A new home for SketchUp

Dan Rathbun

@jim said:

@dan rathbun said:

How many of you know that IMSI DoubleCAD XT already has purposeful workflow with SketchUp built-in, as well as the same Ruby engine in DoubleCAD Pro ??

I would think.. if there were any "CAD" company interested,.. that it would have been IMSI, rather than AutoDesk.

[off:3tqa6aad]Is the free version Ruby scriptable or only the Pro?[/off:3tqa6aad]

[off:3tqa6aad]Only the Pro. I did send feedback that they should have a Ruby capable edition for say $100. I made the argument that the $700 Pro edition had features that the hobbyist would not need or wish to pay for.

Also I have not tried v3, .. only played a bit with the last v2. There was a weird thing in which it looked to me like all the API classes within the Sketchup module, got defined within the toplevel ( Object.) Do not know if they fixed that in v3.[/off:3tqa6aad]

SUFractal

@thomthom said:

What worries me here is that I don't see the relevance of what they do with what I'm used with for SketchUp.
Will SU transform into a different type of solution? Will it fragment into specialized editions?

Agree TT, but what was the relevance of what Google does (or did) with a company that produces 3D modeling software? I remember being worried/curious about that purchase years ago, but things seemed to have worked out fine since then right?

Having said that, I'm curious/worried too.

findthong

@mike lucey said:

@jgb said:

This thread can keep voicing speculation but I don't think it will achieve much.Mike

I agreed. So here is my best SketchUp wish:
http://youtu.be/TDqbbxwLq7E
An Algebraic Model for Parameterized Shape Editing
It's exactly what I think, Dynamic Components that play as a team. No BIM is needed.

For this feature, I could live with whatever issues for a few years

dale

@findthong said:

@mike lucey said:

@jgb said:

This thread can keep voicing speculation but I don't think it will achieve much.Mike

I agreed. So here is my best SketchUp wish:
http://youtu.be/TDqbbxwLq7E
An Algebraic Model for Parameterized Shape Editing
It's exactly what I think, Dynamic Components that play as a team. No BIM is needed.

For this feature, I could live with whatever issues for a few years

Woah! this works!

dbaird

All Caps & Bold intended-

TRIMBLE- PLEASE MAKE SU 64 BIT

genma saotome

FWIW I expect there will be a Sketchup 9 -- both free and payware and that 9 will be the last free version containing any new features (as in: 10 and beyond, if issued as freeware, SU freeware will only have some bug fixes).

Unlike google who just wanted to populate the G-Earth presentation (somehow related to advertising), the new owners want to make some money in the marketplace they serve. I just don't see how that overlaps with giving away freeware for use in any other market.

Whomever is on the SU team yesterday will figure out pretty soon they're not in Kansas anymore and so I expect few to none won't be around in 2 years, probably considerable less.

findthong

@dale said:

@findthong said:

@mike lucey said:

@jgb said:

This thread can keep voicing speculation but I don't think it will achieve much.Mike

I agreed. So here is my best SketchUp wish:
http://youtu.be/TDqbbxwLq7E
An Algebraic Model for Parameterized Shape Editing
It's exactly what I think, Dynamic Components that play as a team. No BIM is needed.

For this feature, I could live with whatever issues for a few years

Woah! this works!

And later make this model talk to BIM package and make documents automatically with Tekla.

Few click architecture, with defined architectural library, is almost possible.
It's like architects define buiding elements using their preferred and defined language to get the look applied to buildings, whatver size it is. Remember those Richard Meier house?
So users can use parametric to get the design to meet the look they want faster, with less time on manual modeling.

I know one day we would get automation to the ultimate, when production time is 10X -100X better than at the moment.

jeff hammond

re: genma

free apps are great advertising/marketing (at least from a non advertiser/marketer pov )

even if only 10% of the free users eventually buy the full version, you're still making out, right?
plus it just gets the name out some..

I'd say a million or so people have been introduced to Trimble since around the time this thread was started.. and another million that have heard of trimble before have given the company a harder look..
and the majority of those people are probably people that wouldnt have been accessible had it not been for google's free version..

if I had to guess, I'd say the free version will continue on..

thomthom

@dbaird said:

All Caps & Bold intended-

TRIMBLE- PLEASE MAKE SU 64 BIT

Why? Do you ever experience SketchUp running out of memory?
Because all 64bit does is let you address more memory - there is no magic speed improvements in 64bit.
See this commend: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=44881&start=225#p401063

frv

Speculation is the result of curiosity. No problem with that.

I think from what I've read sofar, in other forums as well;

Skethup was sold since Google now also understands that modeling the whole world is a bad concept. Scanning is the future.
Trimble is a CAD company so this is a major advantage over Google.
Trimble is big and without much of an creative drive, so that's bad. Creativity driven companies are usually better capable of expanding success than the typical "takeover" companies.
Lets hope I am wrong and Trimble is actually not just a business model but a true and devoted CAD developer that will take on Revit and its competitors.

Starling75

Trimble should form something like Skunkworks not kill creativity and DRIVE...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works

"The designation "skunk works", or "skunkworks", is widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects."

johnsenior1973

@frv said:

Skethup was sold since Google now also understands that modeling the whole world is a bad concept. Scanning is the future.

Krisidious

@unknownuser said:

Skethup was sold since Google now also understands that modeling the whole world is a bad concept. Scanning is the future.

you cannot scan what has not been designed... tools may change but design will always exist.

frv

To Krisidious
Google used SU as a tool. That is to let a 3D world grow by itself using millions of users to model. That worked to a certain degree. But as a 3D information model for the planet the concept failed. Scanning these days does provide the info and incredibly fast.

To Starling
Skunkworks could work very well. But @Last and Apple and many more had or have a "skunk" at the top leading. I am sure lots of skunkworks achievements in so many of companies see their work dismissed. I remember the iPad being reviewed and dismissed by CEO's of a majority of IT companies.

Imagine Apple taken over by Hewlett Packard a decade ago with Steve in a "skunkworks" arangement. Or Facebook by MS with Mark in charge of the skunkworks group of enthousiasts.
The fact is that, however great Sketchup is and was, the founders were not of the same quality the former mentioned ones are. Steve and Mark could not be bought. Another example is Drew Houston (http://www.simplyzesty.com/technology/how-dropbox-turned-down-steve-jobs-and-apple/). Mark, Steve and Drew want to be independent to make the best product they can because they know that is the only way to feel the same drive.

The fact remains however optimistic you are that Sketchup has a developers team that is not independent. They dance to the music as set out by Google and now Trimble.
As a positive note, I think Trimble sounds better.