Marg SketchUp

Easy to use 3d modeling software that's being ruined by Trimble.

I paid for sketchup pro which was advertised with a set of features. One feature was the "add location" tool which allows you to geolocate and pull in google earth imagery and terrain data. I just discovered that Trimble disabled this feature in the version I bought and the only way I can get the feature back is to pay them more money! This is robbery. Plain and simple.

If you bought a car with navigation and then a year later you go to use the nav and it says "we're sorry, you can't use this anymore. Please contact us". When you contact the dealer they tell you that you have to pay more money to use the nav. If a car manufacturer did that there would be a class action lawsuit in no time flat.

They offer ZERO solutions for this problem other than paying them more money which is NOT going to happen. They should have offered people who had the older version a free one time upgrade to the version that has that feature. Instead, their response is, sorry, those features don't work now. Complete and utter bs.

Honestly, don't give them your money. They're greedy and evil.

One of the business problems I used to solve when the tool I bought actually worked the way it was sold to me as, was I could pull in geo data for the location of the project I'm working on. As of now, they disabled my ability to solve that problem and actually created more problems for my business. Thanks trimble you greedy A$$ hats.

PROS & CONS

What are the best aspects of this product?

Easy to use 3d modeling tool. Quickly create models, images etc. for illustration purposes.

What aspects are problematic or could work better?

I paid for sketchup pro which was advertised with a set of features. One feature was the "add location" tool which allows you to geolocate and pull in google earth imagery and terrain data. I just discovered that Trimble disabled this feature in the version I bought and the only way I can get the feature back is to pay them more money! This is robbery. Plain and simple.

If you bought a car with navigation and then a year later you go to use the nav and it says "we're sorry, you can't use this anymore. Please contact us". When you contact the dealer they tell you that you have to pay more money to use the nav. If a car manufacturer did that there would be a class action lawsuit in no time flat.

They offer ZERO solutions for this problem other than paying them more money which is NOT going to happen. They should have offered people who had the older version a free one time upgrade to the version that has that feature. Instead, their response is, sorry, those features don't work now.

What features/services would you like to see in future versions of this product?

How about keep the features that you sell to people functioning for the life of the product for starters?

What specific problems in your company were solved by this product?

One of the business problems I used to solve when the tool I bought actually worked the way it was sold to me as, was I could pull in geo data for the location of the project I'm working on. As of now, they disabled my ability to solve that problem and actually created more problems for my business.

Are you a current user of this product?

Yes

I like the simplicity of modeling in SketchUp. It is incredibly easy to draw lines, make shapes, and turn them into forms. I find SketchUp to be great for simple massing studies. There is also a good amount of content readily available online, if someone like myself is using the software and does not want to create components themselves.

I dislike many things about SketchUp, but so many others in my firm and profession love this program so I may be an anomaly. While it is a simple program to learn, there are many complexities in using this program efficiently. Things that are easier to model are no problem, but I find it faster to model more complex things in other programs. I also do not like the grouping mechanisms as I also find these inefficient and frustrating to use.

My firm utilizes SketchUp for many renderings. It is a great program to quickly model and get 3D views to our clients. The renderings can range from being on the "sketchier" side to being a more finished product.

What do you like best?

What do you dislike?

What do you like best?

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