Yes, I had looked at MOI 3D some months ago. It looks interesting and has a customer friendly price. My concern is that it seems to be only a niche product. Rhino 3D seems more mature and widely used. I've also looked at FormZ. It looks promising, too. I found it a bit harder to use than Rhino. Rhino has multiple developer API's, including a graphical programming API (Grasshopper). That is a huge plus for me since I'm also a developer.

I recently received the email from the SU team that my maintenance and support is expiring. After wasting my money for so many years with SU, I installed the Rhino3D evaluation. To put it mildly, I'm very impressed. I makes SU look like a toy. Their 3 licensing options are very customer friendly. No subscription and they have a "Cloud Zoo" license (check it out, it allows the user to install/run on any PC with a frequent internet connection.. not simultaneously, though). You can switch back and forth between Cloud Zoo and Single PC if you need to.

I'd rather spend my money on a true professional 3D modeler than paying SU to come up with dashed lines for their yearly release. IMO, SU Layout is still a joke and has been a joke since its release. The only thing SU has over other apps is that it is slightly easier to use. I won't be renewing with Trimble.

@pixero said:

@david. said:

I think the attack on Chip over at the SU Community was irresponsible. It shows that SU management feels threatened.

Do you have a direct link to it? I didn't find it when I searched through the thread.

I would describe it as a passive/aggressive attack. To me, it misrepresents Chipp's participation in that thread. It intersperses suggestions like "if you want to help people prepare their models for rendering in Blender, that's great" while accusing him of interrupting topics with a cry to abandon SU and belittling the community, etc. I haven't seen any of that. It was this one:

https://forums.sketchup.com/t/sketchup-in-2019-where-great-ideas-get-to-work/87199/593

I think the attack on Chip over at the SU Community was irresponsible. It shows that SU management feels threatened. They should. 2019 was bait and switch.

I appreciate the objective insights that Chip has given.

@dave r said:

@ntxdave said:

@david. said:

This release just confirms that the SketchUp team gives little regard to a significant portion of their customer base.

I might be wrong, please correct me if I am, but I do not think anyone from the SketchUp team looks at the comments in this forum.

Yes. You're wrong. SketchUp team members do look at this forum.

And to david, it's unfortunate that you haven't gotten to know the SketchUp team members. If you did, you'd know that your conclusion is as far from the truth as it is possible to get.

I'm referring to the SU team members that are making the business model/development decisions. I'm not referring to members that are just taking orders from above. With that said, I don't buy software to get to know the team. I buy software because I think it provides the appropriate value vs cost. I don't know any of the team members of the other high end application that I have. Somehow, without me knowing them, they perform above and beyond my expectations 95% of the time.

In all honesty, you have confirmation bias. You are so invested in SU that you can't provide an objective opinion about the direction/quality of SU. I can't recall a single objectively negative comment from you regarding SU. Frankly, I feel used by the SU team. I effectively paid them to implement a subscription based business model, dashes, and some bug fixes (most of which never applied to me).

I haven't installed/activated 2019 yet because of the wacky license activation stipulation that I only have 60 days to install/activate 2018 on another PC. My other high end software has a simple 2 PC limit on activation forever. If I need to move my license to a new PC (eg, I have a PC crash or I would like to update to new hardware), then all I need to do is give them a call to deactivate the old key then activate the new key on my new system. I could easily run multiple versions on 2 PC's as long as the hardware supports that. With SU, I have to be very aware of the implications of installing on another PC.

This release just confirms that the SketchUp team gives little regard to a significant portion of their customer base. I have another high-end software app (not drawing/CAD). When they release a major upgrade, it is truly a "major upgrade". I'm confident that I'm getting value added. They also have other separate cloud based products, but they are not trying to force their customer base into a subscription. With SU, I'm consistently disappointed. I won't make that mistake again.

I'm not planning on buying anymore SU Pro updates. Especially after seeing this thread. SU has been languishing for years. Layout has had no significant improvement in performance. It is amazingly slow on my I7 PC, even for relatively simple models. Why??? That's just not acceptable. With all the other alternatives (like Blender) out there, why should I continue to throw money at SU. SU is like an orphan going from foster parent to foster parent. I'll continue to use 2018, but no more updates. I have written and can write my own plugins if needed.

@charlie__v said:

@david. said:

My 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator doesn't work with 2018. Seems like this happened with 2017, too. I currently can't connect to 3DConnexion.com to check for updated drivers.

David,
I updated my 3DXware to latest and it did not make my SpaceNaivagtor kick on in SU 2018. (& yes this happened w/SU 2017 as well....a later update from 3DX ware did support 2017)

So: I copied over the Folder: 3DxSketchUp & 3DxSketchUp.rb from my 2017 SU Plugins folder.

File path for 2017: C:\ProgramData\SketchUp\SketchUp 2017\SketchUp\Plugins

**SU 2018 did not have a Plugin folder in the following location so you will have to create one.

File path for 2018: C:\ProgramData\SketchUp\SketchUp 2017\SketchUp\Plugins

C

Charlie,

That worked for me. Thanks!

My 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator doesn't work with 2018. Seems like this happened with 2017, too. I currently can't connect to 3DConnexion.com to check for updated drivers.

The problem that I've found, so far, is that my 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator doesn't work in SU 2017. The buttons work, but the 3D mouse will not pan/zoom/rotate/orbit my model. It works fine in SU 2016 installed on the same PC. Anyone else experience this issue?