@pilou said:

Thea is not yet a mature program ?

I assume it is (I bought a license only a week ago so I don't really know) but my point is that it matured within a specific environment, keyed to the needs of a particular body of users. I think some of the unease about this acquisition is that Thea was acquired by a company that's not well known in this space so it's not obvious what this will mean going forward. When Autodesk bought Arnold there wasn't as much confusion because Arnold customers were often Max or Maya customers so the future implementation of the software wasn't in question. I can't say I've ever heard of Altair's suite of software so I have no idea what they do or what place Thea might occupy in their structure.

As a very new user (see above), I'm disheartened.

Programs like Thea traditionally develop surrounded by a very tight group of users who, through their feedback on the forum and as beta testers, are instrumental in deciding which direction the software takes. The company that buys the software is a very different community and that company generally re-purposes the software to fit the needs of it's own users - which may not be the same as the needs of the original customers.

Fingers crossed that this will work out well.

I just bought a license for Thea for Rhino a week ago. I hope it wasn't a mistake.

Yes, I remember that. But I'm still trying to figure out the simplest way to end up with geometry grouped in SketchUp the same way it's grouped in Rhino before export. Even though layers only control visibility in SketchUp, at least it's a way to make only certain items visible so I can group them and move them to a layer. But I wish I didn't have to do that.

I hope this topic isn't a duplicate. Thought I'd hit Submit but I don't see the thread in the forum.

Anyways ... I've been working in Rhino for awhile but I want to add SketchUp back into my workflow. Rhino has a SketchUp exporter but the results are a bit funky. Faces show up on the proper layers in SketchUp but all lines show up on Layer 0. I'd like not to have to manage my geometry once I've exported it, I'd like everything on the correct layers so I could group and go right to work.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for any suggestions you might have.

I've noticed (more in reference to sending CAD files to the CNC than to SketchUp) that just moving geometry to the origin doesn't actually work. I have to create something at the origin (just a line is fine) and then snap my geometry to that and then the CNC operator doesn't complain that I'm a mile away from the origin.

Not sure why that is.

Also, somewhat OT, but running Overkill before exporting helps, especially if the file comes from someone else.

Yes, that's what I want to do. I was hoping there was a system similar to iTunes but I guess not.

Reading the email closely indicates that a Single user license allows for installation on two computers. Is that recent (I haven't used SketchUp much in the last two years)? If I remember correctly, it used to be that you weren't limited to how many computers you installed on, just as long as you only used one at a time.

Is there a way to remove a SketchUp license remotely? I left a job some time ago and only now realize I never uninstalled SketchUp on the computer I was using there. The company has changed owners and moved and I have no access to the computer (if it still exists).

I'm wondering if there is any way, like with iTunes, that you can shut off a license remotely.

Thanks for any info you've got.

@sketchuh said:

Do you guys think is it possible any company would develop a software that is more like a hybrid of sketchup/3ds max and or modo or etc...

I really want a software that is easy to use like sketchup but has all the traditional 3d software functionality.

It's called Rhino.