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    hirschma

    @hirschma

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    Latest posts made by hirschma

    • RE: A new home for SketchUp

      I feel like I've seen this show before, with other acquisitions of a generalized tech by very vertical entities. So I'm not getting really warm fuzzies about this. With apologies to Mark Harrison, who is an amazingly great person (I had the pleasure of getting his assistance with a user group meeting), and John Bacus (who is also wonderful, and gave a lovely presentation to our group), I'm just not buying the "nothing will change" line. I hope that I'm wrong, but consider - under what circumstances is SU helping Trimble's bottom line?

      The "success metrics" for SU are determined by its owner. Google clearly sought to profit from SU in a pretty oblique fashion, although their mission for SU was kind of unclear to me (does this mean that they're going to kill off Earth, or some features of it, too?). Trimble, on the other hand, will definitely be looking more directly at the bottom line. Thus, we can assume that almost everyone that uses SU today, and isn't at least a potential Trimble client, is going to get leftovers. Unless, of course, that new developments overlap between Trimble clients and everyone else. And it could be that such overlap is very large, as we have little insight into what Trimble actually is seeking to get out of this. Or it could be the opposite, which is what I'd expect.

      I expect that the PR efforts will be to keep users and plugin devs from bolting initially (because the devs seem to be part of the value equation for Trimble), and it'll be business as usual for a while. Perhaps even a long while. We might even see SU9 land in a form that's effectively the same as what a Google-owned SU would have been (as it must be pretty far down the road at this point).

      But eventually I expect the hammer to drop. Trimble does (or doesn't) do something that's a deal-breaker with the community. And then the community either finds a new tool, or creates one.

      Is it time for all the dev rock-stars to create CloneUp? I'd imagine that a Kickstarter campaign for that purpose would raise tankers of cash to do so. I already have my wallet out πŸ˜„

      One thing to note that may inspire some positivity, from the Trimble press-release: "The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012, and it would not be material to Trimble's 2012 earnings." Q1 GAAP earnings were in the $40mm range, so it'd appear that the transaction between Google and Trimble was mostly or entirely cashless. Might mean that the deal came with (user-friendly) strings. Let's hope so.

      And lastly, I do need to acknowledge that both Mark and John are both stand-up guys, and as much as I tend to be a Cassandra, I cannot ignore my (contradictory) feeling that I find it very unlikely that they'd mislead us in any way. And that might render all of my fears moot.

      This is entirely my own uninformed opinions, and should only be considered as pure speculation across the board.

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      hirschma
    • RE: NYC SketchUp Nov. Meeting @ GOOGLE HQ

      Sorry to respond to my own thread, but NYC SketchUp has breaking news, and I thought it'd be of interest.

      Regarding out upcoming meeting on the 16th: Google has just given us the all clear to announce that we're going to be joined, via video conference, by John Bacus, Product Manager for SketchUp! He'll be holding a Q&A session for those attending!

      This should be terrific for SketchUp fans of all stripes. URL is in the first message of the thread, hope to see you there!

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      hirschma
    • RE: NYC SketchUp Nov. Meeting @ GOOGLE HQ

      @unknownuser said:

      5 bucks??!
      too much for me.. sorry

      [j/k.. I'll be in Tampa that week so no can do]

      $5 to defray pizza costs πŸ˜„ Sorry that you can't make it - feel to free join up, tho, so we can keep you updated for future meetings. And of course, pass it on!

      Thanks,

      jh

      posted in SketchUp Discussions
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      hirschma
    • NYC SketchUp Nov. Meeting @ GOOGLE HQ

      NYC SketchUp meets 11/16 @ Google NYC HQ...

      http://www.meetup.com/NYC-SketchUp/events/39653262/

      This promises to be a great meeting for everyone from the newbie to the visualization professional. We've been promised someone from the SU team for the Q&A, and we'll have live Thing-O-Matic demos from MakerBot, and a demonstration of the awesome PhotoSketch plug-in from the creator.

      Presentations

      Getting Started with SketchUp
      SketchUp for Visualization
      MakerBot and SketchUp (with Michael Curry from MakerBot)
      PhotoSketch (with Dr. George Wolberg from Brainstorm Technology)
      Q&A (with a TBA SketchUp team member)

      Hope to see you there! Feel free to ask me any questions here, and please join us on Meetup, too.

      Bests,

      Jonathan Hirschman

      posted in SketchUp Discussions sketchup
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      hirschma
    • RE: Need NYC users and devs for user group

      @solo said:

      Too bad I'm in Dallas as I'd attend.

      Please make sure to post photo's on this forum afterwards.

      I believe we have a bunch of NY members here, hope it's a success.

      I hope that the NYC'ers turn up, or we may not have any photos... 😞

      Thanks,

      jh

      posted in Corner Bar
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      hirschma
    • RE: Need NYC users and devs for user group

      @chris fullmer said:

      Its nice to have a presentation, I could imagine that a hands on thing might be even more interesting to some.

      Hey Chris,

      Thanks for the good feedback and support. The hands-on idea is really pretty interesting, at least for some of the meeting. Seems that there's a lot of folks out there that want to get started with SU but don't have that self-starter thing going on.

      posted in Corner Bar
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      hirschma
    • Need NYC users and devs for user group

      I'm not sure if this is an acceptable posting, so if it isn't, please let me know so I don't transgress again.

      I'm a co-organizer of NYC Sketchup, which I believe is the only user group in NYC.

      We're having our first regular, monthly meeting on 10/19/2011 - http://www.meetup.com/NYC-SketchUp/events/33787942/

      We need two things:

      • Attendees! So far, it's looking like the interest level is really low. Either that, or we're not getting the word out. Hence this post πŸ˜‰

      • Extension developers of all stripes. We want to show what people in the real world can do with SketchUp. If you have something that our users should know about, well, we want to give you a stage just for at.

      And while I'm at it - any advice on venues or methods to get the word out would be greatly appreciated!

      jh

      posted in Corner Bar
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      hirschma
    • RE: Good mouse for SketchUp?

      Forgot to mention a couple of other things about the Contour mouse - it comes in a range of sizes, to fit various sized hands. And it comes in a righty and lefty model, too.

      The size thing is a bit odd - I'm supposed to being using a large, but I it seems too small for me. I'm moving up to an XL and see how that goes (they have a 30 day return policy).

      jh

      posted in Corner Bar
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      hirschma
    • RE: Emailing Drawings

      Here's a great way to send someone a drawing, although it is a bit complicated. But compatibility is all but guaranteed.

      This requires Adobe Acrobat Pro, FYI, something that a lot of folks have around, and Meshlab, which is Open Source.

      1. Make a blank document and save it to PDF. I typically make mine 16:10, as that's the aspect ratio that I'm working at (so I make a custom 16"x10" doc, no margins, in Word). Open that in Acrobat Pro.

      2. Go to SketchUp, select the parts of the model that you want to send (or the entire thing), and export as OBJ. I use the following options:

      Export only current selection
      Triangulate all faces
      Export two-side faces
      Swap YZ coordinates (Y is up)

      1. In Meshlab, import the OBJ file, and choose Export Mesh As. Save it as a .U3D file. For this example, I choose no options.
      2. Open your blank PDF in Acrobat Pro. Then do the following:

      Choose Tools>Multimedia>3D Tool. You'll get a crosshair cursor.
      Make your view port with this. I typically fill the entire screen.
      Acrobat will pop up a file requester dialog. Enter the .U3D file path there. Select Advanced Options. Enter the following options:

      Launch Settings: Enable When: The page content is opened.
      3D: Background color: White
      3D: Lighting Scheme: White Lights
      3D: Rending Style: Solid (try playing with the other settings for your purposes)
      3D: Show toolbar: (checked)

      See attachment. It works in any recent Adobe Acrobat reader.

      This file copyright Jonathan Hirschman, all rights reserved. Free to redistribute for non-commercial use.

      posted in Newbie Forum
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      hirschma
    • RE: A Welcome Message to New SketchUcation Members

      Long term lurker, coming out of the shadows.

      I've been using SketchUp for product design. Finally getting somewhere. Here's a sample of something I was working on recently..

      first final proto piece.png

      So, hi everyone!

      jh

      posted in Newbie Forum
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      hirschma