Google Data

Our Project Spectrum team has been lucky to form a number of great new relationships over the last couple of years. One of the most rewarding has been getting to know the folks at Easter Seals. (I have to admit that most of my Easter Seals associations…

Those of you who use SketchUp with 3ds Max 2010 are in luck; the folks over at Autodesk have created a nice importer that should make your life just a little bit easier. They’ve even made a lovely video to show it off:The new SketchUp import capabiliti…

We were happy as clams when we heard from David Mares earlier this week. You might remember David as the winner of the People’s Prize in the Design It: Shelter Competition we ran with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation last year. His entry “CBS

Heads up to all you woodworkers out there: Tim Killen, a contributor to Fine Woodworking.com’s Design-Click-Build blog has just released a brand new PDF e-book: Google SketchUp Guide for Woodworkers.Tim has been a big advocate of 3D design in the woo…

Friday, October 1st marked the closure of our SketchUp Questions and Ideas Series. We want to thank everyone who participated; whether you provided an idea or a vote, we’re incredibly excited that you contributed. In the last month, 643 people have s…

When we launched Google Building Maker on October 13th of last year, folks could build models in 50 cities on 3 continents, and Building Maker was available in 14 languages. During the past year, Building Maker’s coverage has grown to 101 cities on 6…

Leave it to me to over-complicate things.Last week, I was shopping for a new sofa online. I found a few that look promising, but I wanted to know how each would fit in my living room. I’ve already modeled my whole house, so all I needed was a model of …

Zillions of people around the world use Esri’s ArcGIS software to manage, analyze and display their geographic data. Over the last few years, lots of these folks have had to jump through hoops to get their SketchUp models into Esri’s ArcGIS as mult…

Most people don’t know that almost every single one of the tool icons in both SketchUp and LayOut was created in SketchUp and/or LayOut – by our own John Bacus, no less. Tool icons that look 3D (like Push/Pull, Tape Measure and Paint Bucket) are al…

The following is from Brandon Walsh of Robertson+WalshDesign. A new SketchUp Pro user, Brandon provides some outstanding documents, all created in LayOut, showing the power of the software and the advantage it gives him due to its seamless integration …

Our friends at Alan Mascord Design Associates have provided four of their home designs – created in SketchUp – to the new website of window and door manufacturer JELD-WEN. The designs, featured on the website’s homepage, serve as the starting point f…

It’s a fact that people who use SketchUp also use other tools; we live in a multi-app universe, and I like it that way. Figuring out what program to use for what, and when, and how to move data between them is the tricky part. And that’s why blogs …

It’s been three weeks since we began collecting your SketchUp Questions and Ideas and we’re excited about all you have dreamed up! You may have noticed John Bacus, SketchUp’s product manager has been actively responding to the top ideas each day,…

Sunil Pant uses SketchUp (along with lots of other tools) to create some really beautiful concept art for movies and games. We ran into him at SIGGRAPH this year, and thought we’d ask him a few questions. Where did you grow up and where do you live …

I have a serious love/hate relationship with photo-realistic rendering. I’m completely intrigued by the drop-dead gorgeous images I come across every day, but I’m terrified by the prospect of ever having to produce any myself. Simply put, rendering see…