Setting up and maintaining an inhouse support group is not chickenfeed.
I know, having setup and maintained a few pre-web era help desks in my past. Google with their gazillion$ didn't do SU justice, and Trimble will have its hands full just supporting SU based enhancements to their products.

SCF is an out of the box ready to use support group for SU at no cost to Trimble.

No it won't function to support Trimble products at first, but after a while there could be separate forums for Trimbles SU enhanced products, akin to major pluggin threads.

@unknownuser said:

@alan fraser said:

SU to .stl

That works great except that SU still won't do a real curve no matter what format the file ends up in. Not sure how this will effect the end result as I have not tried a 3D printer yet. Thanks for the link though, seems to be a slick little plug-in

Up the segment count on arcs, curves and circles, say around 120 or more. Way higher if high resolution is needed.

What if Trimble said....... SketchUcation would be THE Trimble forum for SU, rather than create an in-house rendition. And Trimble would assign one or two or more SU developers to dutifully monitor and respond to questions and suggestions from our membership, as would Tom or Gaius or any one of us would. I know John does, but far too infrequently.

The advantage to Trimble is having a no-cost experienced enthusiastic support website already in operation. That would save Trimble $$$$$$$, staffing and time.

In return, Trimble could offer to support the cost of operating SCF, cheap compared to setting up a parallel in-house support team.

Oh, and a promise to maintain SU Free as well.

So, does SU create .STL formatted files?

And did you see the price of the ABS filament? $21.50 / lb YIPES!!
Time to cannibalize my weed whacker.

BMike said (in part) but simply inputting a bunch of data into a spreadsheet and have a building pop out, no thanks.

But doing just that can give you the basis for a building that conforms to a set of rules/standards and dimensions for which designers/architects/engineers can now tweak into what the client wants.

This will avoid continuous re-do's when some standard was violated or overlooked during the fomenting stage. That tends to raise the costs, take extra time and pisses off the client, because it happens every time.

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.

Can I put a value on Sketucation?? You bet.

I may not have a high volume of posts, but I do have a high volume of reading posts.

Virtually all the pluggins I have installed, or are pending installation, have emanated from my asking (or somebody else asking) here in SCF how to solve a problem, and 90% of the answers were to get a pluggin that has already solved that problem.

I would hazard to guess that SU would not be anywhere as useful to ANYBODY without this forum.

SU and SCF are integral in my opinion.

The RUBY API makes that possible. Second to SU itself, that has been Googles best idea yet. Funny how Goggle itself makes almost zero use of it.
The RUBY Wizards among us are the real SU developers, beyond the core SU app.

@bjanzen said:

On to my third major buyout of SketchUp by Trimble. You're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to ignore your opinion based on my personal experiences.

What's happened in all three cases, and part of what attracted me to this kind of company, was that some outsider finds some technology that another company owns (my current employer), but does not provide the proper value to that technology. The outsider realizes that this is a bargain, and just like picking up a pound puppy, they provide a little love and care, the technology grows up to be a REALLY NICE dog, er, technology.

I have no reason to believe Trimble will do good or do evil with Sketchup.

I do not know the company other than they do great stuff in the GIS spectrum. I would love to believe they acquired SU for the reason you quoted "some outsider finds some technology that another company owns, but does not provide the proper value to that technology". And perhaps that may prove true.

But my experience says otherwise, that when a company buys into technology that is outside their frame of reference, there is an ulterior motive.

I do hope I am wrong on this acquisition.

I just Googled "Trimble" and read this following post. Interesting to say the least, and maybe, just maybe a ray of hope for the future of SU.

Page not found - Spatial Source

Spatial Source (www.spatialsource.com.au)

I just Googled "Trimble" and read this following post. Interesting to say the least, and maybe, just maybe a ray of hope for the future of SU.

Page not found - Spatial Source

Spatial Source (www.spatialsource.com.au)

@rspierenburg said:

The way I see it, if it wasn't for this forum Sketchup wouldn't have survived and/or thrived. I couldn't imagine using Sketchup in its native vanilla form without all the amazing techniques, plugins and styles posted here. I see the transfer to Trimble as a possibility for new life for Sketchup as everyone well knows that Google seems to have let the project get stagnant on their end. With Trimble coming on board perhaps they will bleed new light into the project and use the undeniable resources here to update Sketchup to the software it really should be.

I mean, if Google hasn't alienated Sketchup users by lack of interest in moving it forward, Trimble won't be able to either.

I would just like to thank each and every contributor to this forum, be it by Plugin, Texture, Technique, Model or just a kind word of encouragement, you have all made this the true SketchUp forum, no matter whose ownership title is on the box.

Rob

I could NOT disagree with any word you said.

My real concern with a takeover by anybody, not just Trimble, whom I know nothing about, is from a business point of view. Most of that was mentioned in my previous post, but one aspect (unmentioned) needs to be highlighted.

Google was flu$h enough that it didn't really matter if SU made or lost $$$. I think they kept it going for the technology aspect, not the bottom line, else they would not have been so altruistic with a near fully functional free version, and very few paid options offered.

Trimble, I would assume, is a "for profit" company dealing in like technology. SU is probably a good fit to their product line, and SU's technology potential is most likely the main reason it bought it from Google. Not to kill it per-se.

But, as a for-profit company it has to justify the acquisition and maintenance cost to the bottom line in a reasonable time. If in fact the improvements to their core products from SU technology does in fact pay those costs down, then we have nothing to fear, as there will be no real need to kill SU, Free or Pro.

My biggest fear is that today, too many MBA's are calling the shots, and they have the training and dedication to ONLY improve the corporate bottom line. So if SU as a standalone product, does not pay for itself, there will be no compunction on their part to save it, and bye-bye SU .

But the technology will live on within Trimbles core products, and assuming any one of them can replace SU in function, then many of us may convert, if it isn't priced beyond reasonable.

I, for one, have been looking covetously at Solid Works, but at $3,500 a seat, plus add-on$$, it is totally unaffordable for what I do. So, I may probably stay with SU-8 (or 9) forever, much like I keep Wordperfect 8 as my prime word-processor.

I truly look forward to some senior Trimble exec to come forward here and explain the rational for acquiring SU and what plans they have for its future.

@thomthom said:

@valerostudio said:

I hate to even say it, but I would have rather seen Autodesk buy it.

I generally find Autodesk products as FrustrationWare...

Ya got dat rite!!!!

@irishsnow35 said:

@unknownuser said:

Is what you are modeling really 2 million inches long?

Well I am modeling Jerusalem, Golgotha and Calvary at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. And I know, I should've started smaller. XD

In my experience, I always draw the model in true 1:1 scale, with very few exceptions.

Because SU has problems with tiny lines, especially when intersecting 2 curved objects, some people draw at 10X scale, or so. This creates perception problems when using dimensions, or merging different models or from component libraries.

So when I encounter a situation where 1:1 scale will create problems, (or did create so I use UNDO a lot!!), I make a component of the problem and make a copy away from the model area.
I then scale up that copy outside the bounding box, which does not affect the model.

I can then edit or intersect within the copy, and see/make corrections far easier than if I were working at true scale.

After the edit I delete the scaled copy.

If you have a lot of 3D plants that are just used as cover, and are not "models" in of themselves, replace them with 2D "always face camera" equivalent components.

Placing the existing 3D plants on a layer (on/off as needed) will only help the pan and zoom performance of SU, not the model size, which affects everything.

YIPES!!!!!!!

Couldn't spend the time reading all 25 pages, but here is my $0.02.

I have seen too many instances where a company acquires the competition for various reasons, NONE of which were to benefit the customer or end user. Witness IBM buying over Lotus, which I will use as an example. Wordperfect is another, as are all the Canadian income tax programs.

The reason for acquisition is either to pillage the patents, corner the market, eliminate competition, grab the super skills, and to upgrade their own products, until the competitive distinction is moot.

Then KILL the acquisition. IBM wanted Lotus Notes. IBM now uses MS EXCEL internally, not Lotus 123, which was exclusive at IBM prior the takeover. Neither of which exist today. I was on contract to IBM at the time of the takeover as a Lotus 123 developer. A year after I left they wanted me back to convert all my 123 spreadsheets to EXCEL.

If Trimble is planning to incorporate the SU engine into their products, where will that leave SU in the future? Except for being free, there is no competitive advantage for Trimble to keep SU, free or Pro.

They will probably release Ver 9, as it is well down the pipeline, but what about Version 10 or 11?

Google has the great reputation of being a great place to have ideas and try them out. Does the new owner have a similar environment?

Google has some reputation of listening to outside ideas, maybe not so much in the SU community via these forums, but better than most companies.
IBM would only listen to clients who were willing to pay to have their ideas implemented. What about Trimbles track record??

Be afraid, be very afraid.......

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

When Google "re-crafted" the original SU forum I just and left. Some (short) time after I found SCF and never looked back. The very few times I revisited Googles SU forum I have always been disappointed with the answers, especially from Google's staff.

Never here.

Yes, SCF can withstand some tweaks, and many have been discussed in other threads, such as having a dedicated thread section devoted to only major plugins, so we don't have to hunt for that forum when we need help.
(yeah... that was mine )

And I think the level of advertising is just enough to be noticed, but not intrusive, unlike most other boards I've been to.

When making fairings (among other things, such as access doors) for my airplane models I run into this jaggies frequently.

To solve it best, requires the deletion of the faces affected and redraw the interface to suit.
Curviloft plugin helps a lot as well.

You can set the Axis of rotation to anything you want, but if some other face in the drawing is at that AOR it becomes super easy.

Select the object to rotate.
Select the Rotation tool, but do not click on anything yet.
Position the Rotation tool ON the "remote" AOR face then press and hold the <SHIFT> key.
Move the Rotation tool to the correct position on the selected object and click. Release the <shift> key and complete the rotation.

Another way, but a bit more complex, is to open the file with the "wrong" components in it.
Then bring in the proper component from your library, just one copy is needed.

Move it close to one "wrong" component or a copy of it.
Copy the proper component to the clipboard.
Open to edit the "wrong" component and delete all its entities. Basically you want an empty bounding box, but you may elect to keep 1 or 2 lines of the old entities for alignment purposes.

Paste-in-place the proper component and move it into its correct position, now inside the "wrong" components bounding box. Then explode the proper component. The "wrong" component is now fixed, retaining the old name and attributes. Close the component and delete the copy you brought in.

One other "trick" I use to sleuth out non connecting edges, before I start triangulating to ferret out the offending vertices; do a small left-right select on each vertex and try not to include any full lines. Look at the "entity info" dialog box. If it shows a tiny line (that shouldn't be there) then delete it. It is a fragment that got created when you were joining endpoints and didn't quite get it exact.

This will invariably create a gap, which are notoriously hard to isolate, but the fragment will cause grief to no end because you can't accurately snap a line to the correct endpoint.

Delete a line and redraw it making sure you see "endpoint" before you click.

If you see the "constrained by..." message going from point "A" to "B", that means SU wants to follow an axis that is just a wee bit off "B" where you want to go. Hit "esc" then start the line again but from the opposite endpoint, "B" to "A".

Another error can cause non-intersected or non-planar lines when using the "tape measure" to lay down guide lines, that you will later replace with lines. When you pull a guideline parallel to some other line it may rise a bit from the face you are dragging across, and the resulting real line will be non planar.

So to prevent that, drag the guide line across the face but keep the cursor on some non parallel but planar line on the same face.

And even after all that, be prepared to redraw a lot of stubborn lines before you get them all planar and intersected. It happens to me daily, especially when a drawing gets complex.