Ain't Sketchup to rhyme with the trends?

majid

To me, it seems that the modeling logic behind the beloved SketchUp is too old-school. It simply has nothing to do with organic, parametric or AI-inspired curvy forms.
I feel it is time for SU to choose: growth or death... Seems harsh, but I guess it is valid.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea.

L i am

Interesting, It feels to me that rightly or wrongly Trimble sees it future in AI with the likes of SketchUp difusion. over modelling tools. who am I to say they are wrong. When you say "SU to choose: growth or death" what do you mean?

Mike Amos

Difficult to say, the effects of Covid and the crash in markets plus the trump mayhem etc will shake up the way we do anything for a while to come. Energy consumption which we should be reducing, is going up, buttcoin hunting for example. Add to that the latest marketing "Emperors new clothes" and an uncertainty over what exactly it will achieve.
Why employ people when you can give the job to a few chips?
We have already gone to cheaper and cheaper workers and have several folk who just cannot make ends meet in what we used to call first world nations, such is the move to reducing the value of product produced by real people.
Maxwell render for example has had little development that can be seen and I wonder if ai is their goal, hopefully if ai is going to run the show, it will be in rendering rather than building but when it comes to moolah (Money) they (Customers) pay, they say.

majid

Just saw this and I would say I agree with what he says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb385302GzA.
That is a really sharp and harsh saying: Growth or death... if I try to sum both of your points of view, I would say, why SU is not to get some inspirations from KREA for example? If the initial goal for SketchUp was not to be the easiest CAD tool? This way will still continue its life, and still users (operators) are needed.

majid

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Rich O Brien

@majid said in Ain't Sketchup to rhyme with the trends?:

modeling logic behind the beloved SketchUp is too old-school

Or the user has outgrown the the abilities of the application.

Every commercial app has a threshold of what it can do. It is targeted to its market/audience.

On the opposite side if you look at Blender. Because of it's open source nature and community contributions its flourishes naturally in directions steered more organically.

SketchUp, to me, is a form of transportation to help me get to a destination. Along the way I might use various modes of transport to get where I'm going.

It is easy get frustrated because it lacks certain features. But a bloated app can also lead to frustration when trying to find features hidden behind nested menu or panels.

I would love if SketchUp was more open regarding Roadmaps and planned features. Rather than this current approach. But there's no perfect app or approach.

L i am

@Rich-O-Brien said in Ain't Sketchup to rhyme with the trends?:

It is easy get frustrated because it lacks certain features. But a bloated app can also lead to frustration when trying to find features hidden behind nested menu or panels.

It is no secret that SU was designed not to intimidate a new user from its inception by having a very simple UI. I do not understand why SU does not change the UI very much at all but have advanced features hidden until you "awaken" them when your modelling skills get more advanced.

L i am

@Mike-Amos said in Ain't Sketchup to rhyme with the trends?:

Energy consumption which we should be reducing, is going up

By Oct 27, 2028 (three years from today) global electricity use for AI-heavy computing (data centres + AI training/inference) is plausibly 30%–200% higher than it is today

The whole world looks scary to me I feel sorry for our kids

majid

@L-i-am Changes are scary, I agree. Yet I am an optimist, so imagine we might find new energy resources or ways to generate more and cheap, clean energy.
Back to the topic, I wish our beloved SU, embrace novel opportunities provided by AI, to keep it easy-to-use + precise.
I like the way Blender grows, while it is also old-fashioned, too complicated and has a scary UI! ( I use it whenever SU is not capable of modeling something)

Mike Amos

Looking to my own use, a combination of Sketchup and Blender looks to be the ideal way forwards. I just have to get through those first steps to grips with it. Visually, these programs just overwhelm me at the moment which is why I tend to reduce clutter on the screen and possibly why I cannot get on with video tut's.

Most of the video tut's I have tried to watch have the 'teacher' meandering around verbally, changing tac and all the while the cursor is 'waved' all over the screen.

majid

@Mike-Amos Yep.
Agreed, many of the tutorial videos are so fast.... not well organized, messy...
this is the way I learned the Blender modeling:
Targeted the toolbars, I see in Layout and Editing UI, read the document, learned one tool at a time. (if needed, watched Youtube), moved to the next tool.
Otherwise, it takes ages and seems hard (and it is to be honest).
If they also do not adopt the new trend, I think will vanish as well.