As you may have seen on social media or the SketchUp Blog, this year's version of the desktop (Pro) version just got an update (2023.1). Here's what's new and noteworthy from my perspective:
New icons. Given the use of new icons in the web and the iPad apps, this was definitely coming, so it should not be a surprise for anyone. While the old icons had a great run, this visual refresh was overdue.
TIP: If you feel nostalgic for the old icons and want to keep them around (e.g. for a future craft project), go to the C:\Program Files\SketchUp\SketchUp 2023\Images folder and save all of the svg files somewhere before upgrading SketchUp to the latest version.
Snaps. This is a very interesting feature because it allows you to set up snaps on objects (groups or components). Those then allow you to join those groups in an aligned fashion in one operation instead of copy-move-rotate placements. One example for where this is helpful...
I am very excited to be announcing the release of the third edition of my book “Architectural Design with SketchUp”! You can as of now find this new edition on Amazon, Wiley and everywhere else where books are sold. It is available as full-color paperback and e-book editions.
Since the publication of the second edition in 2015, many changes have happened to SketchUp and in the larger realm of architectural software: Trimble introduced a web version of SketchUp as well as an iPad version that has proven very popular. Real-time rendering options have increased in availability, and point cloud modeling is now often used on renovation projects. Beyond that, many new extensions have been published, others have gone away or have been replaced with built-in functionality, and their underlying Ruby engine has received new and updated capabilities. All of these changes made an update to the second edition necessary, which led to me thoroughly editing and rewriting the entire text. I updated screenshots...
AI can create a box from a text prompt and even show a completion message
Just like everyone else these days I have been trying out OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Bing (which now also uses the same AI - artificial intelligence - engine). One of my lines of exploration (beyond "what does this thing know about me?") was the question whether it can auto-generate SketchUp Ruby code with AI. And - as it turns out - it can do that. Albeit with some caveats.
As a start, you can go to ChatGPT and (after signing up) ask a reasonably specific question like "Which Ruby code would draw a box in SketchUp?". That would spit out somewhat appropriate code that you can just paste into e.g. the Ruby Code Editor. Apparently the SketchUp API is part of its knowledge base and generating SketchUp-specific Ruby code is thus well within its grasp. You could even refine the query with a comment like "Isn't there...
The Trimble folks have just released the 2023 version of SketchUp. As always, you can learn more about new and improved functionality in their blog posts and the YouTube channel.
I am quite excited about the new Revit importer (see image above for an example) because it allows for improved coordination and rendering workflows with Revit. It loads and converts models reasonably fast and even inserts various plan sections. Now if we could also have a way to easily export from SketchUp to Revit that includes creating native system families (walls, floors,...) where appropriate. IFC only goes so far...
Another great new tool is the Flip functionality, which lets you mirror objects in any orientation. This was of course already possible with extensions and via the "-1" scale-factor trick, but it is now implemented in a more comfortable way that also makes this functionality usable on the iPad and web versions.
This version also includes some future-focused core program improvements like a new...
You can interact with the 3D model here.
To my readers, friends and colleagues:
I wish you and your loved ones a peaceful and joyous holiday season, a Merry Christmas (to those that celebrate it), and a healthy, happy, and successful new year 2023! A little bit more peace on earth would also go a long way!
Cheers,Alex
P.S.: As usual, I modeled everything in SketchUp. This is indeed my (messy) handwriting that I captured on an iPad, then vectorized it, and then pulled into SketchUp via DXF. Want to see how I did this? I'll post a video soon to sketchupfordesign.com and my YouTube channel.
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