Noticed this on SketchUpDate:
Welcome Google Apps Users -
http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2010/12/welcome-google-apps-users.html

Basic summary - If you have a GoogleApps account ($50/year), you now get SketchUp (and of course 3D Warehouse) thrown in.

Sounds kind of interesting. It's a good pricing deal for just SketchUp Pro. But Pro isn't specified.

GoogleApps is all about "Cloud Computing." So how will this work? Is SketchUp going to the cloud? Or is your license being tracked by your Google Apps account? Or is it just that the 3D Warehouse exists in the cloud?

I've got gmail but not Business version of GoogleApps. Anybody out there using Google Apps? How is it working out for you? Can you tell us, what's the real news here? Or is there any?

The notes are mostly well done; several people put a lot of time into them. Thanks to all you Googlers who posted them for the rest of us.

Some are excellent, going into great depth, others not so much. It would be nice to have some of the holes filled in.

In this world of online collaboration, wouldn't it make sense to have the notes in a wiki format? That way anybody who attended could add their recollections of what occurred, and hopefully we'd get the most complete summary.

You are all too kind!

I first ran SketchUp (was it v3 or v4) on my old college computer, a pentium III mx, if I recall correctly. It's specs (speed, memory, and storage) were just about on par with the iPhone's. So I'm sure it isn't a hardware limitation, especially if some of the extras are stripped out (If you're in the field, do you really need sketchy edges, or shadows?)

Of course it wouldn't be simple, you'd have to toss the 3button mouse interface (which is perhaps one of the best SketchUp innovations IMHO), and come up with a multi-touch solution to deal with 3D. Also, measurement entry would be very important, but done without a keyboard. That's gotta be hard - I haven't seen it done very well anywhere, yet.

I'd settle for a model markup tool (taking xrok1's suggestion a bit further) - no actual edits, but a simple interface to add notes for later editing.

Actually, I'll settle for whatever the Google Guys come up with. Unless I become a programmer, I'll take what I can get;)

Have you taken a look at the new Product Ideas http://productideas.appspot.com/#25/e=2191e&o=20&v=26 site that Google SketchUp is running? It's like American Idol for SketchUp ideas. If you like that sort of thing you should check it out.

I did and one of my suggestions, iSketchUp, is currently the William Hung of the list. I'm not hoping stack the votes. I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm actually kind of proud of coming up with the WORST idea. There are only two spots that anybody remembers at the end of the day, and I'm happily in one of them.

The funny thing is I didn't do it on purpose. I would like to know why it is such a bad idea. Why is it a worse idea than a poorly proof read rant about the current state of the software? I thik iSketchUp could be a useful tool (or at least a toy). I mean, you can't take your laptop everywhere. Think about doodling in 3d on a smart phone! And what about site visits? Would you prefer lugging your laptop all around your buildings?

Perhaps its the requested platform. Would you rather see an Android implementation?

Anyway, I'd like to know your thoughts.

Currently, it just starts when you start SketchUp (if it is in your plugin path). I haven't put together an interface; I'm waiting for C.Fullmer's next tutorial before tackling that

Create a rectangle or draw a line, and watch the VCB. It should snap to whole numbers (unless you are zoomed in really close).

The script will give strange results if your units are set to anything but inches

Mitcorb,
That's a real classic. I remember dreaming about those specs when it first came out.

Sketchbook is still awesome! Autodesk hasn't ruined it yet.

@ mitcorb,
You are welcome to add to it and improve it.

@ Chris, just scratching the surface. Even with the tiny bit I've learned it is quite empowering.

@ solarepiphany,
HP TouchSmart tx2
AMD Turion X2 Dual Core 2.1 GHz
4 GB RAM
64-bit

Check out the reviews. It is a bit heavy for a tablet (4lb). It runs a bit hot. The battery life could be much better. It could be a bit sturdier. It also came with a ton of bloatware.

But I like it a lot. So far, it does what I want it to do.

Thanks, Jim. I made the changes and reposted it. Dynamic Grid would have been a better name.

@ Jackson,
Yeah, I like the model too, but it isn't mine. I wanted something that was good and synthy, so I borrowed somebody else's.

I had some ideas for approaching this too, but they started to sound outlandish: If you could get the original photo-aligned and pick out which points came from that particular photo, you could then project a surface from the camera to the points. Do that with all the cameras, intersect and clean up the meshes, and just a bit of hand waving, and you're there. Unfortunately, this relies on a bunch of information that I don't know if I can get, and it WAY beyond my understanding of math or programming. I'm sure somebody smarter than me has already gotten closer to a solution than I could. Somebody like

@ Remus,
I'm sure there's something wrong with my data, but when I run this on the model, it will only connect a few of the points. It does pretty well on the terrain, but the backhoe itself is a mess if it connects any points at all. If I pick and choose the points it does a better job, but still not great. Do you have any tricks for selecting the right points? Does re-aligning the axis ever help?

@ Edson,
Looks like an interesting plugin, but I think it requires a mesh to exist. Once I have a mesh, I'll try this out.

Thanks for your suggestions! Keep them coming.

As I'm sure you know by now, Photosynth* is awesome.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could grab the point cloud? Well, it turns out you can. There's this tutorial:
http://binarymillenium.com/2008/08/photosynth-export-process-tutorial.html
But be warned, it isn't for the faint of heart.

Now, I've done it with a synth**, so I have this huge csv point cloud (actually, 25 files each with 5000 points a piece). I can bring those into SketchUp (thanks Didier!), and its pretty cool, but kind of useless. What do I do with the points, now?

It would be nice if I could triangulate the points. But the scripts I'm aware of can't do it. A script could potentially be written, but it would be way beyond my abilities.

I suspect that SketchUp isn't the tool to use. Does anybody have any alternate suggestions? Free or cheap would be particularly awesome.

Thanks,
--Matt
*http://photosynth.net/
**http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=b28f5583-d1b5-45fe-8dee-96f8f3af043c
p.s. I've tried meshlab, to view the points, but I won't turn them into a mesh as far as I can tell. If you've had success, let me know your secrets.

15,000 points

This plug-in changes the snap distance depending on how zoomed in you happen to be.

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" you ask. Well, you see I've got a tabletPC (it is way fun), and I'm trying to use the pen as much as possible (gmote is a must!*). It turns out, while using the pen, I can't use the value control box efficiently. So I turned to the snaps. They help, but it is a pain to change them by hand. After a bit of dabbling in Ruby I came up with this solution.

There are a ton of things that could be done to this script to make it more functional. It currently works only for inches, it could be activated by a button, it could be better integrated into the interface. I don't know if I'll get around to any of them, but you are welcome to do anything you want to it. It is about a 2 on the simplicity scale.

Please note, this is my first post-able Ruby, so all possible disclaimers apply.

--Matt

• http://www.handform.net/gmote.php
  http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14116&p=106316
  p.s. Thanks Chris for your excellent tutorial.

Updated (8/22/09): Call manager and provider by name.

Updated

It's not the most elegant way, but I'd use this program, AutoIt (Windows only):
http://www.autoitscript.com/
It is allows you to script repetitive actions that you'd perform through the GUI. I like it for two reasons:

1. It is straight forward and easy to learn.
2. It works on top of any program.

Thanks Matteo!

I've been using G-Mote for a month now. This is INCREDIBLE!

It will be revolutionary at my office. We've got a bunch of older designers, "Draw-a-saurs," who have purchased Tablet PCs. They are starting to run into the issue of accessing commands with a pen. It takes too long to get to find the button, or pick through the drop down menus. Now they'll be able to do a quick gesture to get to the tool they want.

So far I've put in the alphabet based on Palm's Graffiti interface. Using that I can access many basic commands. But I'm starting to develop my own set of quick strokes to get specific tools that I use a lot. Drawing a consistent "P" is too difficult to attempt on a regular basis. I'd prefer to use something more akin to an I or an L for regularly accessed tools.

Once again, thanks!

--Matt

So here is the spreadsheet I created and the resulting Preferences file. I'm particularly pleased with the formula I pieced together to translate the Preferences.DAT file into something more readable.

I hope you don't mind multiple worksheets in a single workbook;)

Here's the spreadsheet I put together.

And here's the resulting Preferences.DAT file. You'll have to rename the extension if you want to use it.

Thanks! I'll try that.

I'd suggest V for move, because that's how it is in Photoshop (but if you don't use Photoshop, it doesn't really matter).

I'd love to have a measuring tool in Layout, much like the measure tool in SketchUp, or the Ruler and Info palette in Photoshop. Better yet, have it function like an architecture or engineering scale, so you can take scaled measurements of objects. This would be very useful when working with scanned images of hand drawings.

Please note, I'm not suggesting dimensions (though that would be nice too) but that has been mentioned elsewhere several times before.

I'd like to be able to scale groups. I envision this working the way that it does with a group in SketchUp. Use a measure tool to find a distance, then type in what that distance should be.

I'd like to be able to reduce the opacity of images that I bring in.