SketchUp 2015: Partner Reference Guide
What is this Doc?
This is an partner guide to the SketchUp 2015 release, not web copy. While elements of this document may be used for marketing copy, this document is for internal consumption only.
Questions, Think we’re missing something? Email , or
What is this Doc?
SketchUp 2015: Key Themes
SketchUp 2015: Naming Conventions
SketchUp 2015: The Details
Performance
New and enhanced tools
Information Modeling
Miscellaneous Projects
3D Warehouse
What is Trimble Connect?
How SketchUp Pro 2015 Licensing works
Single-user licenses
Enterprise licensing on a network
Answering tough questions about SketchUp 2015
64 Bit and OS Support
Licensing
Information Modeling
Extension Warehouse
SketchUp Make and Commercial Use
SketchUp 2015: Key Themes
Think of these as the big stories of the release. Not all stories are relevant to all audiences. For instance, SketchUp 2015 licensing changes aren’t that important to a sole proprietor architect, but they are a pretty big deal to an IT manager deploying 100 licenses of SketchUp Pro.
SketchUp is a modeling, documentation and communication platform. Emphasis on platform. This means we spend just as much time making SketchUp smoother and faster as we spend adding features to it. It may not sound sexy, but we think it’s important to consider SketchUp’s technical infrastructure and plan for the future. With SketchUp 2015, we’re proud to share that we’ve upgraded SketchUp’s performance infrastructureso the people and programs using SketchUp can operate faster and more reliably.
When we add new tools to SketchUp, we want to make them feel like you’ve been using them all along. We are proud to say that SketchUp 2015 features three enhancements that work just this way. For example, Rotated Rectangle is an axis independent way to draw rectangles. Give it a try -- we think it will remind you of the first time you ever made a face in SketchUp.
SketchUp is for information modeling. What’s that mean anyway? We’ve always considered SketchUp to be an information modeler, and we think our last two releases are proof that we are committed to extending SketchUp’s role in building information modeling, in particular. We believe that everyone should be able to participate in information modeling, and we’re one step closer to that fulfilling vision with our Trimble Connect extension. We’re also thrilled to share that is SketchUp now fully compatible with the IFC file type.
Sometimes, releases don’t come wrapped up in a tidy package. We did a ton of work in and around SketchUp in this release, so our final theme is a “miscellaneous” category. If pressed to describe this category, you’d probably say that we’ve improved the experience of trying, buying, deploying, working, and developing on SketchUp. If they’re still with you, go ahead and talk about the miscellaneous projects in this release.
It’s been two years since we joined the Trimble family. We think that our most loyal users will say that things are going pretty well. We also think that SketchUp is more integrated than ever with the Trimble technology. Scanning data into SketchUp. Check. Turning GPS aware photographs into 3D models? Check. Collaborating on complex building projects through Trimble Connect? Yup, now you can do that too.
SketchUp 2015: Naming Conventions
There are lots of product names and sub-brands involved in SketchUp 2014. Here’s how to keep things straight.
SketchUp 2015 is the name of the release. When we talk about all the new things we introduced in November 2014, we refer to this bundle of updates as SketchUp 2015.
SketchUp Pro 2015 and SketchUp Make are the names of the two core products in this release. So, when we talk about a product that someone should download, use, or buy, we refer to it as one of these.
LayOut, 3D Warehouse, Extension Warehouse, and Style Builder are sub-brands and products that live underneath the umbrella of the SketchUp brand. We promote and market these to people who are already familiar with core SketchUp products.
SketchUp 2015: The Details
What’s new in SketchUp 2015? Feast your feature hungry eyes on this section.
Performance
64-bit operating systems
In this release, we’ve updated the SketchUp engine to run as a 64-bit application on both PC and Mac operating systems. What does this mean, anyway? The least nerdy way to explain it is that 64-bit allows for more bandwidth between SketchUp and your computer’s active memory. Theoretically, the 64-bit version of SketchUp should have a better working relationship with your 64-bit computer.
Don’t have a 64-bit machine? We’re still offering a 32-bit versions in this release, but we no longer offer support for Windows Vista and XP operating systems. Learn more about that here.
Fast Styles
Styles are an incredibly powerful (and fun) feature in SketchUp, but very few SketchUp users understand that style choices heavily affect modeling speed. We went ahead and badged those styles that help SketchUp operate smooth and fast. Specifically, Fast Styles are those that don’t require much input from your computer’s graphics card. You can learn more about Fast Styles (and how to create your own) on the SketchUp Knowledge Center.
Face Finder improvements
In this release, we’ve mined and optimized the code for Face Finder, one of the core under-the-hood operations that make SketchUp’s magic possible. Face Finder is the code that runs whenever SketchUp automatically creates a face from coplanar edges. Think for a second about how often that happens. When we tested this sharpened code on large models, we found big performance improvements in operations like explode and intersect.
New and enhanced tools
Rotated Rectangle
For a few years now, we’ve hosted a wildly useful, but not wildly popular Rotated Rectangle extension. This tool allowed you to draw non-90 degree rectangles on the ground. The folks who used this tool found it extremely handy, so we decided to build it into SketchUp with some significant enhancements. SketchUp 2015’s official Rotated Rectangle tool lets you draw off-axis rectangles at any angle (and not necessarily on the ground). Give it a try: we bet it’ll make you feel like you’re using SketchUp for the very first time again.
3 Point Arc
Who said SketchUp only does boxes? With the addition of a 3 Point Arc tool, there are now four different ways to draw arc’d edges in SketchUp. This new arc tool lets you defines an arc bulge via the arc’s end point. If you’re trying to set an exact intersection along the path of your arc, this tool is for you. In contrast, the good ole’ 2 Point Arc tool asks you to choose two points and then define bulge by the midpoint. The point is, now your arcs are up to you.
Two-segmented label leaders in LayOut (Pro)
We are nerds for labels. Not only do we find them thoroughly useful for documenting and detailing LayOut documents, they’re also thoroughly fun to place and draw. In this release, we’ve tinkered with labels so that it’s just as easy to draw (and align) clean two-segment label leaders as it is to draw curved ones. Click once to start a label-segment, click a second time to kink your leader. Or click and hold on the second click to curve your label. The good old one-segment label leader? Click, double-click. Got it?
Information Modeling
IFC Import and Classifier enhancements (Pro)
This is the second release in a role that we’ve beefed up SketchUp Pro’s capabilities for participating in information modeling. This time around, we’ve added an IFC import, so now it’s possible to exchange information models between SketchUp and other “BIM” applications in both directions. This is a big deal and another proof point of our belief that your data belongs to you.
Classifier Improvements
We’ve also sharpened the Classifier tool: adding the ability to generate a report by classification. Additionally, our Classifier tool now lets you designate IFCBuilding and IFCBuildingStory components and have them preserved on export.
LayOut’s smart labels (Pro)
Placing labels in LayOut isn’t just more fun in this release, it’s more useful too. Now when you reference a model in LayOut, the Label tool lets you choose what meta-data to auto-populate in the text. Component definitions, information modeling classifications, area calculations, and more are now easily accessible in LayOut’s smart labels. And just like model geometry, updating the reference in your LayOut file now updates the underlying meta-data displayed in labels.
Miscellaneous Projects
30-day trial period
You read that right: every new SketchUp download starts with a 30-day trial of all the features in SketchUp Pro, including LayOut and StyleBuilder. We used to give people 8 hours of active use, but we think 30 days gives our highest involved users more of a chance to learn the magic of SketchUp Pro.
SketchUp Licensing (Pro)
If you talk to customers, there’s a whole section in this doc on licensing that you should probably read. If you’re just curious, we changed licensing so that any Pro license works on both Mac and PC operating systems. And if you’re deploying SketchUp licenses on a large enterprise network we made your life a lot easier with our server-based license system.
The Trimble Connect extension for SketchUp
Fresh off Trimble’s acquisition of Gehry Technologies and GTeam, we’re linking SketchUp to Trimble Buildings’s new collaboration platform, Trimble Connect. We’ve accomplished this integration through an extension that lets SketchUp users upload, pull down, and update SKP’s from Trimble Connect project folders on the cloud. As you’re modeling you can even pull in and update reference SketchUp models as if they were locally hosted components. The Trimble Connect extension for SketchUp (available in the Extension Warehouse at launch) will let you sign up for and sign into a Connect account, but you’ll be buying it from Trimble directly, not SketchUp. Every SketchUp user is eligible for 30-day free trial, so find the extension in the Extension Warehouse and give it a go! Here’s some more required reading about Trimble Connect, how it works, how it’s sold, etc, etc.
V10
Imagine Match Photo on steroids and you’ve got our SketchUp integration with Trimble’s V10 imaging rover (as well as Trimble Business Center). Essentially V10 is a super camera that marries gps aware photographs with scanning technology. This integration lets you bring multiple site photographs into SketchUp, and then automates the generation of vanishing lines via SketchUp’s Match Photo workflow. From there, you’re all set to use site photographs to generate model geometry.
MEP Designer for SketchUp (isnot launching just yet!)
Our colleagues at MEP are launching an adaptation of the good old 3skeng suite for SketchUp to help mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) professionals draw in 3D too. There’s a lot in this extension, but it turns out it’s not launching when we launch, so we won’t be talking about it right away.
Other LayOut enhancements
We’ve made some other enhancing tweaks to LayOut that we think you’ll enjoy. Most notably, we’ve improved pages and layers so that you can select multiple pages and multiple layers at the same time, thus controlling visibility of object across multiple pages. Also, LayOut is a lot smarter about loading vector and hybrid renderings that you aren’t actually using, making your entire document work a bit faster. We’ve also added Spell Check on Windows 8 machines -- we’ve got your back!
Extension Warehouse eCommerce (isnot launching just yet!)
We can now sell extensions in Extension Warehouse! Unfortunately, we don’t have any partners onboarded to our eCommerce platform yet. But we’re excited to get going and hope to introduce this capability to the SketchUp community as soon as we can.
3D Warehouse
3D Warehouse doesn’t have any features tied to this release (by design). But there’s a lot that’s new since the revamped Warehouse launched earlier this year. By the time SketchUp 2015 launches this year, we’ll be happy to share that:
We’ve improved our WebGL viewer, adding camera controls and animated transitions. We also fine tuned nav controls, and improved our success rate for rendering uploaded models for orbiting on the web.
We’ve completely rebuilt our rating systems and introduced a like-based rating system for models and collections. We think this new method for signaling model quality makes 3D Warehouse a more useful and friendly place.
A ton of great Product Catalogs have been added, including Bosch, Sherwin-Williams, and Gaggenau. You can find more Featured Product Catalogs highlighted on the 3D Warehouse homepage, and be sure to keep an eye on the 3D Warehouse Twitter feed, as new collections of real-world, high quality models are being uploaded all the time. Know a building product manufacturer who should have their catalog on 3D Warehouse? Tell them to contact us here and feel free to send them the3D Warehouse Media Kit.
We also added Featured Artists and Featured Collections strips on the 3D Warehouse homepage, so we’re spotlighting phenomenal user content as well. Know a modeler or collection you think we should spotlight? Please feel free to nominate featured models, collections or artists using this super fun and easy form.
3D Warehouse Collections are way better. We now auto-generate thumbnails for collections and also let you upload a custom thumbnail. Collection owners can organize their models and see how many times a collections has been viewed as well.
What is Trimble Connect?
Trimble Connect is the Trimble Buildings online collaboration platform. Think of it like a private 3D Warehouse, just for building project assets. Upload SKP’s, DWG’s, DXF’s, PDF’s and share with team members. Trimble Connect is built off the GTeam platform, meaning that it enables sharing, reviewing and commenting in a web browser.
Alongside the SketchUp 2015 launch, we’re providing an extension that links your SketchUp models to Trimble Connect. Using the Trimble Connect extension users will be able to:
●Sign-up for and sign-in to a Trimble Connect account
●Publish, download,and update SketchUp models hosted on Trimble Connect.
●Access and update reference models from Trimble Connect (which is kind of like importing a component model, then reloading it.)
Trimble Connect is rolling out across the entire Trimble Buildings portfolio of products. That means that SketchUp, Tekla, Vico, MEP customers can all upload and pull-down projects from Trimble Connect. From our point of view, this is the first time that design-build stakeholders have had a shared workspace.
Users will sign-up for Trimble Connect by creating a Trimble account. Trimble Connect starts with a free trial that gives you one project workspace to tinker with. From there, customers can purchase Trimble Connect direct through GTeam. At this point, we don’t sell Trimble Connect through the SketchUp store.
How SketchUp Pro 2015 Licensing works
When in doubt, send anyone/everyone to our license wizard: sketchup.com/license/wizard
Single-user licenses
For customers with a single-user license of SketchUp Pro, here are the high points.
●If you’ve purchased anything from a SketchUp partner in the last year -- a new SketchUp Pro license or a renewal of your Maintenance & Support plan -- you should receive an email SketchUp Pro 2015 license shortly after launch. If you don’t see your new license in your email, you cam look up your 2015 license using our wizard.
●If it’s been more than a year since you’ve bought anything from SketchUp, you’ll need to enroll in or renew a maintenance & Support plan to upgrade your license for SketchUp Pro 2015. You can do this using our License Wizard.
●SketchUp Pro 2015 licenses now allow you to use SketchUp Pro on either a Mac or a PC. No more transfer fee for switching operating systems! Just like always, you can authorize your SketchUp Pro on up to two machines, but you can only operate that license on one machine at a time. New licenses will have a serial number that ends in an “R” to indicate “Reprise.” Sub-2015 licenses that are upgraded to 2015 will keep the OS-specific letter: “W” or “m”
●SketchUp downloads now start with a 30 day trial of SketchUp Pro. Our trial period used to be 8 hours of active use; we’re excited to give users more time to try out everything we have to offer.
Network Licenses
For customers with a network license for SketchUp Pro, here are the high points.
●License management now happens in the cloud! This is huge - no more creating a shared folder on a local server. There’s a number of redundancy and backup systems in place so that customers shouldn’t encounter an outage.