If what you’re saying is true, then apps should be getting more and more similar and generalized as they borrow from each other.
But i feel like the opposite is the reality. Autodesk and Adobe , for example, have a plethora of similar but related apps working as an ‘ecosystem’. That ecosystem becomes more diverse and specialized every year.
Even AutoCad now has 15 discreet product versions that achieve quite different things.
SU is developing…eg LayOut is becoming something between AutoCad and Indesign.
Maybe Trimble will take it in a more AEC direction?
I agree the integration of extensions/tools could be happening faster and I hope that the launch of SketchUp Free version will allow Pro to take a more commercially-focused development path.
I not saying they ‘should’, I’m saying if they are any good, they will. Autodesk to Adobe is a long bow to draw but there are already parallels.
Take the Autodesk fledging Product Design program ‘Fusion 360’, which I use.
For a long time the Developers thought it was sufficient to just have have a great visual screen output file format, BUT payed scant regard to their vector specification PDF physical file output and the printable results.
Eventually the community slowly but surely started to complain that while we could make beautify photo-realistic organic and industry standard Commercial 3D Products and images, we couldn’t print out a spec sheet out and adjust the point size of the outputted PDF. In essence, our outputted PDF’s looked like heavy graffiti style black tagged messes…completely unprofessional. Forever, the Developers stuck to their stringent Development Road Map and refused to listen to the Community. The developers and their ‘App Theory’ for Fusion 360 was that they make beautiful 3D Cloud based imagery and to heck with the spec outputting of the Product. The End user was asking a 3D Program to become as proficient as a Vector Based App that adjusts and outputs to PDF. It’s easy to see here how an App in one sphere of creativity SHOULD NOT HAVE to be like another App in another sphere of creativity, BUT in this case, it was being forced to have the capabilities of both Apps from different disciplines by the end user. Not all end users are as pigeon-holed as some like to believe. I am multi-disciplined. I want my Apps to be multi-disciplined. I want a clear legible PDF from Fusion 360, like I want one from Adobe Illustrator, like I want one from Microsoft Word, like I want one from Photoshop. Don’t make me accept poor App functionality because the Developers of that App want to live in a bubble.
Re: Fusion 360.
And that in essence is the worst type of Development Team…blinkered, stubborn and only listening to the voices and Road Maps in their own heads, not listening to their end users. Sketchup is as closeted as that. Where’s the Development? Why haven’t they purchased all the great and different extensions off 3rd Party Developers and incorporated them directly into their App? Why do I have to look for better Renderers for Sketchup? Sketchup should have such a great in-built Renderer, that all other 3rd Party Renderers cannot compete with their own products.
I want to use Sketchup. Not travel around grabbing basic Extensions and installing them and using an installation process straight out of the 1990’s.
Again, before @eneroth3 starts on another point based teenager reply post…Iet’s get back to my main point.
Not sure if you’ve tried Form Z ? formally Bonzai, but it has the same simplistic feel as Sketchup, very same functionality BUT incorporates many of the features that have to be “extensions” in Sketchup, like corner rounding, sub D etc. The toolbars are customizable so you could thin it out to just what you need, but know the other stuff is in there if you need it. Personally as a SU user since @last software, its hard to give up Sketchup as it is so familiar to me but lament the options that are pre-installed in FormZ and which could be a aprt of SU. I often wondered why SU hadn’t adopted the same approach as Form Z which would achieve the “modernisation” you describe.
Having said that, I do like the uncluttered simplicity of SU which ironically is it’s strength in many ways! and once an extension is added it basically does become a part of SU, so the best way through this dilemma is to only add the extensions you need through the “extension wharehouse” so that on any upgrade to a new SU version, those extensions will repopulate the new version (and hope the developers ensure compatibility), but unfortunately any random extensions that have been added will have to be manually updated.
SU does have the ability to alter the toolset by checking which tools to display, so it could be argued/approached from the other direction, that additional tools (which some might feel are bloatware) could/should be available to the advanced user (especially pro licences) leaving the novice to either only enable a “basic toolset” if that’s what they prefer or just use the non-pro version.
While some extensions do seem esoteric and might not belong to a core set of tools, I totally agree that there are some more basic (if not essential) modelling tools that should be a part of the foundation toolset, like: corner rounding, push-pull curves, edge selections, texture mapping and others. Software isn’t static, there have been additions to the toolset since the “@last days” which showed progress in the program, so why stop there? NOt too much seems to change from update to update. There are clearly useful modelling tools that could be added as the program matures, if not, at least expanding the functionality of existing tools. Additionally, there are developers improving on existing tools (like the “solid tools” for example -eneroth’s and bool tools) which work better than their native counterpart’s, so one might wonder why that work has to be done by others when it might better be the responsibility of Trimble to do that, or come to some arrangement with the developer to incorporate into SU proper?
Thanks for commenting, but again I come to a screeching halt when I see the word ‘bloatware’.
Don’t we now have fast computers and fast phones these days?
Don’t we have larger Hard Drives and faster processors?
If simple application software versions and updates have now outrun your Device (which is extremely hard with the up-to-date modern device) then how the heck are you coping with the various MANY TIMES LARGER OS updates? I believe the ‘bloatware’ excuse, is just that, an excuse. Have you stripped all the buttons off your TV Remote Control because YOU PERSONALLY only want an ON/OFF Button? Should the rest of the World’s Users have to put up with a two button remote because you want the world to stop? Have the ‘Bloatware Fans Boys’ returned their Microwaves to the makers and asked them to remove all the functionality features of the latest Microwaves because Microwaves are getting too bloated with features? Give me a break! Progress doesn’t work that way. Zen Meditation Gardens might work like that, but Technology does not.
And leaving Novices with a ‘Basic Toolset’ and avoiding ‘bloatware’ is, in my experience, the worst thing you can do. Why have a ‘Novice’ play around and only experience a ‘Basic Toolset’? Why treat the Novice like they are incapable of greater learning? Why limit the Novice and their ability to explore, test and play around with an expansive, advanced Toolset? What are we protecting the Novice from? Learning? Learning faster? Why treat the novice like fools? That’s a horrible ideal to believe in when thinking of the Novice. I have always hurtled headlong into advanced, complicated programs/applications and have been willing to cop the initial cerebral bruises. It made me a better end user.
I’m starting to get a little bit alarmed at the safe, limited and ‘afraid of the dark’ misconceptions from the Sketchup community regarding Sketchup. It’s obviously showing in the Software too.
I feel like I’m starting to feel sorry for raising this issue. I should have just titled the thread,
I’m so happy to be using the ‘2018 Grandpa Version of Sketchup’ - (Oh, and no more versions…we can stop now…it’s perfect!)
I was/am agreeing with you per your original post. My mention of “bloatware” was qualified by saying “which some might feel is bloatware”, I personally don’t see it that way I’d be happy to receive it.
As for the basic toolset, this was more of a price point issue. I think the more expensive pro version should come fully loaded and we pay for that as “pro’s”. The basic version for “novices” could be stripped down as a starter version and maybe if you determine you need more functionality you upgrade. Like photoshop vs photoshop elements, form z junior vs pro etc. etc. and many other companies do this in a tiered way.
I don’t disagree that functionality shouldn’t be there for all, but I have appreciated in the past that there exists different versions of the software at different price points to give you the opportunity to try the program before investing the max money as often the short trial periods for complex programs that take a long while to learn aren’t long enough. Sketchup was at least good in this regard back in the day as it didn’t give just 30 days, but tallied your time by the amount you used it each time.(8 hours?).
Hopefully SU will grow as it should, and maybe one day rival a similar program like FormZ, but don’t hold your breath. If it ain’t doing what you need its just easier to switch to other software that does.
There are definite tools in sketchup that need improving and others to be included, that are general and basic to all requirements…not some specialist
For example:
An extend and trim to shape tool (i see many versions in various extensions)
Solid tools. @Whaat puts a version out that he highlights on his web page the shortcomings of the hard wired version.
Then @eneroth3, you highlight improvements in your solid tools, as well as the push/pull align face, component replacer…you have complained about the buggy nature of the dynamic component extension…
But rather than fix these issues, or improve the tools the Sketchup team has ploughed their efforts in another free enterprise, then added a token tool improvement.
Rather than spend $120usd on the next version, I might be better off paying for the extensions and have some change…there’s some amiss here, I hope the powers that be can see it
@MrGaussian Amen brother. I could have written your whole OP myself, almost word for word. We are 100% on the same page. You sound like you’ve trodden a very similar path to me over the years. (I’d wager we’re a similar age with similar training and experience too).
The type of condescending and pointless response by eneroth3 and other SketchUp die-hards is such a waste of everyone’s time and is so counter productive and divisive it serves no purpose only to enflame, especially when viewed against a well-argued OP. I’ve now given up lifting my head above the parapet with any genuine concerns or constructive criticism to avoid the inevitable, tiresome and unnecessary backlash [although it has to be said this place is nowhere near as bad or temperamental as Revit forums].
I do think so much could be added by Trimble into SketchUp to help avoid the requirement for the third-party plug-ins (no matter how good they are) however, as I understand it, they are not a large company (unlike Google, ahem) so development will be slower than perhaps we’d want. That being said I have heard there are quite a few things in the pipeline (I have no idea what though) that could help push SketchUp Pro into something more akin to a genuine and viable replacement for AutoCAD and Revit. The section fill and section naming is a good start, although Skalp-like hatching needs to be added to make it truly useful for us architectural and technical types.
Despite my initial reservations about Trimble and they’re initial glacial development pace I can now see some shoots of progress and have faith that they are aiming in a direction that many of us want SketchUp to go. Fingers crossed.
I would really like to see inbuilt sub division tools, vertex tools and the ability to create texture maps. I think I only use about 6 Plugins so keen to keep the UI clutter free.
A multi window model view would also be cool, much easier when creating vehicles etc.
However no problem having more intergatred options, as long as I can hide them from the toolbars!
