@michaelv said:

@edson said:

very rash decision. how can they do that if nothing has changed?

Because in the absolute a lot has changed and that is what creates the worry for some and the reaction in others.
Trimble much like Google is a business, so in that sense it's the same.
Google did what they did, so there is no more unreasonable expectancy as to what they would have been doing, we know what it is and what it was. Trimble "will do" so it's always less real in the future than in the past, besides they haven't been really very forthcoming as to what they will really do so far.
And I think most of all is the business model. Google has time and time again shown that their business model is to make something available to the community (maps, search, email, earth, etc..) and then find a way to capitalize upon it, that is their model, and so was the model with SU as well. So implicitly, we placed a certain value in that.
Trimble so far is an unknown and certainly has not proven anything in these terms. They have a very traditional business model it seems, develop their company and their brand on a "sell products" model. That doesn't mean they won't do it, and they said they would, but for them it's a bit of a paradigm shift. So we have to hope and believe in the mean time. The quicker we see concrete action and confirmation, the better.
Google is rich and a well known name, that has impact as well. Trimble as known as they may be is much less known in general, especially worldwide.

All that plays a role, most particularly in any business decision, whether it should or not.

There will be an impact as we see here. We should just hope that Trimble will react strongly and show that it is progress indeed, and that we will lose no people and gain a few.
At this point they are either fine with that as they had an entirely different objective all along and are just trying to lose as little as they can in this maneuver.
Or they are genuinely motivated to move along the direction that it was, and that the team wants. Then the quicker they show it, the least we'll lose, but time is of the essence, and very quickly so I'm afraid. Worse of all, it's a vicious circle (the more we lose, the more people will move away).
Please, please react quickly and make people feel comfortable with commitments.

I so enjoyed this comment . Well balanced and tuned in.

It's so funny how that page gives a bit of a twisted view on plugins, especially on the photorealistic rendering.
Just putting in an alphabetic list isn't the way to go..
I mean: Arielvision? Caravagio Render? lol ... They look like ray tracers of the nineties .
When a Sketchup user is noob to rendering, they will get all lost in that list.

beautiful Richard

@sketch3d.de said:

@findthong said:

I'm convinced that I should plan for some options, just in case.

You left out ViaCAD 2D/3D! That's a direct NURBS surface & volume modeler with new push/pull modeling, 2D drafting, SU import and all common 3D CAD interfaces (STEP, IGES, Acis SAT etc.) available under OSX & Win for pocket money.

Norbert

Looks interesting. I couldn't find a demo on their website

@andybot said:

@kwistenbiebel said:

In my opinion it is all perception.
What to one person feels like a constraining company, might be a beautiful employer to another.
Not to say that I want to disregard Bimmer's comment, but in a bigger company there are always dysfunctional bits to point out, as much as you can point out the good.

Keeping a positive constructive mind set....
The SU team is a good bunch of people, they will be allright

depends on where it's coming from. If it's coming from the leadership, then [pressure on sales targets, bottom line, etc.] can be very pervasive throughout a company. Better keep those resumes fresh.

And when it would come to that, I hope the SU team start their own company to create Uber Awseome Sketchup II

@solo said:

@bimmer said:

I feel sorry for the SketchUp team (or anyone being acquired by Trimble). I worked for a company that was acquired by these guys and let me tell you things will change in a big way and not for the better. I hope the SketchUp experience is different of course, but our company was in the middle of a pretty heavy acquisition spree by Trimble, and I was visible to a lot during that time.

Trimble is excellent at acquisition’s, that's primarily how they fuel growth. They are however culturally deficient when it comes to integrating the technology and people that come along with an acquisition into the larger operations of a segment, division or the company as a whole, it's just not part of their DNA.

Their standard operating procedure is to close the acquisition to much fanfare, have a rally the troops meeting with the affected staff, and begin to make subtle changes (updated branding, alter legalese, change payment processing, alter credit terms, etc.). Within 9 to 12 months the acquired entity will go through a reduction in force of some kind to improve operating income (all areas are typically impacted).

Management will be driven to increase top line (drive revenue) at all costs, and improve bottom line by maintaining required operating income levels and increasing margin primarily through layering additional work responsibilities on remaining employees and limiting any additional headcount for as long as possible. Additional hires for example have to be approved by the CEO directly and can take months to approve, if they're ever approved.

During this time the entity will have to work within the bureaucratic nightmare that is Trimble corporate. This is where the dysfunctional family comes in. Legal, Finance and HR stay focused on "protecting the business". In fact, to corporate you’re the enemy. Managers will have to deal with insane credit policies, overly protective lawyers that dictate the terms of a sales contract, and HR staff with a focus on "documenting issues" (referred to as the charm squad internally) to ensure the company is safe from disgruntled employee litigation.

General Managers wield a lot of power; they manage their divisions/segments with a strict focus on milking as much money (top and bottom line) as possible within as short a period as possible of the acquisition. Career development, product growth, service to the client, operational efficiency, all becomes low to no priority. In many respects, the General Managers are like absentee landlords, they come around close to the end of the quarter to collect the rent (revenue targets). If the rent looks like it'll be paid in full (targets attained), they will leave you alone, if it looks like you're short on your rent, they'll provide you "help" to make sure you do pay in full. Growth is expected quarter over quarter, and year over year, regardless of seasonality.

Destructive personalities are not dealt with, especially from Sales Managers. Sales carries a VERY BIG STICK, and you'll deal with some Sales Managers that are not just complete morons, but are very destructive to employee morale. Yet, they will hold a lot of sway with the General Manager of a division because they're the one's responsible for bringing in the dollars. In many respects, it appears that the General Managers surround themselves with people that could never hope to grow into their role, so they don’t have the risk of ever losing it until they’ve moved up to a Vice President/executive level.

After a while, arbitrary dates will be set for product releases to ensure revenue targets can be attained for a given quarter, with compromises made to ensure the date is achieved.

All the while, the original culture will slowly become "Trimbleized" and good talent will start to flee in droves (compare the pre and post acquisition turnover rate and you'll be shocked at the trend).

Trimble is terrified of Autodesk, and this would be the main driver behind the SketchUp acquisition. Expect the "FREE" version to garner less attention over the next 24 months as focus shifts to ramping up revenue (either through integration of the SketchUp IP to shore up some deficient products or by driving new releases of the product to grow market share).

While they'll promise the sun, the moon and the stars during the courting process, you'll be lucky if they deliver on a third of it after 12 to 24 months. Good luck, hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Oh Gawd! I hope you are wrong!. But will save this and see if you are indeed right, in 2014.

Ugh! and here I was so upbeat and positive.

In my opinion it is all perception.
What to one person feels like a constraining company, might be a beautiful employer to another.
Not to say that I want to disregard Bimmer's comment, but in a bigger company there are always dysfunctional bits to point out, as much as you can point out the good.

Keeping a positive constructive mind set....
The SU team is a good bunch of people, they will be allright

I understand that companies need to adjust their business model as they go.
On it's own nothing wrong with it.
However.....there were promises and I find it unethical to change the policy when something is promised to customers.

They could have avoided it (and probably will) by presenting a 'pro forma' 2.x update for existing clients for free (just a small updated) and heading straight for a 3.x release so they can charge for it.

Sloppy corporate communication.
And yes, a statement of a representative of the company on the 'offical' forum, off course makes it an official statement....

Good luck Ecuadorian

@ecuadorian said:

But Chris, if the model is already done in Revit, what would be the purpose of exporting it to SketchUp? Just to add entourage and render?
If you want movies, there's a direct path from Revit to Lumion.
If you want stills, you can export to AutoCAD and... well, wait until they release the Thea plugin for AutoCAD.

It is for rendering still images (Indigo, Vray ..).
Getting a revit file into Sketchup is just a pain.
The exported DWG files are so heavy and no materials make it hard.
I do use Al Hart's 'Convert Layer Names to Materials' but the whole procedure of it all is tedious and the SU file I end up with is nearly unusable.

Revit to Sketchup import is a very very important issue.
Revit is industry standard and I am starting to feel a very big disadvantage to Sketchup as it is way too tedious to get a Revit file into Sketchup.
The only way that is (partially) successful is thorugh DWG/DXF import, however with loss of materials.

I predict Sketchup to be pushed out of a visualisation pipeline in many offices if there will no solution provided for this.

Other software, Max, Artlantis, DO import DWG's from Revit much better i.e the import maintains materials.

It would be awesome if we can have an improved DWG/DXF importer that works better.

@alan fraser said:

Trimble seem to be actually taking an interest in the engine itself, which seems to be more than Google ever did. T....So maybe we can look forward to a little more coding in C++ rather than relying on the great (but often necessarily slow) Ruby functions...as well as advanced features not currently available.

I often think about this.
As much as we want the improvement of the core program of Sketchup, an issue might arise that current ruby coded applets for SU might become incompatible.

The power of Sketchup being it's modularity (plugins) might be it's downfall.

Will Trimble have the courage to dig a little deeper than to scratch the ruby code surface, to the risk engravating 3d party developers? (ChaosGroup, Next Limit, etc....)

@tald311 said:

Sorry if this has been posted (did not see it in the thread) but friend of mine, John Pacyga, shared this article in which a Trimble VP is interviewed and talks about his views on SketchUp:

Trimble: SketchUp fits with decade-long strategy

403 Forbidden

(www.sparpointgroup.com)

It's funny how sometimes after reading an interview you wonder what actually is being said. I can't get any wiser out of the words.

“It allows for the integration between architect and designer,"
Huh? between who and who?

"It provides us a platform to integrate the architecture community with the design community and the design community with the construction community. We think the value comes from the integration of those pieces."

I wonder what activity architects do as work. Apparently they don't design

@krisidious said:

if Autodesk got this program the price would quadruple and the useability would decline by half. and they would engineer it for commercial architects and engineers only. they care nothing about building designers, residential architects or builders.

Very much so...
A colleaugue I work with decides to work on his own.
He shared me the biggest investment for him is a Revit license... a 18000 dollar to cough up is a lot when starting up small. And then the yearly updates etc...
I find it such a strange thing that making software overcomplicated and frustrating, and at the same time charging unreasonable money for it seems to keep Autodesk in a comfortable seat...

Anyway, it's a different discussion

@jbacus said:

@hieru said:

My only reservation is the issue of 3rd party apps that would benefit from multi-core processing (e.g.Twighight). Would it be possible to allow 3rd party plugins to utilise multicore processing without having to re-engineer SU?

Not only is this possible today, but it is frequently done. Most rendering engines utilize multicore processing— even those that work as "plugins" for SketchUp.

john
.

As ThomTom recently replied when I and others brought up 64 bit.
People "say" they want 64 bit, but underlying they just want Sketchup to run more smoothly...
It is having a more responsive Sketchup to particular tasks and to higher polycounts.
Whatever is needed to serve that purpose is fine, even if Sketchup would be a 1-bit app

@bigstick said:

I agree 100% with kwistenbiebel's calls for a 3d engine that works much better with a massive polygon count. Any BIM type development is definitely going to need it!

Most definitely.
In our office, Revit is rolled out as CAD and semi BIM application.
We notice that for projects where collaboration on one 'model' runs up to 8 people, the 'model' needs to be split up in parts referenced in as the software starts to crack with the huge amount of 3D data that is in there..
For example , a simple door component (a 'family' in Revit) has all the 3D information to the detail, making a file super heavy after a while.
My guess is that current Sketchup isn't up to that task.

I can't imagine Sketchup becoming a full BIM application for this reason.

It is more plausible Sketchup remains a 3D tool in it's essence, with optimisations and extended tools that incorporates BIM elements.

I can't imagine Sketchup to become a next gen Revit.
And it would be boring as hell in the first place lol

For me personally,I find higher poly count optimisation more important in terms of allowing to use high poly 3D objects like trees, furniture etc, that enhance photorealism a lot when using the advanced render engines...

Honestly , I think developing a 2D component (Layout?) to Sketchup might just be one of the focuses Trimble has by just observing their background and current core business.
And I definitely applaud that.
I would love to be able to output CAD drawings more easily from SU, intuitively as we expect from Sketchup.
At the same time optimizing current 3D modeling (speed and high poly optimisation) and a good collaboration with the render engine developers (Vray etc..) and Bob is your uncle .

Add some useful BIM plugins for people that need it (not me ) and I see a wonderful future for Sketchup.

I have to admit, I don't like the 'corporate' looking abstract website.
Trimbles' website looks like one of those web templates you can download.
A lot of words without meaning .

Perhaps the acquisition of Sketchup allows them to add some zzzing to what seems a dusty image.

@thomthom said:

@kwistenbiebel said:

very important that Sketchup runs faster for bigger projects (64 bit/higher polygon capabilities , faster with sun-shadows on/ faster outliner etc...

You are aware that 64bit doesn't mean faster speeds, right? Just more memory.
http://blogs.sas.com/content/sasdummy/2012/04/19/myths-about-64-bit-computing-on-windows/

Scratch 64 bit, just 'faster' and more responsive in which ever way that would translate technically .
I suspect it has more to do with how Sketchup was coded than any other reason.
A very simple example: exploding a large model is not possible in an elegant way, if you're lucky it actually worked after SU being unresponsive for 4 hours.
Those kind of immensely annoying things

Good luck, Sketchup Team .
Please tell your new boss that it is very important that Sketchup runs faster for bigger projects (64 bit/higher polygon capabilities , faster with sun-shadows on/ faster outliner etc...
For architecture , especially bigger projects that incorporate photorealistic rendering with external plugins, it has been a dream since the @Last era to have a smoother running Sketchup for that goal.
In architecture, Sketchup is still the 3D product where everybody has a laugh with.
Whenever I tell people I use Sketchup mainly as my architecture modeling software , response usually is "are you serious?", expecting the 3DStudio, Maya, Revit, Archicad as the answer.

Yes, annoying bug still around..

@ayamutan said:

@karolos89 said:

hello!
when i try to render this message comes up:

''Unable to create the error report. Please verity that there is enough space in your TEMP folder''.

i think you need to clean up the disk drive because windows store lot of things in that temporary folder.
you can use Disk Cleanup tool located in Start menu
i hope this can work

VrayforSketchup has always got that error on the Temp folder thing.
It has never been resolved.
Tried different things in different versions to resolve it, including deleting the Temp folder altogether.
It's a bug that has been there for years.
Rendering large scenes in Vray For Sketchup is virtually impossible (in my experience).
Sometimes it works, and then all of a sudden it doesn't anymore... or all the Vray materials you have set up previously just disappear etc...
Using clip map trees extensively is a no go as well. Clipmaps either make everything crash, or the 'parsing ' time goes up from hours to days

My advise, I would wait for VrayforSketchup to mature in next versions if you want to use it professionally.

LumenRT is great. I tried the demo.
The output looks really good.
However....it makes Sketchup crash so many times that it is not usable in my case.
Perhaps this will change in updates..