Hey Bob, we’ve designed the integration between SketchUp for iPad and Trimble Connect to support the scenario you’re describing here.
From within SketchUp for iPad, you can create a project space and/or folders within that project and then publish your model to Connect.
In Trimble Connect’s web app, you can then invite project team members and assign their access controls to the project data (at the project, folder, or file level) – where View Only is an option.
If your client is also using SketchUp for iPad, they will then see that they have access to the project data that you’ve shared with them. When they go to open a file that they have read-only access to, SketchUp will present them with the limited capabilities of the Viewer interface (see below) They will not be able to modify the file or save changes. The app will also prevent them from being able to download a copy of the file, or rename it, or delete it…
With all that said, there are still some risks, in that SketchUp for Web, and SketchUp desktop apps do not enforce re-only permissions in the same way. Web and Desktop will also prevent people from being able to save changes to file in Connect that they have read-only access to, but those apps will not prevent others from being able to make a copy of the file that they have read-only access to, and then make changes to that copy.
In addition to the above, we’re also working to enable an all-around simpler way for designers to share models with their clients. It’s early days, but to get a sense of where we’re headed, you can read more about our first pass at Link sharing (via SketchUp for Web) here: New Labs feature: Link-sharing in SketchUp for Web
I hope that’s helpful…