried many times too (and there are scripting languages too), but it is just a very very complex task. Ruby is very much going in the right direction, and is already quite an achievement, that is why I'd wish that in SU it didn't become replaced by C (C++, Java, etc..) or other more "technical" languages, even if arguably they are more powerful (or more widely used by programmers). Now they still could be a secondary option for the most advanced programmers, to do the most powerful features. Again a design issue.Sorry, I forgot to respond to this. You're right Michaelv. It is, and I didn't really expect the architectural programmers to make them. It was more a "wish" for me. Also why I wished those who had made plugins for the VW area would share them in here as I'm sure there are other VW creators in here besides me and Opal. Thanks for the excellent read!
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