What does this mean for Sketchup?
Sketchup has been free for many years, which has contributed to it's reputation as one of the most well known 3D modeling programs in the world. With the new that Google has sold it to Trimble for an undisclosed amount of money, a big question is whether or not Sketchup will remain free to its users."For the foreseeable future, Google will host and operate the 3D Warehouse for Trimble and together the companies will continue to offer the same capabilities, functions and services that are offered today. The ability for users to submit 3D Buildings for potential acceptance and viewing in Google Earth will be maintained. Currently the 3D Warehouse has almost two million user-generated models."According to the press release from Trimble, they will continue to work with Google to support the 3D warehouse, and allow submissions to Google Earth. In fact, they plan on keeping the main Sketchup website at http://sketchup.google.com for the foreseeable future.
It is said that much of the personnel on the Sketchup team will continue to work on the program. Whether they will remain Google employees or become Trimble employees is unknown.
What does this mean for the future of Sketchup?
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
Leave a comment below and voice your opinion.
It is good to hear that Trimble is continuing with a free version , I guess I am more interested in the ability to have custom add ons? Will Sketchup still have open the open source back end? Without add on scripts Sketchup is just a good design tool. With custom add ons Sketchup can be all to everyone.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Sketchup FAQ Trimble released (Link in sidebar), they recognize the value of the third party add-ons and will continue to support the developer community with Sketchup. I agree, The custom add-ons make Sketchup a very versatile tool.
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