Have you not seen Fredo’s latest chamfer / radius plugin? It’s stupendous! It shows that indeed you can add these features to SU. As does plenty of other surface modelers including Blender, 3DMax, Lightwave, Modo, Maya, Wings, the list goes on.
Not to mention Whaat’s Boolean Tools which I find far superior to SU’s own internal ones. I think you do your product a disservice telling people what cannot be done, especially when plugin developers, like Thom Thom, can actually make your product a superior one.
To think the total sum of the brain trust in the SketchUp Developer Bullpen can only put together dashed lines and a nicer tape measure as the top two tent stretching poles for 2019 doesn’t say much about the overall passion there for improving the product. Heck, Fredo not only created a whole new filleting plugin last year but did so much more (including animation) in only his spare-time SketchUp development efforts.
I’m not clear why you would feel that you have wasted $400, but maybe you can take me through the argument? As you have seen me say several times now, we are offering a new way to buy SketchUp but not forcing you to adopt it if you think the old way to buy SketchUp is a better value for you. I happen to believe that subscriptions are a better way to buy, as you are getting more stuff for less money (at least for the first 3-4years) and we have to win your business continuously over time rather than just ‘once and done’ under our old model.
We haven’t announced any future end to our existing support and maintenance for perpetual (classic) licensing, so I wouldn’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that we are actively working against your best interests. You’ll have to decide if you trust us or not, I guess.
Is there anything really new? Dotted line, that’s it.
The new website wont make the old users happy
what about big files? it isn’t worth the ,new" ,cheap" price.
I can agree the web version is inferior in a number of ways (performance, UX, not having direct access and control over your files to mention a few). However, SketchUp Make 2017 still exists and is just as good as it was when released. The new features have their uses but I don’t think they are crucial for casual use.
Google Earth geo location cannot exist due to licensing issues. The Google Earth license clearly forbids copying the maps into your own work. From what I’ve understood SketchUp wasn’t following the official license, but could use it anyway as it belonged to Google.
Of course I have seen Fredo’s work, and you’re right to say that it is stupendous. I definitely support the idea of using these sorts of extensions if what you need most is chamfering and filleting features in SketchUp. Perhaps you’re right that I have a limiting vision for what is/isn’t possible in SketchUp. It is certainly true that there are chamfering/filleting tools in other applications, not only MCAD apps as I appeared to suggest in my previous comment.
I don’t see this comment as cynical. Traditionally, we haven’t offered new features (anything which changes the base UI) between our annual updates of our desktop client application. So that means we only publish a maintenance release when something is broken that needs fixing. To me, it is actually good news that 2018 didn’t need much fixing to stay viable for a full year.
As I have now said a few times, I understand that you might feel like SU2019 is light on new features if the SketchUp Pro desktop client is the only thing you’re taking into consideration. From my perspective, however, “SketchUp” includes much more than the core modeling features now. And I’m not just referring to LayOut. In fact, in our new SketchUp Pro subscriptions, we give you access to a whole pile of new SketchUp-relevant technology. For example, we just added a brand new VR viewing application to SketchUp Pro. That’s a pretty big feature.
It is easy to snark at this kind of thing by saying that it isn’t what you wanted us to build, but I think we’ve got more than a few users in the greater SketchUp community who think it is a pretty cool thing to have added.
The reason for the unrest is that this information is absolutely BURIED on your website. I had to enlarge the above image just to see the tiny link to the classic pricing. It’s not one of the main options on your website–you have to scroll down to the bottom to find it. THEN, after you click that option, you have to scroll to the bottom of that page where it says “Buy once to own your license forever. $120 to upgrade annually.” But where is the information about the annual upgrades and how this is billed? If paying up front is still a valid plan, why not give it equal footing to the subscription plans? As you may have seen, I defended subscription plans in principle earlier in this thread, but your comment misses the mark for me:
Yes, mathematically it can make sense to do the subscription plan (and I’ve always agreed with that)–but ONLY if you plan on providing a valuable update every year. As many have pointed out, if I didn’t have a “free” update for SU 2019 (because I bought SU Pro 2018 last fall), I would pass on paying for this upgrade because it is so minimal. I have no such option with the subscription plan because I assume the program will shut down if I don’t renew. So I will get more mileage out of my $695 upfront cost if I only do upgrades every 2-3 years when the upgrades I need come along. But this is the accountants’ fear isn’t it. People won’t do the $120 upgrades because there isn’t enough value there, so let’s get them on a subscription plan where they have to pay to play. Your argument about winning our business continually is disingenuous because the annual value is not there. The 2019 update doesn’t meet the grade. I’m one of the lucky ones because I don’t have to pay for it. With any other software, this would only be an incremental .1 update, not a full version upgrade. As I said, I like the subscription plan as an option, but since I have recently paid the full price upfront, the subscription plan is of no use to me now. My primary concern is the ongoing policy and pricing for purchasing updates. This is all very shadowy. Also, using the term “classic” makes it sound like a dead man walking. “Classic” often ends up being “deceased”. This is further indicated by the way it has been buried on the website with little information about purchasing version upgrades.
In short, your whole pricing page is oriented towards new buyers, but your user base–the ones who funded your business and dominate these forums–are going “WTF just happened to my licensing?”
Does this make sense now? Can you see why the confusion? Just because you make a post in this thread doesn’t provide a lot of comfort when your web page basically relegated most of your existing users to “Classic status”–which in this context means old, out of date, and soon to be gone.
Extensions and native features are quite different. A lot of people probably need chamfer and fillet, but a lot of people don’t. A lot of people want tools to draw walls, roofs and other architectural elements, but a lot doesn’t. Some people want a train simulator but other doesn’t. One of the greatest things about SketchUp is this modular architecture; you have a simple core and can add really whatever you want without being bloated and distracted by stuff you never use.
What if SketchUp had native chamfer and fillet tools, but the Fredo tools were a lot better? I for one would not want the native tools to be annoying dead weight to the program. I’d be quite happy if the SketchUp solid tools were an extension that I could disable/uninstall, as both Whaat and myself have made solid tools that better fit my needs.
That said, I’d be glad if SketchUp made their own chamfer and fillet tools that fits seamlessly into the SketchUp UX, as well as a bunch of other tools, given it was an extension and not a native feature you cannot get rid of.
You just made my point EXACTLY why the subscription plan is not necessarily a better value. You basically acknowledged that ‘we only need to upgrade when SU really changes something’. So for me, I’ll just wait on paying for my next upgrade until you guys actually move the needle on something I care about. But my fear is that rather than earning our business and goodwill by creating upgrades that we’re eager to buy, the pricing for updates for “classic” users will go up, and programmers will be instructed to create new versions with planned obsolescence (i.e. a bug that is only fixed with a paid update) in order to force people to update. Too cynical? It happens all the time. And it ultimately backfires because it is not founded in the best interest of the customer–in this case, the users who built your business. I look forward to you proving me wrong.
Trimble simply making a money no such improvements past 5 year. better handover to google Back.
trimble should understand Before sketchup users switching to another software.
Wow. You walk a very long and serpentine path to argue against having basic fillet and chamfering tools being the standard in SketchUp. Perhaps you heard, archtitects do use fillet and chamfering in building and house designs these days. It’s not just rectangular walls and roofs anymore.
To suggest a 3rd party plugin author could best, in his spare time, the sharpest and brightest of the C code authors and stewards of the SU code and create what all other poly modelers have as baseline functionality-- and do it in the slower Ruby-- is just strange.
I understand you have deep love for SketchUp-- but to give them a pass on basic functions…functions which have been around for a long time in other packages… is remarkable.
I am wondering…who are the priests on high who decide what
A lot of people probably need chamfer and fillet, but a lot of people don’t. A lot of people want tools to draw walls, roofs and other architectural elements, but a lot doesn’t.
Based on your argument, SketchUp never needs add a new feature…just wait long enough and some gracious plugin developer will create it for you. Nevermind they have to build their own GUI toolkits, and auto-update mechanisms, and literally create new modalities and gizmos never before seen, and nevermind there’s no GUI continuity between it all-- just as long as the basic SketchUp stays very, very simple. Thanks for enlightening me.
How do you figure a subscription is cheaper in the long run? $299 every year (mandatory or it shuts down), vs $695 once, and pay $120 when (and only when) a version upgrade you need comes along. Don’t get me wrong, when I was on Make I often made requests for a subscription plan because $695 was such a big leap. But now that I’m there, I only plan on doing upgrades when they have a feature or fix I’m really interested in. That is, unless they force us to buy each incremental upgrade…
Subscriptions are software cancer, they spread and grow in price like tumors.
I convinced my boss to shift to sketchup because it was great to work with and we were sick of monopoly pricing by [unnamed company] on their package, which was essentially subscription based. It starts off all sweet and then gets obnoxious. No real work is done on the software except 3rd party deals, such as this sefeira type one, for which you are stung, and some os and hardware touch ups. Tommorrow, I have to explain to him that we have been sucked into the same garbage all over, but with the added bonus of dotted lines. Untrustworthy
You just said a plugin author did the Solid Tools better than the SketchUp team yourself… Also, plugins aren’t limited to Ruby, even if the live API is Ruby. Calculations can be made in compiled code.
Basically it doesn’t. Except for things that cannot be implemented as plugins as it requires changes to the DOM.
Interior designers that use SketchUp to place finished components don’t need it. People doing only organic modeling don’t need it. City planners hardly need it. I don’t think people that uses SketchUp only to draw volumes for shadow and sunlight experiments need it. Perhaps you didn’t know more people than architects use SketchUp, and for more things than making detailed models of architecture.
Creating UX guidelines and toolkits is something SketchUp should really put effort into. Not implementing features that is just distracting noise to a whole chunk of users.
What I meant was, SketchUp annually would cost me 560GBP where as now it will cost me 231GBP annually to subscribe.
So its much cheaper for me as I am paying every two years what I was paying every year (sorry I thought it was three I had not done the currency conversion).
Ed: I didn’t know with maintenance you get the upgrade, I thought it was full price each year so you are both correct.
+1 in the unimpressed and really not excited camp.
A few fixes are nice
like the startup focus bug - but that one should have been fixed in the first maintenance update. Keeping it in SketchUp for a whole year (or more) was a big disregard of the people who startup SketchUp many times a day.
Linestyles maybe are nice too - have to test it - but it was already present in Autocad in 1992 if I remember well - so this feature doesn’t impress anyone in 2019 so no need for the big fuzz.
Displaying the measurements near the tape is a nice but a really minor improvement from a users pov.
Not impressed nor excited by:
The startup screen - some clients will giggle. They already wonder why I’m not using Revit - some regard SketchUp as a toy and the heart shape isn’t helping. So that screen will be disabled asap so wasted effort imho.
Unlimited cloud space - me and my clients don’t want their (confidential) data in your cloud.
The subscription model is just another step into what every big company is doing - and one of the reasons people years ago moved from [unnamed company] to SketchUp and open source alternatives. Good for corporate but not anything the users have been asking for. The way you bury the classic option on your sales screen is also a sign to me where the company’s focus is these days.
I noticed you still can’t add two icons next to each other in the LargeToolSet or you will get 3 columns and much wasted space… The UI really needs some attention - I use many plugins and I would like to have a clean interface so custom dropdowns and not wasting space would be a nice fix. Maybe in v2020…sigh…
Booleans still mess up the uvs of the objects… Will have to have another look at commercial plugins and see how to integrate their commands in my custom plugins.
You can’t switch accounts anymore so until your support merges my accounts I wont have access to a few commercial plugins. Would have been nice if this was communicated a while ago so all was done by now.
Will keep testing 2019 in a new project and will see how it goes but until then - meh - sorry but not much for me to get much excited about.
I hope this doesn’t come to pass, as we’ve been much better supported as a team by Trimble than we were at Google.
I certainly support you using whatever the best tool is for your work. Typically discussed options for this are either Blender (if what you really want SketchUp to be like is a big rendering/animation package like Maya) or Fusion360 (if what you really want SketchUp to be like is a big MCAD package like Solidworks). Maybe you have something else in mind?
There are some overlapping semantics here, but I have been making the basic argument that SketchUp Pro classic ($695+120/yr) is more expensive than SketchUp Pro ($299/yr) for the first three years of use. If you add in the additional value of the other stuff we’re including with the SketchUp Pro subscription, the break-even is much farther out, though folks typically discount this in their estimations.
I see it differently, of course- you are free to cancel a subscription at any time, which means we have to win your business every year. If we haven’t, you are always free to leave us for something better. On a perpetual model, we just have to convince you to buy once to satisfy our business model.
Yeah, we can go on for days on what you think is important versus what I think is important. There are features in SketchUp I never use. Should they just go away? I literally never open Layout. But, I pay for it each year.
You are correct, I did state Dale’s Bool Tools product was better than the internal boolean math done by the SU team. It just proves my point how lame SU’s booleans are. Check out https://kit-ops.com to see what real boolean tools are capable of in other poly modelers. No way SketchUp could ever compete.
I’ve seen the Maintenance and Support (M&S) plan discussed here ($120/year), but did SketchUp ever call it that? On their current price sheet it’s called an “annual upgrade”. Does SketchUp offer any “support”? Did they issue any “maintenance” releases last year? It’s been argued that the subscription plan is really a better value…
…but this presumes that if you have “classic” (I’m really starting to hate that word), you are also paying the annual $120 support/maintenance/upgrade fee. But why would I do that? Is there any support or maintenance provided? Why not just pay the $120 when a needed upgrade comes along? This is my first year actually owning Pro, so maybe I’m missing something. But I think all I’m really going to get between now and this fall from the “support plan”–or whatever it’s called–is the SU 2019 upgrade (sigh). Am I missing some featured-ladened services that I could be using?
