Thank you to everyone who responded to the feedback survey we’ve had running in Add Location for the past few months. We’ve listened to the feedback, and addressed the key issues you’ve raised.
Here’s a recap of the survey feedback from the SketchUp community.
You want better resolution satellite imagery.
You don’t want to pay for satellite imagery on top of your subscription price.
You want to import larger areas of map.
The current workflow is clunky; it takes too many clicks to get the map image imported.
In response, we’ve made changes to Add Location, and are now excited to introduce:
New satellite imagery from Microsoft Bing. This imagery is substantially higher in resolution than the current offering, and includes global coverage. Available for all Pro, Studio and Edu subscribers at no added cost.
Nearmap will no longer be offered because it is not beneficial to the majority of users’ workflows. This will cease being available at the end of October 2022.
Tile count is now the basis for the maximum area downloadable. This will allow much larger areas of lower resolution maps to be imported in one go, simplifying the workflows for users.
The overall workflow has been tidied up to require less clicks and communicate what is going on more clearly. The tour has been replaced with clear links to help articles, which have been rewritten.
But, we’re not stopping there. We know there’s more feedback and we are actively working on additional enhancements. Please keep providing feedback via the survey in Add Location. We look forward to chatting with you all about how to make Add Location even better for your workflows.
This one is from near the Minneapolis airport. I can zoom right in to max zoom and get High res just fine. So evidently the results are variable depending upon the location.
Thanks! The provider is Microsoft Bing. We appreciate all feedback and it’s helpful to hear when people have to downgrade zoom or where they cannot get data (hopefully nowhere!).
Of course I started with where I am sitting now, in a small village in Central Finland, and the imagery is even worse than DigitalGlobe. Low resolution and mostly filled by clouds. Big disappointment.
I’m sorry to hear that. In the short term we are also working on a support article and videos to show users how to obtain their own satellite imagery and use it to make the Add Location terrain map.
At least that way there will be a work-around for users studying locations that still do not have content that meets their needs.
Tried to get some data in Halmstad Sweden and at the high resolution, it loads in the texture with the crossed-over camera. Changing it to medium works.
I assume this is simply due to a higher resolution not being available in the area but from a user experience standpoint, I should not be able to choose the high resolution if that is the case. That just makes the experience frustrating.
Fingers crossed that that can be added in the future.
I look forward to checking this out…is it in a current update or 2023?
I was just getting into using Nearmap! Its a fantastic resource but takes ages for a larger company like ours to adapt workflows, payments, discuss with clients, check liabilities, etc.
I dont mind subscribing to the nearmap service but can we please have some way of adding nearmap images directly into sketchup? An extension would be fine.
Can Open Streetmap be incorporated, somehow, too? Aerials are great but maps are pretty handy, as well; (especially ones with legal property boundaries).
