Sketchup 7.1 is here!
05 October 2009 by Ash

Okay okay, so I'm a bit late, but the blog is up and running now so better late than never, and what better subject to begin on than the introduction of Google Sketchup 7.1


With many new features its good to see SU 7.1 making some steps in what many will agree is the right direction.


Some of the things we appreciate most about SU 7.1 here at Coastal Concepts are:

  • the ability to render models more efficiently, making it easier to orbit and work on big models with less computing power.
  • A raft of small modifications have been made to make general drawing quicker, and even more intuitive.
  • You can now obtain textures directly from Google Street View

As well as this, the previously under-tooled and under intuitive Layout has been given a raft of useful additions to make it more user friendly and intuitive, its finally becoming a necessary part of the work flow.

Some excellent tools have been added for sharing and collaboration:

  • Sketchup now his import/export features for the COLLADA 3D file format
  • Generating reports, which allows you to obtain a spreadsheet of all the components in your model and their attributes, has been improved too.
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Many additions have been made which you can read about on Google's official site here

For a full breakdown of the changes click here

Here is a good video on youtube showing the changes:

I'm not going to go through and repeat what Google has already said about SU7.1 so click the links above to learn more.

Sketchup is an amazing tool and we believe it has the potential to be a world beater given the right tools and improvement so it is a breath of fresh air to see Google taking more steps in the right direction.

We see the improvements as positive and are extremely glad that .dxf and .dwg support has been continued in SU pro. ATTENTION GOOGLE: Please do not remove this feature.

This may be a perceptual falacy but it seems that SU 7.1 has more 'stall time' when rendering big models. It seems to render faster than before for a period of time, and then consume all processing power for about ten seconds at a time, causing it to temporarily stall, halting work. Has anyone else noticed this or am I losing my mind? Contact me if you have an opinion either way.


Regards,

Ash