Don't be surprised to see more affordable 3D printing soon.
Not big parts but 6"x6"x6" parts.

Solidoodle

Solidoodle

(www.solidoodle.com)

@jgb said:

An area where SU shines, but is very unknown is 3D Printing.

Last summer I attended a seminar on the new version of SolidWorks. If I had the money, that is one app I would buy! (Wash my mouth with soap )

However, at the seminar were 2 3D Printers displaying all sorts of very intricate objects, most with intertwined parts that were molded in place, not assembled after printing. One printer was able to make models with a volume of upto 2ft X 3ft X 1 1/2 ft deep, in multiple contiguous materials from soft aluminum to hard plastic to very pliable silicone, all integrally bonded, like a 1 piece wiper blade. It used inkjet technology and upto 7 material cartridges. Needless to say, I was blown away, but at $250,000 I had to put my credit card away.

What's this to do with SU, you may ask?

I asked about what the software could handle in terms of complexity, and the answer was
"whatever you can create in Google Sketchup and scale to fit"
then pass the SU file through a (still in development) translation app to create the 3D "print" file.

It seems that SU was simplest in creating the models , while SolidWorks was better at engineering the models for conventional computerized machining. At least for now anyway.

@thomthom said:

it's partially parametric. You can change edge length from the Entity window, arc segments - there is Dynamic Components - there are plugins that generates parametric geometry (I made a utah teapot plugin with parametric properties - I'm working on Bezier Surface where meshes are parametrically controlled with bezier curves and modifiers.)

cool, I will check those out. But what about sending those models to be created? Like to a 3D printer. Sure not all need that but some do. A stl file from SU will be all but useless from my understanding. Thanks for the info.

Good read John, thanks for posting. I think the author is making a bad comparison though. SU is not a parametric 3D program and probably never will be. It seems that 123D, being based on Inventor, is geared to a different audience. Its file export formats point to this as well. One can do "part" design on SU but there might be a better tool for that need. I would also not look to 123D to model a house facade. Sure I can drive that nail in with the side of a wrench but why would I want too?

@jbacus said:

Another good perspective from the CAD industry press. I'm sure Roopinder would appreciate it if you guys read his post and gave him your thoughts on the deal.

john
.

No more evil than Apple, Adobe or MS. All 4 are pretty much the same imho (the big players). AutoDesk has done better with recent products. 123D suite, AutoCAD WS (web/iOS/Droid), SketchBook mobile and so on. I think they need to look at LT's price again with recent free LT clones in the wild. Hard to pay for LT when DraftSight is free (unsupported).
But yes, they do their job.

@valerostudio said:

I knew I would stir the pot with that Autodesk comment.

Do I love Autodesk, no.

Are they pure evil, kinda.

But all I am saying is that I would rather trust the future of SketchUp in the hands of a company that deals with this kind of software. I don't know Trimble from a hole in the wall. I have never ever heard of them mentioned on this forum or any other site for that matter. From the looks of their website, I fear for what SketchUp will become. I trust AutoCAD and 3D Studio and Photoshop to do its thing day in and day out without fear that in 2014 the software is no longer available or gets turned into a land surveying program. That's all.

I just want my little old SketchUp friend to be safe and unharmed.

Meh, I have no issues with their products. I start the day, fire them up, do my work and go home.

@valerostudio said:

Autodesk or Adobe are the only two company's I think should have got their hands on this.

SketchUp is being used every day to make design decisions, visualize ideas, and document creative thoughts. I think a company that is closely aligned with this industry should be handling what happens to it after Google.

@thomthom said:

What worries me here is that I don't see the relevance of what they do with what I'm used with for SketchUp.
Will SU transform into a different type of solution? Will it fragment into specialized editions?

My feelings as well

I agree, it's just easier to start from scratch. Something good for an intern to do

@gaieus said:

I've given up on this already. It's like laser scanning vs. taking manual measurements and building the footprint yourself (a bit referencing to this topic, too). By the time you process your data and can start cleaning it up (which, at a first sight looks a task worse than redrawing that image from scratch in SU), you are so frustrated that you wish you'd never even heard of raster to vector "scams".

A trailer (mobile home) for hipsters???

Eric, were you able to go on the MIT site? I keep getting a security client certificate warning.
TIA

@unknownuser said:

Something similar to but not limited to the MIT site.
http://web.mit.edu/facilities/maps/index.html

Another WinAmp vote here as well. Currently streaming SomaFm's Groove Salad.

Well I installed it this morning and it looks like an Inventor (light or free edition). Some what similar interface to what I have seen on Inventor and Inventor Fusion. It can save as STL, SAT, DWG and STP. It can also open the same as well as OBJ and SKP. It also has it own native format, 123D. I only made a real simple model this morning so far but I like what I see so far. Might be a nice tool to add to the toolbox.

LOL, nice. I like your NPR style you have on the 1st one.

Wow, great stuff Daniel. You really made those photos come back to life with your models. The details really made the difference.

Great scene and render!

One question, whose suicide does this scene show? I see a window but I thought he (Hitler) shout himself in the underground bunker.

@honoluludesktop said:

What's a locked layer?

The layer is visible but locked. You cannot edit it's contents in any way.

+1 on this one. This is the way I always do it.

@yahellid said:

In general, I try to never use the actual lines from the CAD file as lines for my sketchup model. It's almost always a matter of putting it on a locked layer and tracing over it. That way I know that what I'm doing is clean and organized as I need it.

@tails said:

AutoCAD WS!! Still don't think I can edit line colour.

You should be able to. I just tried it and it worked for me.

Great list, I am so guilty of most of these!

Well as a Southern Yankees fan I am pulling for them but I have no problems pulling for Texas if they win. Honestly I am fine with anyone as long as it is not Boston nor Atlanta and since both are gone I will be fine with who ever wins as long as they are good games. Game 1 of San Fran and Philly will be sweet. Texas will be tough for sure if they bring their "A" game but I thought the Twins would be more of a challenge too. October baseball, nothing better

You can also get the Zino with the ATI HD5450 GPU which does support DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.2. This should run SU with not many issues.

http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/NOTEBOOK/GRAPHICS/ATI-MOBILITY-HD-5400/Pages/hd-5450-specs.aspx

@philippelemay said:

@gaieus said:

Currently for SU to run reliably, it needs some hardware that is not currently supported reliably in these iPads. The main things are the CPU with as high clock speed as possible and a decent video card that supports OpenGL as much as possible.

So in your case, keep one thing in mind; do not buy anything with an integrated video chipset but with a real video card (with OpenGL support).

So... do you know if that Intel Zino has Open GL support?
http://www.dell.com/ca/p/inspiron-zino-hd/pd.aspx?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

This is the video card it says it comes with, standard I believe: ATI Radeon HD3200 Graphics

I'm quite unfamiliar with video cards, so I don't know how good or bad this one is. I mainly just want to know if it will run SketchUp without lagging. I was also wondering if the amount of RAM I have will affect the quality of my SketchUp experience. I know my current Tower has 500 Megs of RAM and it lags to all hell for even simple models. For very complex models it tends to crash, which is why I really need to get a replacement computer at this point.