SketchUp unveils native interoperability and removes barriers to creative exploration in 2023 with the Revit Importer for Studio and elevated modeling tools in SketchUp for Desktop.

Welcome to the next generation of creative exploration; updates for 2023 deliver the fastest, easiest, most native interoperable modeling experience yet. Trimble is connecting two core tools in the industry: SketchUp & Revit! The Revit Importer elevates SketchUp’s Studio subscription, while tangible improvements to core tools boost workflows in the desktop application. Indulge in SketchUp 2023’s powerful toolset for your next built masterpiece. Plus, there are two new scale figures to celebrate the new design year – Heather and her fierce but sweet cat, Lily. 

Studio advances interoperability

The new import feature within a Studio subscription allows you to accurately and efficiently convert your Revit models into SketchUp geometry for deeper collaboration across project phases, teams, and stakeholders. Various workarounds exist to export Revit models to SketchUp, but this new importer saves the most time, is more accurate in geometry conversion, and leads to much lighter models.

By preserving model structures between Revit and SketchUp – Revit families and layers neatly translate to groups, components, and tags in SketchUp – you can save hours or even days of model cleanup and progress your project with accuracy. A smoother transition between design phases allows you to focus on what’s essential: fine-tuning your vision. 

“The Revit Importer sped up my importing and cleans up workflows from a couple of days to a few hours, even with complex models.”

-Carl Goodiel, VDC Manager

Why use it?

1. Improve collaboration with project stakeholders who create Revit deliverables.
2. Preserve model structures between software for less cleanup.
3. Move Revit models into SketchUp to iterate new ideas quickly. 
4. Build efficiencies; the imported Revit file is automatically optimized for easier geometry manipulation in SketchUp and significantly reduces file size.
5. Create compelling visuals; Revit material colors and transparencies are respected during import to speed up visualization workflows.
6. Translate Revit levels to SketchUp section planes. 

“We love the Revit Importer. It has saved us lots of time, and to my amazement, the converted file sizes are much smaller than other methods. This importer has become essential to our workflows. “

-Shyam Singh, GLMV Architecture

Trimble has made the Revit Importer a native functionality in SketchUp’s desktop application. Customers with Studio subscriptions can access this feature as soon as they update to the 2023 version. Customers with Pro subscriptions can install the Revit Importer in SketchUp 2023 and then initiate a trial to evaluate this new workflow. No Revit license is required. 

Discoverable and connected workflows

Using Studio’s new common installer, you can discover, download, and install all the tools you need for advanced workflows and complex projects. The subscription also includes V-Ray 6 for creating cutting-edge visuals and Scan Essentials for importing point cloud data – both were enriched with new functionality in late 2022. Please note that Studio is a Windows-only subscription. Scan Essentials is English-only, and V-Ray offers English and Chinese versions.

Breakthroughs for desktop

Build your anything –  faster – with new modeling and documentation features and improvements in SketchUp for Desktop. Explore a brand new Flip tool that replicates design elements predictably, manage DWG files in LayOut, and more. 

Flip with confidence

Take the guesswork out of Flip transformations — the brand-new Flip tool lets you pre-visualize the outcome to model more predictably. Previsualize the plane you want to flip your selection along, then hover over the red, green, or blue planes to confirm the proper orientation. Click to flip! Fewer clicks and undoes means you can focus more of your valuable energy on developing a symmetrical relationship, evaluating it, and modifying it. Flip your model, and it just might flip your creative perspective too.

Pro Tip: Want to set up a quick, mirror relationship in a model to build more efficient components or make symmetrically-oriented copies? Toggle the Flip tool to activate Copy Mode, and you’ll flip a copy that is symmetrical to your selection. Use the tool to express a holistic vision based on a single, repetitive component. 

Reign over referencing in LayOut

In LayOut, Trimble is fortifying interoperability by adding the ability to manage imported DWG files as references. Sound familiar? It’s the same process for managing referenced files in LayOut, but now they’ve expanded it to apply to all images, text files, or AutoCAD drawings. View all external file references, receive notifications if a file reference is outdated, and update, relink, or remove a file reference using the File Reference Manager. Better still, all your custom style edits (line weights, scale, and viewport positions) stay intact even when reference files are updated. Document and present your work confidently, knowing that all your references are up-to-date without wasting previous layout and styling work.

A true renaissance woman

From cheese making to ice climbing to feral cat rescue, there’s not a lot Heather can’t handle. If that’s not enough, she’s also a Senior Software Engineer at SketchUp, and she’s had a significant hand in the updates for 2023. Learn more about Heather and her cat, Lily, the new 2023 scale figure duo (article in English).

An enhanced, high-value offering

From the Studio overhaul to cross-subscription modeling improvements, SketchUp has removed workflow barriers to unleash your creativity in 2023. Dive into the full release notes for all you need to know to create and model in 3D seamlessly. 

If you already have a Pro or Studio subscription, you can access SketchUp 2023’s time-saving improvements by downloading it here or via your Trimble Account. You can try a Studio subscription free for 30 days. Or if you’ve made up your mind, you can purchase Studio or upgrade to Studio from your current subscription plan. 

2022 is off to a great start with brand-new updates in SketchUp Pro and LayOut. The SketchUp 2022 release includes new and improved modeling tools, additional search functionality, time-saving enhancements in LayOut, and so much more. These updates will help speed up and simplify your workflows so you can stay focused on your designs.

Before we get into the release, let us introduce our newest scale figure, Niraj Poudel! Niraj joined SketchUp in 2014 and is a key figure on our customer success team. He loves helping people optimize their SketchUp workflow and is passionate about early-stage sustainable design. Niraj enjoys the outdoors, playing guitar, and finding new ways to bring a smile to his daughter’s face in his free time. Learn more about our latest scale figure.

Now that we’ve met Niraj, let’s explore the 2022 release.

SketchUp Pro (desktop)

Search in SketchUp

First introduced in SketchUp for Web, Search is now a SketchUp Pro feature that allows you to quickly find and activate native commands and installed extensions. Instead of spending valuable time trying to find or remember a tool in SketchUp, you can type in the name or workflow-related query such as  ‘elevation’, ‘boolean’, or ‘chamfer’ to quickly find it. 

If you’re new to SketchUp, this will help you get up to speed on the UI and toolset, allowing you to focus on your design rather than trying to find a tool. Search by name or search for what you want a tool to do in SketchUp and relevant results will appear.

For more experienced users, this will help reduce the amount of screen space devoted to toolbars. For example, instead of displaying all seven Joint Push/Pull toolbar icons, you can now search for ‘Joint Push/Pull’, and all commands associated with the extension show up.

The best way to bring Search (default shortcut: Shift +S) into your workflow is to customize the shortcut so the command is easy to find.

Search is localized in all officially supported languages.

New and improved modeling tools

In 2022, we’re speeding up, streamlining, and enhancing workflows by introducing brand-new tools and considerable updates to older ones. You can see the details in our release notes, but here are some highlights:

Lasso Select

The Lasso Select tool allows you to draw custom selection bounds without reorienting the camera. You can also create multiple discrete selections in one click-drag operation and select entities much faster with stylus inputs. 

Lasso also comes with a new default shortcut: Shift + Spacebar.

Stamp Copy

A new modifier state for the Move tool (introduced in 2021.1.2), Stamp enables you to make multiple copies of an entity, ‘stamping’ each with just a click. This tool is handy for naturally dispersing objects across a given area. For example, you can quickly place scale figures or other entourage in a landscape design. It’s also helpful in making multiple copies along one axis at irregular intervals, such as displaying crosswalks in an urban design model.

Tag Tool

Streamline model organization using Tag, a new tool that allows you to click entities or pre-selected entities to apply tags. With the Tag tool, you can speed up model organization by tagging objects directly in the modeling window, rapidly clean up unwanted tags, and improve reporting fidelity by bulk modifying the tagging of component instances.

Freehand

We made a big update to the Freehand tool. With smoother curve entities, you can create organically drawn lines and Follow Me extrusions with more natural variance. 

Because Freehand’s output is smoother, the tool creates more segments. Immediately after drawing a curve, you can decrease the segmentation of the curve incrementally. SketchUp provides visual feedback with each increment. Freehand also receives axis locking input to specify a drawing plane, and it’s now possible to draw across adjacent faces on different planes. 

Hot tip: freehand curves are particularly satisfying to create with a stylus. 

Tangent Inference Lock

Using the new tangent inference toggles for 2-Point and 3-Point Arc tools, you can now quickly specify and lock arc tangency from an existing edge or arc. Not only is the tangent arc more predictable, but it also allows you to create curved faces in a shorter amount of time. 

Scene Search

If you generate architectural visualization outputs or construction documentation, you probably create a lot of different scenes to communicate the design details. This results in having to visually scan long Scene lists with coded names.  With Scene Search, a new search filter adjacent to the Scenes tab, you can now quickly identify and jump to your desired scene. 

More modeling modifications

In 2021.1, we focused on improving the consistency of how modeling worked from tool to tool, specifically on our ten core tools. There are a couple of notable tool behavior changes to Tape Measure, Classifier, Position Texture, and directional inferencing tooltips in this release. Read more about these changes in our release notes.

Layout

With Auto-Text updates and Find & Replace, LayOut helps you work faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Viewport-based Auto-Text labels

In addition to existing labels that pull entity or component attributes from SketchUp viewports in LayOut, we are introducing new Auto-Text tags that can be selected from the Auto-Text menu in label creation or templated labels. 

You can use all of these labels in scrapbooks or with transparent label leaders. This means that you can drag Auto-Text labels in from a scrapbook, hit enter to drag the label leader, and then the value associated with that viewport automatically displays. 

These tags include <SceneName>, <SceneDescription>, <Scale>, <Ratio>, and <Coordinates()> parameter input.

With new and improved viewport-based Auto-Text labels, you can use more of the information embedded in SketchUp models while composing documents, making your templates more powerful and efficient. For instance, you can pick your Scene name or description using an Auto-Text tag to automatically populate a drawing title. Then use a <Ratio> tag to show the scale of the current viewport. If the scale of the model viewport changes, the scale call out will automatically update.

Explore how to use them in our Help Center documentation.

Page Management Auto-Text

Manually creating and maintaining a table of contents can be time-consuming and error-prone, but it doesn’t have to be with new enhancements in title block management. 

<Page Count>

Complementing our existing <PageNumber> tag, <PageCount> displays the number of pages in a range you can define. With <PageCount>, users can specify the start page (where a particular range starts), character style, and the last page of the range. This feature is useful when developing an index or table of contents at the beginning of your LayOut document.

<Page Name>

With the <PageName> tag, you can use the name of a page that is not the current page. For example, if you want to display the name of a page in the third position of your document, you’ll input <PageNumber(3)>. Even better, the page name dynamically updates when pages are added, deleted, or re-ordered, saving time when developing and finalizing your table of contents. 

Sequence Auto-Text

A long-standing feature request, Sequence Auto-Text is a new Auto-Text tag that automatically increments when duplicated. These tags are used to annotate drawings and figures rapidly, create numbered drawing titles, legends, and many other use cases that would previously require text editing between each copy. Like <PageNumber> Auto-Text, you can duplicate and repurpose the Sequence tag as many times as you’d like.

If you delete a sequence tag, you can renumber text boxes for a given sequence tag across an entire document quickly and easily using a single command – Renumber Sequence. 

To help you get started with all of the new Auto-Text features in LayOut, we’re adding two new pages to each of LayOut’s title block scrapbooks.

Find & Replace text

There are several ways to quickly create and copy text across multiple pages in a LayOut document, but modifying text across an entire document has always been difficult. You need to inspect every page and text box of your document. That’s why you’ll love Find & Replace in LayOut! With Find & Replace, changes to text in a selection, a page, or a document is a much quicker process. This not only helps speed up the quality assurance process, but you can update drawing titles, page numbers, specified building materials, and fix typos more efficiently. 

As in other applications, Find & Replace can be activated with the Ctrl/Command + F shortcut and from the Text menu in LayOut. 

Zoom Selection

Eliminate zoom lag with the new Zoom Selection context command adopted from SketchUp. When LayOut pages grow in detail and complexity, they can become hard to navigate with the scroll-to-zoom functionality. Now, you can jump to your desired Zoom level in a given selection in LayOut, lowering the likelihood of unwelcomed lags on zoom in or out.

Performance and Quality Improvements

Native M1 Support for SketchUp on Mac

We are now offering a universal installer that enables SketchUp Pro to run on Mac devices with the M1 hardware platform (introduced in late 2020). 

The 2022 installer also supports SketchUp’s installation and operation on Mac devices that have Intel processors. This means Apple users don’t need to determine which chipset powers Mac in order to install SketchUp Pro. 

Entities Builder API

Generate large amounts of geometry faster using the Ruby API with the new Entities Builder API interface. For users who generate large amounts of geometry, you’ll notice a much speedier process.  

Using the existing .obj importer code in the image above, the tower with 22,000 faces imports at 389 seconds, or about six and a half minutes. With the new Entities Builder API interface, the same tower imports in under nine seconds. 

Other noticeable quality improvements include Explode Performance, camera clipping, and section planes.

Listening to you helps us improve SketchUp so that our suite of products remains a vital part of your design workflow. Keep giving us feedback and share your work with us on social media. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the 2022 release, check out our full release notes. As always, thanks for choosing SketchUp. If you have any questions or comments, check out our forums.

We’ve been busy evolving the Studio offering to make it [even] more robust for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) professionals. With that in mind, we are excited to announce two brand-spankin’ new features that will have your workflow more enriched and streamlined than ever before. Welcome to the Studio family, V-Ray and Scan Essentials! 

Import point cloud data with Scan Essentials 

(Windows-only)

Similar to PreDesign and Add Location, Scan Essentials is, well, essential from the very start of your workflow. By giving you the tools to import, view, and model directly on point cloud data in SketchUp, it serves as a blueprint for a solid 3D foundation. Whether you’re retrofitting or delivering a new build, you don’t need to start from scratch. Some features to help support your workflow include importing point clouds from drones, terrestrial scans, photogrammetry, lidar sensors, and mobile mapping; modeling directly on point clouds; comparison functionality to ensure your model is aligned with your point cloud; alternate views; as well as the ability to zoom on specific sections, and alter colors and transparency. Your context is ready for 3D primetime! Once you’re done with your 3D model, it’s time to go to 2D with a direct LayOut integration. Save modeling time by exporting contextual scan data directly into LayOut for professional documentation.

Ultimately, the point cloud visual is the richest data of all, but the benefits it brings to your entire workflow are invaluable; for example, increasing modeling accuracy and efficiency. With Scan Essentials, you can better integrate project stages, from site surveys to design, construction, and then post-construction, supporting greater success on complex projects.

Learn all about Scan Essentials here.

Real-time & photorealistic rendering with V-Ray 5 

Visualization is without question a huge part of the AEC professionals’ workflow — whether that be during design reviews with your team or client, or when you are presenting your design for final approvals. With V-Ray 5 for SketchUp, you can now take your design from idea to photorealistic render by tweaking lighting, adding shadows, touching up reflective coatings, selecting global illumination settings — and so much more. Get started by exploring Chaos Cosmos, V-Ray’s robust, smart 3D content library. Download render-ready content, such as vegetation and people, directly into your SketchUp design — saving you time and modeling energy.

Even better, you can also take advantage of real-time rendering capabilities with V-Ray Vision. Compared to slower, traditional rendering processes, V-Ray Vision lets you quickly make edits on the fly — while modeling in SketchUp.  With instant rendering at your fingertips, you can quickly present ideas to clients and drastically shorten project timelines — either in the office or completely remote. Flexibility at its finest. Once you’re done modeling, export screenshots, animations, and panoramic images for virtual reality viewing. Talk about elevating your design visualization process!

Learn more about how V-Ray can fit into your workflow. Heads up: SketchUp offers V-Ray 5 as part of its Studio subscription, a windows-only offering.

As we continue to grow our Studio subscription offering, we’ve also decided to remove Sefaira from this subscription. But fear not! You can still purchase Sefaira separately and it will continue to work seamlessly with SketchUp Pro. 

Please note that SketchUp Studio is a Windows-only offering at this time, but is available for Bootcamp iOS.

SketchUp Studio for Higher Education subscriptions will continue to include Sefaira, but will not include V-Ray or Scan Essentials.

This unprecedented year has changed the way we live and work. Like many of you around the world, we used this time at home to tackle projects we’ve been meaning to do for months (or years?) and were reminded of the importance of setting yourself up for success at the start of a project with a solid foundation.

Today, we are pleased to introduce a major update to SketchUp Pro with a number of improvements to help you tackle complicated projects, work efficiently, get more done, and succeed in new forms of creation. This major update of SketchUp Pro includes new tools and features, innovations, improvements, and time-savers that help you with all the unique challenges of this past year and beyond. 

To start, SketchUp’s full suite of products have a fresh new look. The best part? You can finally model the logos in 3D. Get to know the new SketchUp logos! 

Speaking of a new look, this new version introduces an architecturally-trained, Nigerian mother of twins as the scale figure to SketchUp Pro 2021: Sumele Aruofor. A Strategic Marketing Manager at Trimble, she knows a thing or two about the importance of starting a complicated project on a strong foundation. Say hi to Sumele when you open the new version, and get to know her a little better.

Now that we’ve settled into SketchUp’s new and improved exterior, it’s time to get to know the new features. SketchUp 2021 brings you a brand new, climate-savvy way to start designs, better model organization, and smart, configurable objects. The latest SketchUp version solidifies the groundwork of your most complicated AEC projects. Let’s get to know all the SketchUp 2021 updates.

A new way to start SketchUp

As AEC professionals we strive for a reality where every addition to the built environment works in harmony with the natural surroundings. This synergy requires a comprehensive understanding of a site’s context before plans are drawn. That’s where PreDesign comes in. This brand new climate research tool helps you to understand the local environment surrounding your project before you start modelling in 3D.

“Although SketchUp is a fantastic way to develop ideas in 3D, we are continuously exploring new capabilities and see tremendous value in making it easy for our users to include design research in their pre-design workflows,” said Andrew Corney, PE, M.CIBSE, M.ASHRAE, Product Director at Trimble. “With PreDesign, we’re providing designers with the insights they need to take a truly holistic approach to creating suitable design strategies and communicating value to their clients.” 

Pulling site-specific weather data, PreDesign suggesting appropriate architectural responses for your project. Intuitive sun path diagrams show you the areas of your site that need to be shielded from overheating sun. And it doesn’t just flag the issues; PreDesign suggests effective glazing, shading, and top-lighting strategies for each face of your building. Talk about getting things right from the start. 

“PreDesign provides useful information that we need to position our projects for better design outcomes from the very start,” said Adam Osterhoff, principal architect at Heartwood Studio. “Its compelling visual outputs and intelligent talking points also help us clearly communicate the value of our proposals to clients.“

PreDesign is here to enhance your design narrative with meaningful climate observations while alleviating some of the heavy-lifting from your workflow. By getting things right at the start, you’ll avoid wasting your precious design time and resources, and avoid costly rework. The forecast is sunny with PreDesign, see for yourself.  

Improved tag management

We know managing long lists of tags and scenes can be overwhelming—particularly with complex models. That’s why we’re helping you stay organized with Tag Folders in SketchUp Pro and LayOut. Whether you use tags to set up models for design scenarios, documentation, reporting, or visualization, we think you’ll find it a lot easier to locate and work with tags when you start grouping them in folders. You can also control the visibility of all tags in a folder at once to turn on and off large chunks of your model. 

We didn’t stop there. Filtering tags is finally possible in SketchUp! You can now quickly zero in on a specific tag. And if your tags are organized with a naming convention, you can quickly filter on your prefixes to select similar tags and organize them in a folder.  

Ultimately, we want to ensure that your workflow is operating at peak performance with the utmost control and agility. Which brings us to our next exciting announcement for SketchUp’s 2021 updates…

Introducing Live Components in SketchUp

Do you dream of building models that are robust and flexible enough to react to design changes? We do! There’s no doubt that a successful model is one that can easily accommodate iterations and allow for rapid change. In SketchUp 2021, SketchUp is introducing parametric objects that do just this; they’re called Live Components.

Programmed with modeling logic that controls their geometry, Live Components are configurable objects that re-draw themselves in real-time. What does this actually mean? Using Live Components with the 2021 SketchUp update allows for greater project scalability and benefits a wide range of use cases including architectural configuration, interior design, as-built modeling, space planning, and rapid iterations of concept or aesthetic. 

Live Components can be found in 3D Warehouse and are now available for you to download and configure right in SketchUp with SketchUp’s latest version. For detailed steps on finding Live Components in 3D Warehouse from inside the SketchUp application, click here.

Once you’ve selected a Live Component, you can insert it directly into your model where you can control the component’s parameters in the ‘Configure Live Component’ dialog. As you adjust parameters, the Live Component will redraw itself to fit your needs. Check out our Skill Builder showing you all the steps you need to bring Live Components into your workflow. 

Let SketchUp’s new Live Components do some heavy lifting for you: customize dimensions and sizes for repeated object use; quickly add rich context and make adjustments in real-time to produce more detailed designs in less time; or rapidly iterate large sets of components all at once as project requirements change. 

Behind the scenes, Live Components are driven by a new computational design platform called Materia. Going forward, Materia and Live Components will unlock whole new ways of working in SketchUp and across Trimble products. This launch is only the beginning for Live Components. We are still actively working on improving their performance and usability, as well as developing more objects for you to use in modeling.

A new way to launch work-in-progress features with the latest SketchUp version

SketchUp is launching Live Components early as part of a new program called SketchUp Labs, so that  your feedback can be incorporated into the product development process. We encourage you to join us in the forums for discussions on the future direction of Live Components, or provide feedback if you encounter issues.

Here’s to a solid start for 2021 with new SketchUp updates

Download the latest version to see everything that’s new in your favorite apps.

Are you a visual person? Join us on Wednesday, November 19th, 2020 for a live demo of the new tools and SketchUp’s latest version features in a special 2021 Release webinar! (English only) 

Keep creating and building the world you want to live in. Looking forward into 2021, SketchUp updates and all: May you model informed, design delightfully and build better buildings.

Today, Trimble announced a big change to how customers will be able to purchase SketchUp products—see the official announcement here. 

As of November 4, 2020, SketchUp will no longer sell Classic Perpetual Licenses and Maintenance & Support renewal plans. SketchUp is transitioning to subscription-based products, which offer customers a range of options including a SketchUp Pro subscription — featuring one of the most affordable professional modelers on the market. 

SketchUp is shifting to a cloud delivery model for a few reasons. With a subscription, customers can always receive regular updates and improvements to SketchUp products, access from multiple devices at any time and enjoy simplified deployment and management as well as access to technical support. 

If you aren’t ready to stop using your Classic Perpetual License, don’t worry. You’ll be able to continue using the latest version you own. In addition, if you’d like to update your Classic Perpetual License, you can do that until November 4th, 2020. 

Please be advised: if you purchase an updated Classic Perpetual License or renew your Maintenance & Support license prior to November 4, 2020, you will no longer be able to upgrade and access additional features every year as you have in the past.

We spent a lot of time in 2019 learning more about what you, the user, wish SketchUp did better. So…thanks for speaking up! You helped us discover what you need to improve your workflow. 

The result? Some exciting improvements in SketchUp 2020. Read on to learn more.

SketchUp Pro 2020: your 3D creative space

Introducing Outliner

A BIG model organization change: Outliner. In an effort to increase model performance, you no longer have to create Layers upon Layers. Manage and organize your model straight within Outliner. Use the friendly eyeball icon to toggle between the major sections of your model, such as main floor plans and furniture. 

New grips on bounding boxes

When you grab a point that is obscured in an object (such as a back corner or center point) and start to move it, your object will automatically go transparent when something in your model interferes with the object you are moving. This works with both the Rotate tool and Move tool. This will literally ‘transform’ your workflow. Don’t take our word for it: start positioning objects in hard to reach places to see what happens!

Better control of hidden objects

You’ll notice in your drop-down menu that we separated hiding objects from hiding geometry. How will this change your workflow? Well, this will give you the ability to better manage hidden geometry and hidden objects for an even easier modeling experience. For example, let’s say you want to edit hidden edges in a landscape or smoothed surface, but you still want to be able to hide objects that are nearby (like trees, bushes, or a building)…well you can do that now!

Updates to your SketchUp dictionary 

We have a few updates to the naming conventions we use when talking about SketchUp. This won’t change your workflow…but we want to make sure you know we are saying a few things differently now. 

Here’s the run-down! Objects are now a collective term for: groups, components, and dynamic components. This just means we don’t have to say “groups (slash) components” anymore