@unknownuser said:

Wow, does this mean that there is a degree of Sketchupness to this software?
Easy to use, intuitive? etc....

If you don't like ArchiCAD you won't like it. Have a look at Synchro - it's affordable and supports sketchup.

Mark Sawyer's expertise lies in pumping up market share of a design a software company in order to sell it at an appointed time to one of the big guns (as was the case with @last). Watch this space.

I believe 4D may be what will drive BIM on the long run. As construction companies start to use 3D as part of their project management workflow the demand for BIM models will balloon. There is a significant opportunity here for architects to reclaim some of the ground lost to project managers over the last two decades by virtue of the fact that we (will) generate and control the models used for construction simulation.

It's a scary thought, but what happens to Sketchup when Google decides to cut costs? Can we really be sure that the software, or at the very least the development investment may not be affected by the downturn?

The modelling engine of the software is essentially ArchiCAD.

For those interested in 4D construction simulation Synchro [http://www.synchroltd.com/] is probably a more viable option.
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An interresting footnote about this software is that the company is headed by the previous @Last CEO Mark Sawyer. Aparrently this operation was spun off as a sepparate venture when Graphisoft was bought out by Nemetchek (ArchiCAD).

@unknownuser said:

... wanna tell us how you did that?

I'm still hacking at this trying to work out a repeatable work-flow.
What I can say is learn to get the image to work in grey-scale values before attempting anything in colour.

@unknownuser said:

I have played with painter-x ...let the trial run out. I really loved it but was set back by the price...are you convinced?

What I find attractive is the ability to develop some really expressive custom brushes & pens.

• and it is cheaper than Photoshop but with a similar functional interface. Great for doing design doodles.
  (But don't spend the money if you are not prepared to spend a bit of time.)
  .

Upside of the credit-crunch is time to brush up on some skills.
Sketchup + Corel Painter X
Comments appreciated.

http://www.visualarchitecture.com/toxic/wc82/
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@xrok1 said:

toxicvoxel, just to clarify, you painted the metal face inside the component and everything else on the outside. is this correct?

Affirmative.

Joel,
Another thing you can try is use the default material on faces in your component that will be of variable colour. The default colour inherits the material painted onto the 'outside' of a component. That way you can display the same component with different materials without creating additional polygons in your Sketchup model.

One_component_multiple_materials..skp

Ta, it's the firewall then.(?!)

The point I am trying to make is : after years of slumber Autodesk is actively developing it's application base, adopting many of the new methodologies first shown in Sketchup, Spaceclaim and the like.

• nobody knows what Google is doing...

The funny thing is that the import time improves when I enable Sketchup communications in my firewall?! Now I am really confused...

Has anybody noticed how slow DXF import is in the new version?
The attachment imports in less than a second in V6 and takes up to 20 seconds in V7.
What gives?!

Sample DXF

I am resolved not to use Autodesk software again but reading this makes me feel that Google has fallen into the same syndrome that Autodesk was in for many years:
COMPLACENCY.

In the mean time the gorilla has woken up, smelt the coffee and got it's act together.

AECbytes Page Not Found

AECbytes Page Not Found

(www.aecbytes.com)

What are those guys doing in Boulder? Time to start a petition and send it to Google HQ.

I think Autodesk has taken some cues from Spaceclaim:
http://www.inventorfusion.com/

I'm suprised I haven't seen this on the forums:
http://www.1001bit.com
Anybody using these tools?
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@unknownuser said:

Never have I charged 30 grand for a small single family home or anything for that matter. In fact I have made less in one year than what this architect charged to her client.

I remember sitting in a meeting a few years ago where the project manager of one of the largest UK contractors was complaining about the poor quality of construction drawings & documentation from the office of probably the most famous modern British architect. It is however a fact that when this architect is associated with a project it adds immediate value to the venture, irrespective of the technical merits of his information.

Value in the design world is a perceptual entity. Unfortunately some designers undermine this truth by selling services based on price and not on value.
When you can convince your clients that you are adding value to their projects, price becomes a secondary issue. This is a skill that only a small minority of designers understand and exploit.

Some do excellent work but never achieve the association with value and therefore have to work for very low fees. Others like those above are in a position to sell their services at higher remuneration despite deficiencies in their production flow. What we need to aspire to as designers, is creating an association of our services with perceptual value based on a foundation of real competency.

@unknownuser said:

Conversely... 'There is nothing in this world that someone cannot make better and cheaper...

I do not believe that this statement holds true for the services provided by architects or any other design discipline for that matter.

There is some dispute over whether these words are those of John Ruskin but they sum up an age old truth that will remain long after this debate is gone:

@unknownuser said:

“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.”

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I can second that.

@unknownuser said:

it would be nice to have a generic exporter and be able to add different render engines output formats (Podium, VRay, Kerkythea, Indigo, ...) - this way everyone will benefit - the users will be able to test different render engines with no or minor tweaking and us, the developers, can concentrate on other things (and not reinventing the wheel, againi and again).

Alternatively we need to develop a spec for a Sketchup xml specification which can be used by any rendering- or indeed any other application to interrogate a Sketchup model in an API-neutral way. This could also be an ideal import format that can be targeted by any modelling application without developers investing a huge amount of time developing an understanding of the different Sketchup API's.