@derei said:

Those tools were added by Google

That's the case for Geo Location and Match Photo, sure. But what else?

@derei said:

Ad for layout, that was a tool to incentivise the pro version

Layout was first released during the Google days, but its development actually started 2 years before Google acquired SketchUp. There was no Pro version at that time, because there was no Free version.
Plus, Google didn't care much about making money with SketchUp. If development hadn't already started, they wouldn't have created Layout.
I'm not making this up, I actually discussed this with the SketchUp team at DevCamp a few weeks ago.

@derei said:

But ask yourself, what architect would use SketchUp without the plugins? None.

I know many architects who don't use plugins at all. The few that do, actually learned about them through me
I agree that I myself can't imagine using SketchUp without plugins, but it seems that for many architects it's enough.

@derei said:

So, I couldn't say it was focused towards architects

Layout, sun, sections, dimensions, Position Camera/Walk/Look Around, Geo Location, Match Photo, Two-point Perspective, IFC, etc...
To me, all these tools and features were created with architects in mind.
Not to mention the original logo, and the icons with buildings. Also the built-in materials categories: concrete, brick, cladding, carpets, roofing, stone, tiles, window, etc.

SketchUp has been aiming at architects since the beginning. But it doesn't mean it can't be used in other domains.

@medeek said:

Will SketchUp ever be taken seriously by the architecture and engineering world?

SketchUcation answer : Yes
Revication answer : No

Very nice!

Someone took Layers Panel (as I made it open source), and improved it into Layers Organizer : https://www.lasuapps.com/layers-organizer

Neat!

Chaos Group actually advises against doing this (trying to render a Vray2 scene directly in Vray3). You should reset the settings and tweak them again.
So much has changed between the two versions that it is not possible for Vray3 to render exactly like Vray2 out of the box with the same settings.

Try to subdivise the geometry of the carpet.

Great!

Trimble is working on it.

https://corona-renderer.com/forum/index.php/topic,10501.135.html

@pixero said:

Plus that buying software puts the pressure on the developers to make the software better so people will upgrade to new versions.

As a developer I actually feel the opposite. I'm kind of nervous about offering subscription, because then users expect regular updates each month, as they pay every month.
With a "box" model, you get what you paid for, so it puts less pressure on the devs.

@sketch3d.de said:

Autodesk and Adobe seem to be very successful with their subscription models

Autodesk has been losing money for the last few years.

What do you guys think of Corona's pricing model? They offer both subscription and one-time licensing.

@unknownuser said:

FairSaaS - 24,99 €/month

• Unlimited access to all major, monthly, and daily experimental builds
• Paid monthly, with option to pre-pay 1 year
• Cancel any time without any penalty

Box - 548 € (= almost 2 years of subscription)

• Time-unlimited access to the version 1.5 and all relevant bug fixes
• One time payment
• Eligible for future paid upgrades to versions 2.0, 3.0, …

We're exploring a similar model for Skatter, so I'm genuinely interested. We will have much more public discussion about this, but let's have a first one in this thread.

Subscription is an interesting model for the developers, because it offers a good forecast for future revenues. It allows to better plan work, secure jobs for growing the dev team, etc.

Self promotion : http://getskatter.com/

Guys... Guys!
Through this dialog we can now force the near clipping plane! It seems to have been added in SU2017.

OMFG

I'm 26 and I don't want to procreate for this very reason... What's the point of creating a life in this context

I'd guess that the focal length sets the horizontal FOV in one case, and vertical FOV in the other case.

There is a GPU engine (CUDA and OpenCL), yes. But I believe it is lacking some features.