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:

SketchUp in 2019: where great ideas get to work

Well, it has been quite a year (plus a little) here at SketchUp HQ, with tremendous amounts of coffee consumed and today we’re finally ready to spill what we’ve been working so hard to finish. There’s quite a lot to shar…

SketchUp Community (forums.sketchup.com)

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?

That doesn't look like an E model to me. E's are 2 seaters.

I draw my slip fit designs by incorporating an appropriate offset. Like you, I often use Layout or my cutlist plugin to print final dimensions. Since I don't always build immediately after I've completed a design, that helps me to remember mill my pieces to dimensions that will closer to the final dimensions. I fine tune during assembly if needed.

I have a wired Razer Naga. It's a great programmable mouse. I use it for all kinds of apps, not just gaming. Here is the wired/wireless Naga

Interesting perspective from someone that apparently uses the free version and not the pay version...

you're the one that started complaining when you couldn't get the 58% discount instead of the 40% discount. The fact is that you haven't provided all the context. You presented your side, carefully worded to favor your assumption. Why should you "expose" the company? Why should you give the full email? Give me a break. If someone disagrees with you and asks for more context it's "interfering". That shows the weakness of your position. I think you should have moved on rather than start a internet debate.

Based on the limited information provided in the OP, I would never have assumed the 30% discount applied on top of a transaction that included a 40% discount and that transaction had never been completed. It seems very clear that the 30% referred to the original item in the cart, not an item that had progressed from the cart to the checkout by clicking a "Buy" or "Purchase" button. I would have assumed that the company had changed the discount and were pushing the new discount to customers (for whatever reason). I think you got offered the new discount because you deferred your purchase. Certainly, the vendor is obligated to uphold its original discount to you, but not to increase the total discount (to 58%!!). Nowhere have I seen any evidence that says they offered a 58% discount. Can you provide that? Without the full text of the original email and the actual web page, the true context of this is murky to say the least. I found it odd that the OP has not provided that context. OP will not even reveal the product.

Ha! Too simple. That's it, thanks!

@tig said:

The first v2015 Maintenance Release M1 is now out.
If you download the appropriate installer from the usual SketchUp pages, ...

What "usual Sketchup pages" would that be? When I upgraded, I mistakenly clicked out of the page for the download and it was only by chance that I found my way to a page with the correct download file. I should have bookmarked it, but I didn't. Shouldn't Trimble have sent out an email to licensed users?

@ntxdave said:

@alexschreyer said:

Copy the example from the Wikipedia page to a test.XSD file:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Schema_(W3C

Save it somewhere and then load it into your model from Model Info > Classifications > Import...

Have not been able to get this to work in 2015. I keep getting this error when I try to import the text.XSD file........

Works for me in 2015. But, the link above is not getting parsed correctly. It should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML_Schema_%28W3C%29

@gábor said:

IMO this one-liner is excellent for entering the load 'myscript.rb' command. Where myscript.rb is edited with a synax highlighting multiline text editor.

This is how I use the console. A multi-line console is not needed nor is it preferred, IMO. The vast majority of development that I do is in a high-end programmer's editor. All I need to do is load the file in the Ruby console. The history capability mentioned by Todd is also handy in the one-line console.