Today Trimble officially announced their new SketchUp 2013 product line. Yesterday Architosh found the new SketchUp 2013 website prior to the company’s official announcement and wrote about is twin themed update.
Besides renaming the free version of SketchUp to SketchUp Make, the biggest changes to SketchUp 2013 are centered on plugins, extensibility and LayOut. The new release includes several improvements to SketchUp Pro’s 2D documentation capabilities, including enhanced vector drawing tools, faster rendering and zooming, and customizable hatching styles. These updates make SketchUp Pro more powerful, precise and customizable for detailing, dimensioning and organizing models in professional documents.
SketchUp Pro 2013 doesn’t appear to contain any new major features on the 3D modeling side of the equation, but rather focuses on its integration and compatibility with other products, including Trimble’s other AEC offerings.
01 – Extension Warehouse, a view from within the new SketchUp 2013. The window provides searching, browsing and previews, including video of various plugin extensions for SU 2013.
Extension Warehouse
As part of this reach into the deeper app eco-system, Trimble SketchUp 2013 contains a new Extension Warehouse. (see image 01 above). The Extension Warehouse makes it easier than ever for users to search, find and install SketchUp extensions. As developers begin using the Extension Warehouse to manage, market and support their extensions, SketchUp users can expect to have easy access to more and more task-specific tools.
02 – Installing SketchUp 2013 is easy. The free version is now named SketchUp Make 2013.
“We may have changed companies, but our commitment to delivering smart and efficient design tools is stronger than ever,” said John Bacus , director of SketchUp product management at Trimble. “We noticed that a big percentage of our professional users were using plugins, so part of making SketchUp more efficient is making it easier for them to find the tools they need, when they need them. We often say that SketchUp is better off because of the work done by our developer community—now, SketchUp users are better off too.”
SketchUp Pro and SketchUp Make are available now. Additional information and downloads are available at:www.sketchup.com.
Architosh Analysis
We wanted to point out very clearly that there are three (3) products for users with SketchUp 2013. There is SketchUp Make 2013, the free version of SketchUp. There is SketchUp Pro 2013 the paid complete version. And there is SketchUp Viewer. All of these are available on both Mac and Windows, and as you can read on Architosh’s comments here, the company is very committed to Apple’s Mac platform long-term. That is certainly great news for longtime Mac-based SketchUp users who may have wondered initially about their software of preference when Trimble purchased SketchUp from Google.
The Extension Warehouse certainly makes it very easy to find ways to extend the usefulness of SketchUp Pro. And it makes it clear just how big of a “platform” SketchUp has become worldwide. It is also clear that the name change for the free version aligns Trimble to defend its market share in the expanding “makers market.”