Just as soon as Google announced SketchUp 7 we at Architosh were excited to learn more. Chat among ourselves (Tim Danaher especially) was highlighted by a deep understanding to get behind some of the new functionalities in Dynamic Components, easily the most exciting new feature in SketchUp 7 Pro.
A couple of quick emails led to a telephone interview and conversation with longtime SketchUp product manager, John Bacus. John does an excellent job of describing the latest addition to what has become a staple in the architectural world for conceptual modeling.
Discussing SketchUp 7 Pro
AFR: John, first I want to congratulate you guys on quite an amazing update. There are some real impressive features in SU 7.
John Bacus (JB): Thanks, we went dark for quite awhile.
AFR: Yeah, I was really beginning to wonder…but now I see what Google has been working on. The Dynamic Components feature is really quite extensive. Where can users go to learn more about Dynamic Components and how to make sophisticated things like stairs?
JB: There are a couple of places…
The best place we would recommend to learn more about Dynamic Components is to look at other Dynamic Components. We have shipped some with SketchUp 7 Pro and there are others you can find on 3D Warehouse. You can also learn more by watching the YouTube videos on the SketchUp Channel.
SketchUp 7 Pro - Dynamic Component: Google Provided Stair
AFR: Are those on 3D Warehouse produced by Google?
JB: Some are Google-produced and some are by others. Some are by manufacturers, like Marvin Windows. With their windows you can size them to the limits in which they can manufacturer them.
AFR: What about learning more as to the mathematical and logical functions that you see under the Functions tab? Where does one learn how to apply those?
JB: The Help Center has full documentation on those functions. There are also groups of SketchUp users who are actively organizing around learning and sharing knowledge about building Dynamic Components.
Dynamic Components have a sophisticated editing panel
AFR: The new Dynamic Components allow you to set off behaviors (like color changes, et cetera). Can these behaviors be programmed into rendered-out animations or are they only available when interacting with the model in real-time?
JB: I’m not sure that it is possible yet. Theoretically it is possible. We tend to focus on the real time interaction. That is where SketchUp’s strength lies.
AFR: In terms of speed, does SketchUp 7 now sport multi-processor support for OpenGL? Apparently OpenGL has been multi-threaded on the Mac since OS X 10.4.8.
JB: We look for performance tweaks all across the pipeline. It’s a linear process and one with real limits for us because as we evaluate what is possible with the latest hardware GPUs it becomes a sort of ‘frustrating arms race.’ We know that as we take advantage of more powerful GPUs people will just build bigger models and push up against the limits of the program again. Users only ever care about performance when a program gets slow. They never care about it at all when it is fast.
AFR: What about multi-threading the code base? OpenGL has support for threading in OS X. Can you take advantage or not?
BJ: If you imagine a cube and you are navigating around it the problem is not knowing for sure where the user is going to go next. If you know where the user will go you can split the pipeline and have the next frame started for rendering. We can’t make changes to causality. In a predetermined render or animated render sequence causality doesn’t get violated. In real-time interactive rendering it does.
AFR: That is an excellent way to describe the challenge with interactive rendering. So you can only really optimize the linear pipeline?
JB: What matters is the raw performance capability of a single CPU or a GPU. And it depends on what you have going on. If you have shadows calculated that runs off the main CPU. Same for some other things, whereas the GPU otherwise would do everything.
Users have many misunderstandings about multi-processing and with 64-bit support too. We don’t have the intense memory requirements that would benefit us with 64-bit support.
AFR: Why have you decided to bundle LayOut 2 into the price of the SketchUp Pro product versus making it a separate application?
JB: It was like that before except it was beta. I think that is the only difference. Basically we have two product lines as we see it. We have the free SketchUp and we have the SketchUP Pro 7 line and what we are trying to do is pack that out with tools that compliment what people want to do with SketchUp Pro. We hear readers asking for this or that, trying to take their models and present them, annotate them, create sophisticated presentations or use them for construction documents.
The way we see LayOut 2 is between several products. We are between 2D CAD, between Graphics Apps like Illustrator, and Presentation Apps like PowerPoint or Keynote.
AFR: LayOut 2 is really touching on the fringe of a CAD program and SketchUp Pro 7 with its new Dynamic Components is bringing sophisticated parametrics to 3D form making. And now you can add meta data to objects. Whether you want to admit it or not you are evolving SketchUp Pro 7 into a “building information modeling” system (BIM). Is this Google’s back-door approach to entering the BIM market?
JB: We have always said we had no intention in going head-to-head with anybody in the CAD or BIM market. We are not trying to be another BIM. What we want to do is build on our strengths in conceptual design and modeling.
AFR: Can’t third-party developers start building out tools that bring architectural BIM functionality into the SketchUp 7 eco-system? Already we are seeing energy analysis tools compatible with SketchUp models. All you need now is a space object.
JB: IES, Integrated Environmental Solutions has this energy analysis tool. Unfortunately not for the Mac. If you set your building position on the site just so it can determine that your design will be much more green, save more energy, than a change of materials per se. That is incredibly useful to design. That is the type of thing we want to see third-party developers doing to help our users.
AFR: What about a space object? I know that BIM applications need to have one.
JB: What is a space? It’s at least six sides. We can do the energy part with that. The IES plugin calculates energy use from what SU has built into it.
There is also this neat plugin called Synchro, that does building sequencing. There are some amazingly cool things that I can’t talk about yet that third-parties will be doing using the new Dynamic Components technology.
AFR: That sounds exciting…Now why did you throw the sandbox tools into the free version of SketchUp 7 this time?
JB: They were in 6 too but just turned off by default. Actually that is one area where because we did some Ruby API changes and that affected those tools, you will see some performance improvement in the Sandbox tools.
AFR: Is the development cycle going to be this long normally for SketchUp now?
JB: (laughs…) Yes, while we kind of knew that people were thinking that it had to do with Google but the truth is we do a lot of speculative stuff internally, hoping that it will work out and some does and some does not. We have some incredibly smart people helping us from the Google Geo Team and our [SketchUp] team has expanded some. We can’t say when and what will come next but I can say we are already hard at work on it.
AFR: That is a really smart ‘corporate’ answer. Wow…you could work for Apple! (laughs…both John Bacus and Aaron Stein, public relations from Google, were on this call.) Thanks John for taking the time to speak to Architosh.
John Bacus (JB): You are welcome.