Does Trimble listen...?
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In my former life as a cartographer/gis analyst (30+ years) I have worked with several different forms of software and programing languages from FORTRAN to Python; I have seen this type of thing happen before – a new release seems to come from nowhere and totally under-whelms the users causing all kinds of angst and hard feelings. But, what I have also found is that it is often that case that the companies feel that they have to push something out, especially when there have been seemingly long dry spells between releases, and when this has happened in the past it has often been the harbinger of bigger and better things in the not too distant future.
If indeed Trimble is making major strides behind the scenes, but those strides have used more resources than they originally calculated, that could explain the aforementioned lackluster release. I for one am willing to cut Trimble some slack even though it is costing my business a certain amount of heartache, with the hope/hunch that there are bigger and better things in the not too distant future.
This is certainly a good place to vent and if one chooses to move on because they feel that they have been repeatedly let-down and are disappointed then they are free to do so – and I can certainly understand that position.
At this point in my already strained budget it would be cost prohibitive to switch to another vendor and make even moderate changes to my methodology, but again that’s just me.
Respectfully
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Hi,
I see the whole thing realistic. I asked myself what I would do if I were standing at Trimbels place. Trimble is a profit-oriented company like many others. "Trimble" will ensure the professional user in the center, in conjunction with his Tekla software package. I suspect that they will try to integrate "SketchUp" into this system. Accompany it must surely an improvement of core SketchUp. What needs to be improved depends on the objectives. This, unfortunately, we do not know.
The second group would be the professional users who do not move into the Tekla scene. A standalone version of SketchUp would be still necessary for this group. These are the two major groups with which money can be earned.
Then the free version of SketchUp would continue to dispose of the remaining users.
So we can only wait and see where the road goes, let's wait. Otherwise, we still have Sketchup 8, with all its quirks and the incredibly good Ruby programmers.
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@marcdurant said:
There are a number of SketchUp folks who read this forum. Speaking only for myself, I focus on those conversations where I can make a difference by helping people with problems or perhaps tracking down a new bug report.
Thanks for chiming in and commenting Marc, much appreciated.
Mike
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Hey folks -
Just wanted to pop in an say that we do indeed follow the posts here and very much value your feedback. SketchUp is a large application and sometimes you have to shore up the foundations in order to better move forward. We've done a lot of that with this release, while also trying to make SketchUp a better platform and a better documentation and presentation tool (LayOut). Keep the feedback coming (yes - the negative stuff too!).
Regards,
Tyler -
@swingman said:
When Trimble's email support form, the form you must pay $95 for the privilege of submitting, doesn't even have the version (2013)as an option for which you paid the $95, I would say that Trimble may be demonstrably stone deaf to paying customers at the moment.
Thanks for pointing it out Swingman, I'll make sure the support team sees this
Chris
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Appreciate you (TSU) guys chiming in!
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@alan fraser said:
@frederik said:
As Jason already have mentioned, SCF was born because Google were shutting the previous forum down and converting everything into Google Groups...
Let's not forget that if Google had not done that, SCF would have remained a private tutorial web-site founded by [i](gosh... I can't remember his name...
)Actually, that was me...and the name you are searching for is Coen Naninck.
WOW.....!!
I was a member back then too....and I am ashamed to say I had forgotten about Coen.
If anyone is still in touch with him, please send him my regards.
I have very fond memories of the forum back in those days....if I remember correctly when I joined in 2003/4 (my memory needs refreshing)there were only a thousand or so of us.
And it is hard to imagine that it was the days before all those wonderful plugins popped up, let alone render plugins....or if they were our there, I didn't know about them....!!
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@mike lucey said:
A true performer takes the criticisms in the same good grace as he does the praise.
Beautifully said....!
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@gareth said:
I was a member back then too....and I am ashamed to say I had forgotten about Coen.
If anyone is still in touch with him, please send him my regards.
He's on to BIGGER and better things...
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@charly2008 said:
I suspect that they will try to integrate "SketchUp" into this system.
Are you sure about that ?
I thought so too, it seems logical. But when I look at their websites, I'm not so sure any more. Sketchup is nowhere to be found on the Trimble Website : http://www.trimble.com/products_az.aspx#S
And Trimble is hardly mentioned in the new Sketchup website. Only a blue banner at the bottom with a small Trimble logo. It was more clear in the previous website, when they just replaced Google's logo.It's like "Sketchup" is the brand, not "Trimble".
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Try searching for Trimble Buildings which is separate from Trimble somewhat.
SketchUp falls under Trimble Navigation along with Tekla and other Design, Build and Operate systems.
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Another interesting article,
Trimble's SketchUp looking destined to enter CAD/BIM space
Trimble's SketchUp product managing director shares with us some insight about where LayOut is headed. Straight at CAD and BIM...
Architosh (architosh.com)
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'“We’re keen to make that (LayOut) into a full-featured drawing tool for architects,” said Bacus, “with all the tools that you’d expect from a modern CAD system.”'
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@krisidious said:
He's on to BIGGER and better things...
jeez!! he really is onto BIGGER things!!
Isn't coen the guy who used to quote himself in his signature?
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@tyler miller said:
Hey folks -
Just wanted to pop in an say that we do indeed follow the posts here and very much value your feedback. SketchUp is a large application and sometimes you have to shore up the foundations in order to better move forward. We've done a lot of that with this release, while also trying to make SketchUp a better platform and a better documentation and presentation tool (LayOut). Keep the feedback coming (yes - the negative stuff too!).
Regards,
TylerHi Tyler,
Good to see you again! It's always nice seeing Google... err Trimble people looking at these pages. I do not frequent this forum as much as I used to, but I check in every now and then.
Anyway, I was also a bit disappointed with version 2013. I found out about the new release about a week after it was launched (I'm not actively following things anymore, but still use SketchUp for a "big" project of mine).
Since you guys are taking notes, for me the biggest thing really is hardware support; I'm not so much looking for 64 bit support, but rather that the three out of four CPU cores of my 3770K are not used by SketchUp.
I recently bought a new system (following Pete Stoppel's excellent CatchUp article advice). Thus far the only benefit I've noticed is the GeForce GTX 680's fluid orbiting speeds, even at 8.000.000 SketchUp Faces (eight times my current model's Face count).
However operations such as Group and Explode still take a very long time to complete with large chunks of geometry. Also boolean/Intersect operations take a long time.
I wonder if these are things which can be sped up.
I did sort of discover a nice way to speed things up with lower spec graphics cards and CPUs, by putting profile Edges and hidden Edges on a separate Layer for separate Groups and Components, then turning those off while retaining Edges on parts of the model one is working on. That's a bit of a workaround for the current slow orbiting on lower end machines.
Anyway, just wanted to add my voice to the lot. Hopefully it is of use to you.
Please send my regards to Tricia and Millard from me.
Kindly,
Coen NaninckP.s: Is there still a version of SketchUp 8 Pro around? There was a page on sketchup.com which listed some older versions of SketchUp but there were no actual download links. I'm using v8 Free now.
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@ilovesu said:
P.s: Is there still a version of SketchUp 8 Pro around? There was a page on sketchup.com which listed some older versions of SketchUp but there were no actual download links. I'm using v8 Free now.
Hi Coen, you might try here:
http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115548
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@wo3dan said:
Hi Coen, you might try here:
http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115548
(Hope it still works)It's v2013 Pro. Thanks anyway.
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