Mike Brightman’s roast…
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Mike says it all! Thankfully I didn’t subscribe… will never subscribe until Trimble addresses what issues Mike raises… Trimble + Sketchup = a Fail! amazing how a corporation can miss-step gaping opportunities
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I took advantage of the 2 year subscription in 2021 and I’ll be up for renewal in a month.
As someone else said here or in another post – SketchUp could be considered a mature product, especially with all the extensions – as Mike said referencing the new flip tool.
I took a look at the release notes for 2022 and it’s with 2022 and 2023 Layout where I am debating if I should renew my subscription.
2022’s auto sequence tags and zoom to selection and 2023’s per page sequence tags and the custom rotate improve my productivity.
Can I do without them? I guess so – are they worth £260.00 (currently 10% off at Elmtec) 
Ridiculous, you mean untrue ? It’s true, it’s on official forum about next version. I don’t have the time to download and test it. Beta version can be tested by customer, and (huge) roadmap is known (less ridiculous than no communication about unless improvements). There are several videos showing familiar operation for any SketchUp user. And if the ergonomics weren’t as good, it doesn’t matter how powerful Rhino is. One last thing, I’m not thrilled with layout in Rhino compared to Layout, but at least it works.
Brightmans’ roast is spot on.
I just don’t see anyone actually using SketchUp for Ipad to get any “real” work done.
I use my Ipad every single day, mostly to quickly scan the news, weather or skim through my emails before I hit my actual desk and then the real work begins.
Could you imagine what dominance SketchUp would have if all that time and energy was focused on making Layout as good of a product as SketchUp already is? I can imagine it and I would love to see it become a reality.
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I am in the same boat, my two year ran out late last year, and 2021 does me fine. I am looking at my budget for software with a keen eye, with time to make a decision.
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Well I,ve worked with Layout 23 some days now, and it actually is snappier on pages with not that large vector viewports, typically schematics derived from the model.
And the change to how you manage the viewports really works well. You can double-click into the viewport without catastrophic results. There’s just careful panning, and easy now to click into it just to break camera updates to the viewport. These confused posts on the forum ( where’s my model, its not showing in the viewport) should be not so common from now on. I’ve made some of these posts myself. So credit where credit is due.
Lets hope they will now not develop sketchup for Google glasses, Apple Watch, Nintendo and Playstation, and get on with their real daytime job.
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Yep, 2023 update is depressingly unhelpful, with more bugs and snags. I am losing worktime trying to get around them all.
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Some improvements I would love to see involves better performance when dealing with complex models. I use Sketchup in a not normal way to essentially design giant robots that can get pretty complex. As the complexity increases Sketchup starts to slow down. If I try to add a second one to the model in creating a scene, it gets even worse.
Haven’t had the time to check yet if that’s improved in 2023, but from what I’ve heard I don’t think it has.
I also come across odd edge alignment issues and face issues when working on large environments, such as cityscapes for a background, that I would love to see addressed. These complex environments can also get really laggy and I essentially have to use tags to hide elements to improve performance until I render with Enscape.
I’ve also been a detractor of the subscription service, but that’s because I don’t use Layout or Style builder. I’m not an architect, I’m essentially a hobbyist that uses Sketchup for non architectural use? Would love to see a cheaper subscription service that just involves Sketchup pro desktop app.
Would love to see Sketchup embrace aspects outside of architecture more lol, like game design, background and elements for comics, etc…
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Agree with @medeek. Mike Brightman brings up many great points that are succintly stated as frustrations and, probably more importantly to Trimble, real opportunites. I have to say that I am continually impressed with the development of SketchUp and will even go as far as stating that I really like the subscription model. Spending a few hundred bucks per year on a piece of software that gives back so much is not just value, it’s a way a working. I agree the disappointments of substantial upgrades in 2023 and am suprised to see a major upgrades first bragging point is a “simpler installation”. I mean, honestly, that could have been a mid-year release in 2022.
SketchUp for iPad does seem to be a nice offering, but I will echo the other’s comments with a challenge: Show me a professional utilizing SketchUp in a more end-to-end workflow. I believe it will be found out that more folks use it as a way of showing their designs to clients, rather than detail modelling things that you can really excellerate on a desktop version. I am not saying it isn’t useful, but there is a major gap in doing real, professional work versus showcasing a design process that only looks terrific as a marketing plan. This is the iPad’s most interesting hurdles and I can see that the Trimble team, even with the best of intetions, might have fallen into.
In more positive news: utilizing Trimble Connect and leverageing a web-based SketchUp platform is absolutley game-changing. Without installing software, you can collaborate and communicate with clients, stakeholders and anyone that might need a very simple portal to gain insight on a design or project. I encourage other Pro level subscribers to start to leverage this. Again, incredible work!
All that being said, the real work continues to be a focus and commitment to revamp LayOut as a true partner to SketchUp. I utlize both every day and marvel at how great some things could be, but pull my hair out when there is so much hand-holding to get to documents that I want to produce. I follow a strict workflow that resembles Mike Brightman and Nick Sonder’s and understand how the software works, so I believe I am being honest about a massive gap that exists and the opportunity if focus, effort and hours are put back into the linking of making SketchUp Pro and LayOut THE prime motivation of development and refinement from the Trimble team.
I plan on upgrading to 2023 Studio for the Revit importer, but am in a professional development firm that can afford the license. Smaller studios and sole practitioners are like all small businesses in the world: the backbone of our industry and usually the first ones left behind. Please don’t make that mistake.
Trimble Team:
- Refocus your efforts on remaking LayOut to resemble SketchUp’s speed, responsiveness and joy to use.
- Reconsider opening an API for 3rd-party developers to further extend platform and link to other programs.
- Remember your long-standing base of small firm users and offer more interoperability in the Pro level subscriptions.
I am happy to contribute to this software and community because I truly believe in it…
Looking forward to the 2023 updates,
Eric
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I wouldn’t.
I’ve seen it many times over the years where pieces of software which start off exciting and intuitive and light and fast, slowly become bloated, expensive and unusable, as function after function is added, mostly to satisfy fringe requests that can often be solved with 3rd party plugins.
Microsoft Word is an example. How much of Word’s capability does each of us actually use? How many times do you embed a video in a Word document?
For me, keep SketchUp should be light, fast, useful to a wide audience (of amateurs and professionals) and as inexpensive as possible.
(This from a 25 year Microstation user).
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Forget about it, my friend, we are screwed… it’s clearly an architect-only thing in Trimble “roadmap”.
Which is absolutely ridicoulus because Sketchup is NOT a cad or a bim tool and NEVER will be… is just a polygon modeler like 3dsMax, Maya, Blender… but with better snapping capabilities and less features… because you know… who needs to model anything different from squared houses?
All the people who have written in this forum is because they love sketchup, for many it is our favorite tool of all.
For this reason, I would like someone from the official development team to respond to requests and comments, at least some words (it seems that we are shooting bullets in the air)
Sketchup is what it is because of its user base, I think we deserve respect and clarity in the future of software
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Regardless of what improvements have been made to SketchUp itself, Layout is still a dog.
I came to SketchUp from Vectorworks and Layout drives me insane at times. Most of the time, in fact.
Now, with regard to the whole target market/user/price point thing, Vectorworks happily offer different variations for different markets, with ‘Fundamentals’ on the bottom rung and ‘Architect’ at the top, and Fundamentals actually did pretty much everything I needed it to without me shelling out for Architect for a load more features I wouldn’t use.
So why can’t Trimble tier the features and subscription prices as well, and create a more advanced version that specifically addresses the desires/needs of the architecture industry without alienating the other users who don’t want or need the same features?
I for one would happily pay as much for SketchUp with a fully functioning version of Layout as I did for Vectorworks Fundamentals.
I’m only a couple of years in to using SketchUp full time but I sometimes (when Layout is being sh!t) wonder if I should have invested the same time and money in to learning to model better in Vectorworks, but then I would need to be buying an even more expensive version of that.
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For many of us who operate in the domestic residential sector, Layout is more or less “fully functioning”.
It certainly needs more focus from Trimble and there are many existing features that can be refined upon and new features added.
But that’s why I have paid for the subscription for the last two years.
I would be dismayed if SU/LO became more expensive to subscribe to!
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Hi Paul, that’s predominantly my sector as well, and maybe it’s my relative inexperience that creates my frustrations through not using the best/right workflows to get the best out of LayOut, but the lack of easy line weight control, the pain in the backside that is dimensioning and labelling, and the seemingly inevitable grind to a halt when you create too many pages drive me mad at times!
As you say, it’s ‘more or less’ fully functioning, and as it stands ought to do every thing I want it to with ease without a price increase, but it seems there are users who would benefit from a super-sized functionality that could come at a premium, and if that investment came at a small price increase for the lower end I wouldn’t grumble too much, it would still be cheaper than Vectorworks and their now subscription model.
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I didn’t read your entire comment but I saw stuff about robots and game design. That is not what Sketchup was ever intended for, you are using the absolute wrong product for those things. I do agree with the improvements you think could be made, but again, completely wrong product man. You should be using blender, cinema 4d, etc to make robots and do game design, far better programs for that kind of stuff. Blender is FREE.
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I was a Mentor on a First Robotics high school team for a number of years. I did use SketchUp a few times to help with figuring out the game challenge that year. @DaveR is still a Mentor I believe. Curious to know if he uses SketchUp as part of that.
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