Trimble’s Scan Essentials is now available in a Studio subscription

SketchUp
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It wasn’t that long ago that we announced the integration of Trimble’s Scan Essentials with SketchUp, and with such a positive response we wanted to make it official. Scan Essentials is now included in a SketchUp Studio subscription! And in case you’re just getting up to speed, Scan Essentials is a Windows-only extension that allows you to import point cloud data from terrestrial scans, mobile mapping, photogrammetry, lidar sensors, and drone captures. This extension supports files such as E57, RWP, LAZ, TZF, PLY, and LAS.

Scan Essentials delivers great value from early on in your design process capturing essential contextual details, such as topography. Enjoy an increase in workflow efficiency and better integration between project work stages with help from these top features:

  • The ability to model directly on the point cloud for precise drawings
  • An intuitive Point Cloud Manager that allows you to adjust color and transparency
  • An Inspection feature that allows you to compare your model against the point cloud
  • A Clipping Box that enables you to can zoom in and focus on specific sections
  • The ability to simultaneously view all your scan data and 3D models in the field
  • An advanced toolbar to help create section views
  • The ability to align scan data with your model
  • The Rotate and Move tool lets you add point clouds with ease
  • The ability to incorporate configurable 3D Warehouse models onto your point cloud, significantly speeding up your modeling process
  • The ability to create 2D documentation from point clouds directly in LayOut

We are super proud to offer this plus all of the other powerful design products in Studio at a very accessible price of $699* for one term — a 40% discount from the retail price! Offer ends July 30, 2021.

To learn how to use it, check out our course in SketchUp Campus, or practice using some sample point clouds. (Note that these samples are large files.)

Let us know how this new update impacts your workflow in the comments.

As a reminder, all new and existing Studio subscribers get full access to Scan Essentials on WindowsOS or Bootcamp on MacOS. To learn more about Studio, check out our product page.

Terms & Conditions

*SketchUp Studio pricing offer is valid through July 30, 2021 11:59 PM MST. Discount only applies to one term of a SketchUp Studio subscription. If you are a current SketchUp Studio subscriber, you can renew at this price for one term only. Not valid on subsequent terms. Offer not valid in Mainland China, Israel, and South Africa. Does not apply to previously placed orders. May not be combined with other offers. Other restrictions may apply.

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I really hope that new Studio package will allow more people to start using point clouds (and laser scanning) in modelling. As this is a great time saver!

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I’m so glad to see that you are advocating for the point cloud in Sketchup workflow! We recognise that 3D-BIM is becoming mainstream and with Scan Essentials, we can able to introduce the workflows to the mass market at a very affordable price point, we are democratising the scanning to modelling market.

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Mac Version Please.

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To all Scan Essential Bootcamp users: try www.bootcampdrivers.com drivers for your AMD graphic card - install at your own risk!
And, if you’ll notice performance improvements (very much likely), donate to that guy who’s behind this useful project.
Unfortunately AMD updates Bootcamp drivers only twice a year.

Scan Essential team, please, start porting RW engine to macOS! :slight_smile:

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Hey, Scan Ess already works on bootcamp ios :slight_smile:

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Hi Olivia, it’s not the same thing.
Bootcamp allows native Windows OS on Apple machines.
We’re asking for a native Scan Essential for macOS

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Olivia, yes, on Bootcamp, however with Apple’s road map away from the intel chipset, Bootcamp is dependent on Microsoft compiling windows for the ARM processor.

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I think this is the point (leaving the migration to M1 aside). If I subscribe to Studio I can reconcile myself begrudgingly to running scan essentials in Bootcamp to get my cloud into SketchUp. But with the current offering I am forced to run SketchUp and V-ray in Bootcamp too? Might as well buy a PC. I understand that Scan Essentials is not ported to Mac, but V-ray is so why not offer a Mac version of Studio?

It’s a cool development don’t get me wrong, just a non starter with many of us. Glad to see new partnerships developing.

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I’ve used scan Essentials on two projects already and it is evolving very fast and Trimble really is aknowledging feature requests. It is really useful and helpful.

We have used it with only with photogrammetry data, from either drones or simple phone cameras and the results you get are great.

Thanks for including it in the subscription!

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What do you recommend for getting the scans? A couple of years ago, I bought a scanner attachment for an iPad, bought an iPad to use it, and never succeeded in getting it to work. I still think this will be the ideal way to get as-built information for a remodel and am very pleased to see the SketchUp team working on it.

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We don’t scan, we do photogrammetry, laser scanning is more accurate, but photogrammetry is enough for us and much cheaper.

As I said we take overlapping shots of the places and interiors which we want to have detailed info.

Drones are used to flyby places and create georreferenced data. Our phones are used for interior data and small spaces or ground shots.

We assemble everything with photo reconstruction software or, ir georreferenced pointclouds are needed we ask our topographer to create them for us.

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Hey haha we are riding the wave of the Scan to BIM and trying to lead in this frontier :slight_smile: Apple introduces Iidar sensor last year in their latest releases, so it makes 3D capture workflow so much easier for all users across the board. Scan Essentials works with PLY file format which is the scanning data you can get through your iPhone 12, iPad Pro, and with a few scanning app like everypoint you can import the PLY file into Sketchup and viewing and modelling in Scan Essentials. Let me know how it goes for you! :grinning: :grinning:

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So I could scan with my apple lidar sensor, and I can run SketchUp and V-ray on my Apple Computer, but I need windows to get that PLY into SketchUp through Scan Essentials. Correct?

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Hey, you run V-Ray on your wins computer as a Studio subscription you will get the V-Ray wins installer. And you can get that PLY file into Sketchup through Scan Essential yes. And for that PLY to be imported to Sketchup, we recommend you to download an app via AppStore called Everypoint :grinning:

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+1 on this. Running it on Windows with Bootcamp is:
a) additional cost (for the windows OS), and
b) a productivity drain. We don’t just use Sketchup on our computers: it’s email, it’s web browsing, photo browser, spreadsheets etc. We need these at our finger tips to be productive in our work.

I used Undet (only on Windows too) like this on Bootcamp, and it is a chore to be switching OS every time. I do not recommend.

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This sounds great, I just started and cant even import my .las file. I made a drone scan in DJI Terra and exported it as a point cloud into a .las file. When I try to import it in Scan Essentials the whole Sketchup crashes. I have a Studio subscription.

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Have you tried to see if you can import other LAS files, such as one of the ‘Sample Point Cloud Data’ provided by Trimble SketchUp?

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I was able to open mats1’s file after converting the points from WGS84 to UTM with las2las | rapidlasso GmbH
When possible the .las file should be exported using a UTM coordinate system.