By now you most probably have heard that SketchUp 2014 has been released. There are quite a few great new-feature overviews and reviews out there and I'll suggest you look at the ones linked at the end of this post to get up to speed. For now, I just wanted to show you why the Ruby update in SketchUp 2014 is pretty amazing. Look at this image:
We can now use web requests in our Ruby code!
What is so interesting about the image above? Well - those are images that were loaded from Flickr directly into SketchUp using the now included "net/http" library. Since SU 2014 not only updated Ruby to 2.0 but also included all of the standard libraries, stuff like this is now possible. You can integrate Net functionality much more and create all kinds of interesting mash-ups. To replicate what I did above, copy the following code snippet and either paste it into the Ruby Console (it now accepts...
While Santa is getting settled in his new abode (looks like there is still some construction to do), it is time for me to wish you all wonderful holidays, a relaxing time with your family and friends and all the best for the new year! I hope to meet you, see you, email you or talk to you all again in 2014.
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. As always, SketchUp was heavily used in the making of this picture. Santa came from the 3D Warehouse and yes, those are CLT panels....
As you may have noticed, I have (at least for now) disabled the registration feature on this site. This is mainly due to too many spam registrations.
What is in place (and you can see the buttons on the login form already) is a social register/login feature. This allows you to log in using your existing Facebook, Twitter, Google or Disqus account. Important to know: Everyone who registered on this site before can still log in using their existing login and password but all new registrations must go through one of these services.
I hope this will cut down on the spam registrations and at the same time allow everyone to register. As a nice side benefit, this method doesn't force you to remember any more passwords than you already have....
Anticipated by many and announced last year at 3D Basecamp, SketchUp 2013 is now out and available for download. If you are still using SU 8 (or dare I say even 7 or 6), swing over to their website and download the latest version. The free version is still free and there are upgrade options for the Pro version.
So what's new? Quite a few things. Here's the run-down:
Extension Warehouse
There is finally an official place where you can find the many plugins and extensions that are available for SketchUp (including mine). While all the other sites out there (Ruby Library Depot, SketchUcation, Smustard and even my sketchupplugins.com) did a great job accumulating these, the new warehouse is integrated right into SketchUp (just look for the toolbar button) and it features one-click installation and plugin updating as well as the usual app-store stuff of reviews, popularity stats and hopefully later: ratings.
This might have turned SketchUp into the first CAD application with an App Store!
...
Have you ever wanted to…
make sure you never miss a blog post by the Trimble SketchUp folks?
stay up-do-date with your favorite SketchUp blogs?
follow what’s going on at SketchUcation?
keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook?
make sure you never miss any of my blog posts?
do all of this while you are working with SketchUp?
Then consider yourself lucky! I just posted a SketchUp News plugin that lets you do all of this – right inside SketchUp.
Even if you don’t usually use SketchUp plugins, this is the one to have!
Get your copy at the link below. Oh, and did I mention it is free?
http://www.alexschreyer.net/projects/sketchup-news-plugin/
Enjoy!...
