The Future of SketchUp (Survey Results Added!)

SketchUp
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Hi everyone!

I’m putting together a list of the most-requested features SketchUp users want to see—and I’d love your input!

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about modeling tool requests (SketchUp Modeling Tool Feature Requests (Modeling Tools Only!)), and now I’m hoping to collect more widespread feedback from the community.

If you’ve got 30 seconds or a minute, please take a moment to vote in this quick poll:

www.theSketchUpEssentials.com/Poll

I’ll be sharing the results with both the SketchUp team and the community, so this is a (hopefully) great chance to help shape the future of the software we all rely on.

Thanks so much in advance!

– Justin

EDIT: Thanks so much to everyone that filled out the survey! Here’s my summary video of the results of this survey!

Summary - Top 6 Requests (My Takeaway)

  1. Layout Performance and Tool Improvements
  2. Native Bevel / Chamfer / Filet Tool
  3. Advanced Architectural Modeling Tools (Walls, Doors, Windows, etc)
  4. Section Cut Fills (Hatching, preferably vector)
  5. Dark Mode
  6. Artificial Lights in the New Render Engine
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Update / Results Preview -

So far, I’ve got 571 responses back to the poll, which is awesome! I’m really hoping to get over 1,000 responses to have a really strong sample size.

Top 3 most requested features at this point?

Layout Improvement and Optimization
Bevel Tool
Advanced Architectural Modeling Tools (Walls, Doors, Etc)

I’m going to do a video on the results in a few weeks, but I’ll be interested to see if these features remain in the top 3!

Thanks to everyone that has voted so far!

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Asking for clarity on this type of thing.
You have 571 responses but only 98 thread views and 40 link clicks.
So I assume you have this poll working somewhere else.
All good if you have, just looking for Truth in advertising these days.

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Interesting - the vast majority of traffic to that poll is coming from this video on my YouTube channel. Trying not to be more self-promotion…y than I need to be here in the forum.

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Ok, that makes sense, but it does mean it is currently more a youtube poll than a Sketchup poll. Equally valid but in these days those that yell the loudest seem to win despite the polls. And it can just be a case of dueling followers.

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How so? It was posted on a SketchUp focused YouTube Channel whose audience is pretty much all SketchUp users. I doubt the algorithm is showing it to people that haven’t indicated SOME sort of interest in SketchUp in the past by watching related videos (which usually indicates current or former users), and people that don’t use the program wouldn’t really be incentivized to fill out the poll.

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Sorry I wasn’t trying to be specifically critical, simply pointing out the differences in your stats.
You are giving youtube stats on a webpage that has it’s own stats visible, with a mismatch.

All good I’m sure.

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Ah, I see - not a data validity question. :+1:

It’s about be a bigger mismatch because it’s going out to my email list as well, which will likely lead to a sizable jump.

I did also encourage sharing of the poll link to other audiences, so there will be a number of traffic sources on this one.

I’m trying to get a big enough sample size to get a real, good picture of what people are asking for, rather than trying to bring a bunch of scattered forum posts and YouTube comments together.

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If they would connect to reporting and IFC. Then that would make sense.

Aren’t users trying to convert Sketchup into a BIM app, though?

I wouldn’t mind.

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Lol - “BIM” is such a wide/variable term anymore.

Based on the third place item in the poll (Additional Architectural Modeling Tools), at a minimum it appears like there is a demand for some smarter architectural assembly functions, like doors and windows, but I’m not aware of a massive push to switch to a full BIM state like Revit or something.

I’m going to try to draw some conclusions and put them out there in a couple weeks once the poll closes.

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What were the results of the previous votes and the like? Did Trimble listened even a little bit? All this seems useless to me.

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if you don’t tell them what you want, they’ll never guess and implement it.
if you tell them, they might.
if one person makes a post listing 150 items they want to see implemented, and 20 more people comment the thread into oblivion, the devs might read it.
if you hand them a poll with hundred (thousands?) of answers, it’s still not representative of the millions of users, but it’s closer at least.

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I think what could be interesting is something more like profile builder, for walls and slabs that could report multiple layers in one go and work well with section hatching and IFC classification. Doors and objects, are easier to deal with and we are just missing native multilayer openings.

So, basically what I should do is ask for some requests to Dale…

In relation to your poll.

Don’t forget that, with a multiple choice approach like the one you have, choices are biased to the available options.

I don’t know how you could achieve much better results though.

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Yeah this is where things get tricky - for advanced tools to work, assemblies have to be “smart” enough to know what they are and how they interact with other things (like a wall has to know it’s a wall, and what to do when it runs into a window). The more of this you add, the easier it can be, but the more flexibility you remove from the program.

It’s a balance, and if you go to far one way, you risk removing the “SketchUpy…ness” of SketchUp.

I tried my best to take from the most common requests I’ve seen in YouTube comments, forum posts, discussions, etc, and honestly the results are not that far off of what you would expect so far.

I did leave a box where people could add their own requests as well. I think I’ll try running that through ChatGPT to look for patterns to make sure I’m not missing anything massive.

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I mean…feel free to not vote I guess?

I really believe in this software, and I’m going to do the best I can to help keep pushing for improvements and for the program to go to the next level.

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That’s what I’m talking about. Having a Walls tool, or a window tool, makes no sense in the SU world. What I feel like is that there should be geometry types. Something like we have already:

  • Join a bunch of triangulated faces and soften edges and you get a surface.
  • Weld connected edges and form a curve.
  • Create a non manifold mesh and group it and you have a solid.

These all are measured and reported in a specific way.

  • There could be a way to stacking blocks together and create a multilayer type
  • Thick faces
  • Profile Builder like sweeps or extrusions
  • Array compositions

It wouldn’t matter if they would be walls or fences or slabs or whatever, but these types would know how they would report themselves, how they would be described in Layout tables, how units would be reported from them and so on.

Then IFC could take that into account too.

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@JustinTSE I appreciate you doing this
I would love if there was more integration of native architectural modeling tools and layout improvement/optimization; essentially a more enjoyable version of a basic Revit workflow with schedules, tags, etc.

Perhaps this could be a separate product within the Sketchup Studio family and they could just incorporate and compensate Medeek, Cyen, etc for the great products they’ve made. That way the basic, super open-endedness of Sketchup could be retained. I realize this is all easier said then done but sketchup + extensions feels like constant wheel reinvention/cobbled together. We are constantly finding new and better ways of doing things but are never sure when an extension will cease being supported, doesn’t play well with another extension, etc.

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I’m not sure if I agree with this - when you look at something like FlexTools or Instant Door and Window, they seem to fit in just fine

The way I imagine this is kind of like how Fusion 360 has it - it has a model / toolset for manifold solids, and another toolset that works with non-solid surfaces. I’d say for SketchUp that could be “architectural mode” or something

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I’m not sure we’d need or want another product - I think the time has come for more modeling tools to get added into the toolset, but if nothing else, I think SketchUp should be adding new tools like beveling, etc in the form of official extensions. At that point, if you want a tool? Turn it on. If you don’t? Just unload it.

I think it probably makes more sense to have these tools built in and just accessible through different toolbars than the base modeling tool, but whatever the form is, some things need to be added (in my opinion)

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I know. There are a few modelers that are able to mix all kind of modeling descriptions. Like nurbs with triangulation, subd and solid modeling, parametrics…

What I’m thinking is not actually that, but how any Sketchup object can be described. Architecture uses that, but all disciplines can use it too and Sketchup is 3D for all, so having a doors tool makes sense only in the architectural context. Makes sense to Flextools plugin as it is architectural, but makes no sense for character design unless you’re modeling the environment.

However a wall can be an extruded object, as well as a tree, or an arm, or an object part.
Some objects are stacked, some are extruded, some are composed into assemblies, some are layered diferently, some are arrayed.

I wouldn’t want to use a “Fence” tool to create an array of trees in a street, pearls in a neklace, or a balaustrade. I would want to call it an array and know that the array is going to be a repetition of objects on a path, a grid, or any other kind of distribution. I would like to use the array tool or set them up as an array component and Sketchup would know that component would be an array of objects, report it and, eventually, if I would be an architect, I would tag it as IFC class and export it.

That’s the same with doors and windows, they should be assemblies that will glue and eventually cut holes through objects they are attached to. Ponds, drill holes, bullet holes and whatnot, wouldn’t use the window tool but the hole tool?

Now I’m also not talking about parametrics, only talking about object semantics and how that relates to their base description, reporting and eventually handling or exporting. Just as it happens to solids, surfaces and curves. We could still model them however we see fit, as we do, somewhat, with this kind of objects, but Sketchup would know what those are instead of them being dumb geometry.

This would be, somehow, a natural sketchup language for objects that fit most Sketchup disciplines instead of only architecture.

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