Hey, what is up, nation?
In this session we're gonna be talking about
where Sketchup is that, and where it might be going.
Okay, so I actually recorded this video like a few days
before Sketchup 2019 was released.
So there's a little bit of different information now
so I felt like I had to re-record this.
Basically I'm here on Google Trends, which determines
how popular certain topics are on Google.
So it's a good way to indicate how
popular certain topics are.
And you can see here right now we have
Sketchup as a search term in Google Trends.
And you can see that it's not very searched.
And then all of a sudden it spikes up.
This may have been around the time
when the company last software sold it to Google,
or Google acquired it.
And then in 2013 is when Google sold Sketchup to Trimble.
And you can see since then.
And even when Google had it
that there was a decline in the popularity of Sketchup.
Since around 2016 it seems to have been
pretty stable in this area.
And it's just sort of concerning as someone who has
a YouTube video that makes content focused around Sketchup
that it's no longer as popular as it used to be.
And especially with release of 2019
it seems like a lot of people are upset with Sketchup
and the lack of features that have occurred
over this time.
From a financial aspect, I don't know...
you know, obviously here Sketchup was completely free,
when Google owned it.
And then as Trimble acquired it,
it slowly sort of started to phase
the free version of Sketchup out.
In 2017 they announced that that was the last time
that they would be supporting the free desktop version of Sketchup,
which was called Sketchup Make.
So they just had the app version last year in 2018,
and this year they still just have the
free version of Sketchup with the Sketchup app.
But from financial stands, moving away
from a free version of Sketchup may mean
that it's more viable as a product for Trimble.
So as a company, it may be fine.
But it seems odd with Sketchup 2019
that they've added in this new subscription-based model.
Especially within the past few years
I feel like they've really changed how they're selling their product.
They've been moving away
from that free version of Sketchup into paid versions,
and last year they introduced...I think it was called shop,
and I had no idea what that really meant.
And then this year moving to subscriptions it's just...
it also seems confusing in some ways.
And because it's tied to finances,
it makes me believe that they may be
struggling financially to find something that fits
I don't know whether that's for them,
whether they just sort want to jump on the subscription game.
It seems like everyone is moving in that direction.
But I know from looking at a bunch of the comments
that people are really upset with the subscription-based model.
And the fact that 2019
had a whopping features of dashed lines.
So year development and that's what they came out with.
And I know there's lots of other things that they've been working on.
There's the VR...
I'm sure they've been working on the app.
So and I'm not sure how big the Sketchup team is actually.
So they may be just spread too thin.
But it just seems like people want more features.
And Sketchup has remained pretty much the same
for a very very long time.
So I think more features.
Hopefully this subscription model brings it around for them.
Although, from what I've been seeing
the indications on Reddit and the discord that I'm a part of,
is just that people aren't happy.
And they're not opting into this.
And they're not gonna buy the the full version.
And so they're sort of like done with it.
I've seen a lot of people moving to blender as well,
because it's 100% free.
So before we sort of dismiss Sketchup a 100%,
I just want to look at how Sketchup compares
to some other software in the industry
with a focus on architecture.
Because that's what I'm mostly familiar with.
And I think really Sketchup is aimed towards architects
in a lot of ways.
So we have Sketchup here as a term,
and then we can compare it with...
let's say we won't start right off with blender.
But let's say, AutoCAD, right.
Pretty good 2D drafting software, not really 3D.
You can do 3D in it.
You can see throughout the lifetime of AutoCAD
it's been more popular than Sketchup.
Which makes sense because just
intuitively that's how I feel a lot of firms use Sketchup.
And I feel like because of this downward trend in AutoCAD
I need to put in Revit here.
Because Revit, as you can see, is also an Autodesk software.
So AutoDesk makes AutoCAD and Revit,
and Revit is a BIM software, meaning that you
do everything in 3D and then you can make your plans,
and sections and things for your architectural drawings.
From that and you can see that has grown in popularity,
and I've even been a part of this firms,
transitioning from using AutoCAD to using Revit.
So that's obviously a thing.
And you can see that that's just a trend that's happening.
As Revit gets more popular, AutoCAD gets less popular.
And then we're gonna throw in here blender,
which is 100% free and has always been free,
is obviously very popular, especially in the recent past.
I know with 2.8 there's just a lot of new features,
and I've seen a lot of people in the CGI community
switching to blender.
I'm talking about how awesome it is.
Because it's a hundred percent free.
And there's a lot of things you can do with this, it's not very limiting.
So just a comparison, you know,
I don't know if Sketchup could ever be where blender is.
But the thing about blender is that they
just keep adding new features.
And I don't know how their model works,
or financial model.
How they stay in business.
But it just for me, there been a lot of changes
that have happened with blender.
And a lot of the things
that have been painful in Sketchup,
have remained painful since I've been using it,
probably starting in like 2006.
So over ten years and so has the same problems
with like loading and crashing.
And my hope was that when Trimble
acquired it, it would really transform.
And would become more of a serious software.
Because Trimble is known for their surveying and equipment.
I thought it could be really cool if Sketchup
could really understand point clouds and things like that.
But I just don't see that being a thing,
at least in the media to future.
I mean I'm sure you could put a point cloud in Sketchup.
But just those sort of like it more advanced modeling techniques.
You just have to have a lot of plugins.
And I've had a ton of time using Sketchup.
So I can do some more complicated things.
But it just seems more and more that people are
abandoning Sketchup for other types of software.
So I'd love to know what you guys think
in the comments section down below.
Do you think Sketchup is on the way out,
or is it here to stay and everyone is just sort of like
freaking out about the new subscription-based model?
Let me know in the comment section down below.
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And as always, happy hacking!