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

We are pleased the announce the launch of SketchUp Pro 2019, customers can start placing their orders through our ordering website: click here

Welcome Panel

Updates to Files, Learn, and Licensing tabs make it easier to manage projects and licenses. You can also find links to learning resources directly from SketchUp and LayOut.

Files tab

When selecting File > New or viewing the template dialog in SketchUp Pro or LayOut, three tabs will be displayed where you can can access New, Recent, and Recovered projects.

Learn tab

SketchUp Pro for Desktop and LayOut now include links to SketchUp’s Learning Management System, forums, and YouTube channel, so you can access the learning content as and when you need it.

Licensing tab

From SketchUp Pro for Desktop and LayOut, you can now easily access information related to your license(s). When selecting the licensing tab, you will be taken to the Account Management Portal to view entitlement information.

Line styles

Solid lines don’t always tell the full story. Sometimes dashes are needed to convey a design idea. Welcome to dashed lines. These dashes are properties of Layers and are controlled from the layers panel. Even better, components on Layers will inherit the dash pattern. In LayOut, dashes will show in the viewport at any screen scale and in all render modes. Dashed lines may be exported as EPS, PDF(HLR), and DWG/DXF or printed directly from SketchUp.

DWG importer/exporter

SketchUp has always played nice with others. Import/export of the 2018 DWG file format is now supported and improvements have also been made to the import and export of line styles and materials.

SketchUp Tape Measure tool

Upgrades to the Tape Measure tool mean less time opening up Entity Info; now, the length of selected edges, areas of faces, and coordinates of guides and intersections can be viewed from an inference tip.

What’s new in LayOut 2019?

LayOut File Locking

It’s now harder to overwrite LayOut files with unintentional edits. If a file is opened in two separate LayOut instances, it will temporarily lock the file as “read only.” Simple.

DWG support

As well as support for the 2018 DWG format, it is now simpler to export and adjust units when importing DWGs.

SketchUp dashes control

With the introduction of dashed lines in SketchUp, LayOut now has the ability to modify how those lines styles are displayed. With the SketchUp model viewport selected, the SketchUp Model inspector will allow for modification.

Export for SketchUp

‘Export for SketchUp’ has been added to the DWG/DXF exporter, placing all LayOut entities into the Model Space so that SketchUp better interprets the data. Groups are read as components and fills/patterns are read as faces.

SketchUp Campus

Better than textbooks: Our official learning hub is here. SketchUp-built courses, all created by our in-house team, make learning SketchUp convenient and simple. And we’re always making more!

No matter your skill level, SketchUp Campus guides you through official SketchUp training with different tracks and sequential courses to get you up to speed. The classes consist of short videos and quizzes that make learning topics such as Rendering, LayOut, and SketchUp Fundamentals. Fun, quick, and easy. Learn more about SketchUp Campus, or dive right in!

In the next chapter we will look into the new licences terms offered by SketchUp, this will include a comparison between the perpetual licences offered and the new subscription model offered. Stay tuned…..

Based in the Lake District National Park, Ben Cunliffe Architects design innovative, elegant, sustainable architecture. Established in 2001, the company has brought together a talented team of architects and designers who endeavour to make design and construction extremely environmentally conscious and fully aware of the carbon footprint a new build can create. They are at the forefront of creating low energy sustainable buildings which incorporate a wide range of green technologies – from solar, bio-fuel and ground source air source in their schemes to self-contained waste systems and reed bed filtration systems.

I chatted with Ed, one of the designers and technicians at Ben Cunliffe, about sustainable construction, how SketchUp staves off repetitive strain injury, and the important issue of whether he’d rather live in a house in the forest or a house by the beach.

Hi Ed! Can you introduce yourself and your team to the SketchUp community?

My name is Ed Newcome and I’m a designer and technician with Ben Cunliffe Architects. We’re a mid-sized, award-winning architectural practice based in the south Lake District. Our projects are predominantly residential or small commercial, and all are highly bespoke and individual, with project costs in the region of £200,000 to a bit over £1 million.

How did your team get going with SketchUp – and why SketchUp?

We have always used SketchUp for visualising projects in 3D to clients. We love the speed and ease with which SketchUp can bring our ideas to life, and we find it an invaluable aid to communication with clients, planners, builders, engineers, joiners and other trades. We have a large TV on the wall in the office and we frequently take clients on a tour around the project using that. Clients will often comment on the designs and we can make alterations as we go to experiment with different ideas.

What does your typical design workflow look like?

Typically, the concept designs will be outlined on tracing paper by Ben Cunliffe. We then take the designs into SketchUp to develop the design and to illustrate the ideas to the clients. Once we have agreement on a scheme, we produce planning drawings with Layout. .

How important is the sustainability aspect to Ben Cunliffe Architects? What are the challenges for environmentally conscientious design and construction?

As a practice, BCA is strongly led by environmental principles and sustainability. As a lot of the houses we work on are old, historic houses, it can be difficult to implement modern technologies and standards, but we do our best to deliver efficient, high performing and environmentally sound buildings. Most of our projects incorporate renewable technologies, and some of the new houses we’ve designed have been built using SIP panels.

What about your own dream house? City dweller, beach, forest?

Personally, I like the mountains, so I’d love the opportunity to design a spacious pad deep and high in the hills. There have been some fantastic modern chalet projects in the European alps in recent years. Being able to ski from the door in the winter would definitely be a bonus too!

What’s been the most challenging/proudest piece of work you’ve produced?

Every project has its own particular challenges as each building and site we work on is totally unique. From a SketchUp perspective, on a recent job we had all the contractors querying how a particularly awkward roof structure was going to go together, incorporating steel, oak purlins and timber rafters. It was great to be able to work this all together in 3D, which put everyone clearly in the picture!

Are there any plug-ins that you’d consider absolutely essential?

Solid inspector, 1001 bit tools, Mirror, Follow push pull – to name but a few.

Any keyboard shortcuts you couldn’t live without?

All my keyboard shortcuts are assigned over to the left hand side of the keyboard so I don’t have to move my hand around while I work. (Prolonging the onset of RSI and speeding up the workflow). I use shortcuts for every single tool as far as possible, with others mapped to the extra buttons on the mouse. (I have a 9 button mouse for modelling).

Finally, in a parallel universe, if you weren’t doing what you do for a living now, what would you choose? 

If I hadn’t got into architecture I would probably still be doing various dead-end jobs and puzzling over how to earn enough money to pursue my hobbies and sports while doing very little work at all. I’m not sure this actually exists in reality, but luckily I love what I do now so it’s a less pressing concern.

To view more of Ben Cunliffe Architect’s work head to their webite, follow them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Houzz.

Ben Cunliffe Architects were introduced to us via UK reseller TCS CAD & BIM Solutions. One of the main benefits of purchasing through a local reseller is to take advantage of their product expertise and training.

At BIM.Solutions we pride ourselves in providing ORIGINAL content from our vast experience in the AEC industry. This is our first post on how SketchUp can be used in different industries and processes throughout design, manufacture and build.

Over the years I have demonstrated the use of SketchUp in many industries ranging from Architectural, Interior Design, Manufacturing and Engineering. SketchUp is known as a easy-to-learn 3D modelling tool.  We often get a number of inquiries regarding how we can use SketchUp to design a store layout and provide intuitive renderings.

This has led me to create my own virtual TCS SketchUp model, I spend roughly 3-5 days creating model and used V-Ray for SketchUp for the render engine which is a SketchUp extension. V-Ray was chosen because for its usability and reputation for a professional render engine.

With little or no retail design expertise, SketchUp and V-Ray still allowed me to create quite impressive designs.

Design

Using Google images, I began with sizing to gather a rough idea for the store dimensions. The great thing with SketchUp Pro is that it has the DWG import function in which I was able to get a number of DWG examples into SketchUp and make the building size more appropriate with the examples.

I opted for a false ceiling design with illuminated lighting around the bezel with spot lighting showcasing the units around and my own funky design in the middle.

SketchUp’s 3D warehouse played a BIG part in the design development. Most of the models have been sourced through the warehouse with some exceptions such as the middle shop gondolas. From a recent visit to one of the retail stores, I saw a design in which I liked and was able to replicate and make it my own with my style.

I was fortunate enough to find all required fixtures such as slatwall, lighting, brackets, modular retail shelving and checkout counters from the 3D warehouse this saved me a lot of time modelling and with some minor tweaks I was able to make it my own. 

 

Rendering

V-Ray for SketchUp provides designers with faster rendering, better lighting tools, and the ability to create and visualize complex scenes.

I used the in-built materials shipped with V-Ray for SketchUp for most of the components ranging from the flooring, lighting, paint and the units.  The V-Ray interactive render engine also worked great with draft settings to see how materials looked and to see the placement is right.

The rendering element took most of my time I was wanted to try to achieve a realistic render of my model. I experimented with a lot of materials and textures in order to get highly authentic results.

Rendering times ranged from 5-hours for a full 1080p render –  but I was able to dramatically reduce this time using V-Ray Swarm. This distributed rendering platform allowed me to join all my training workstations together to reduce to rendering times to 2-hours.

Final thoughts

The design process was relatively quick. SketchUp enabled me to explore a number of concepts before settling with the chosen model..

I would suggest that you organise components that need to be grouped if you don’t need to edit them, make components if you need to make changes and setup layers to help with optioning and improve performance of SketchUp.

V-Ray provided really impressive renders and I was amazed by the render times, even with V-Ray Swarm. Together, they are a winning combination.

The next follow up post to this would be how this model would work with a real-time render engine such a Enscape for SketchUp.