Upcoming Change to Add Location

My post was clearly not “off topic”, “spam”, or “inappropriate”. I did not use foul or abusive language. Rather, I pointed out Trimble’s deceptive method of getting people to pay for an upgrade. I further pointed out that Trimble has breached its contract with users who paid for a license to use SketchUp, along with the full functionality they had reasonable come to expect based on their past course of dealing with it and the language in the so called “notice” of a change that falsely suggested that buying an additional upgrade would preserve access to the full featured product.

I am sure there are any number of features in SketchUp that some users use and that some don’t. And apparently the geo location feature is not one you need. But this topic thread addresses a huge problem for a significant number of users who rely greatly on it.

One of my prior seemingly innocuous posts was also flagged for unknown reasons. I guess the idea here is that we want to have a constructive dialog about how to resolve the deficiency in the new imagery. However, I see value in allowing freedom to vent so Trimble can better understand the degree to which this has impacted people. While I felt I had enough notice that something was going to happen, I was truly shocked at the loss in functionality, or at least the degree to which functionality was hampered.

This really seems like an opportunity for a third party to step in with a plugin. I’m disappointed Trimble did not put the word out to developers and have a solution ready for prime time if they were not going to make a reasonable replacement solution available themselves.

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[details=Didn’t say it was (or wasn’t) anything…][quote=“FrankMcIntyre1951, post:220, topic:40953”]
My post was clearly not …
[/quote]

Didn’t say it was (or wasn’t) anything. Just explaining how Discourse engined forums are designed to work.

That does not mean members always properly assign flags.[/details]

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Then Trimble needs to remove the flag from my posts. Especially since there is no disclosure as to who assigned the flag.

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Google deprecated the custom terrain service which was serving terrain to all versions of SketchUp. There’s no public announcement for that because SketchUp is the only product impacted. The fact that service was turned down is part of the reason we can no longer support Add Location in older versions of SketchUp. Another reason we can’t support Add Location in older versions is, Google constructed the feature in a way that violates Google’s own terms of service (funny but true) as well at the standard terms of most other geo data providers. As part of our divesture agreement when we were sold to Trimble, SketchUp was indemnified from violating Google’s terms for 5 years. That protection ends this month. SU 2017’s Add Location is implemented in such a way that it does not violate the terms of service for the providers we are leveraging. While I’m not an attorney (like @FrankMcIntyre1951 who by the way, admitted in a public forum to violating SketchUp Make’s EULA yet continues to threaten to sue Trimble), I’m intimately familiar with the legal aspects of this transition.

There were a few other Deprecated Google products which were mentioned in this thread. The big one was Google Earth Enterprise product. The solution there was to use the open source Cesium platform. And it now sounds like google is open sourcing part of their own GEE platform. ***I want to caution though - Google is still not giving away their map data with derivative rights. They open sourced a platform which developers can use to serve and view geo data those developers own or have rights to. The other product that was deprecated was the Google Earth API..

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@Bryceosaurus, Very good information Bryce! Thank you.

(You realize this thread is creating a lot of QanAs for a FAQ page ?)

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On at least 5 occasions you have made two posts in a row in this thread. Perhaps they are flagged because people consider that flooding. I haven’t flagged any of them myself so I can’t tell for sure if this is the reason but it’s one possible explanation.

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I flagged you even before you disclosed your credentials…

I felt you were behaving like an ‘ambulance chaser’ rather then a genuine user with a issue…

others obviously also had misgivings about your post’s…

john

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This is HORRIBLE news. Not having access to 3d terrain with satellite images will really be a missed feature. Is there any hope of having 3d terrain added later on?

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In what sense can you possibly consider me an “ambulance chaser”. You are apparently not impacted by the degradation of the Add Location feature. But many people are. If you aren’t affected you should stay out of the discussion.

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If you have seen two posts in a row on this thread it is because I am attempting to respond to a comment on the first post. As someone who is new to the forum I may be making technical mistakes in how I post my comments. But the comments themselves are valid complaints about how Trimble has breached its contract with users who paid for a feature that has since been disabled.

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@Juantxo, how do the changes effect Skelion and your user base?

john

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I’m interested to know, too. It seems like this would have a detrimental effect on a lot of plugin developers that use mapping and terrain as a basis for their products. I decided against Skelion because I find it easier/quicker to just use components to place solar modules on roofs, but I did use a number of plugins that are pretty useless now that my workflow has changed. On the other hand, I found a couple of plugins that help with my new workflow.

I would love a plugin that would explode a selected image, group, or component all the way to raw faces and edges, make it all a component, then lock it. That’s it. That’s ALL I want it to do (with a single keyboard shortcut).

You get 3d terrain right now with 2017.

I should have clarified, 3d terrain by using the “get location” tool with the satellite image mapped on the terrain.

Barry,

I have SketchUp Pro 2017 and 3d terrain is not an option. Any tips?

All I can get is a location snapshot.

A quick question, that may be off topic.

Why will this thread automatically close in 14 days while others close 3 months after the last reply?

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How long is this contract with digital globe? I am just asking so I know when I should check back to see if you realized your mistake and went back to google, then I might renew my license.

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Terrain is available in most locations. The one large gap is above 60 deg north latitudes. We currently have no terrain data there but we’re working on sourcing that. People are also finding holes and gaps in the data and we’re working on fixing those issues.

Where exactly are you looking? It would be good to know if you’ve found a hole or if you are outside of our current coverage zone.