Shopsmith Forums

I see that they are offering a free trial period for Sketchup 2013 Pro. It sells for almost $600 so I know that I'll never purchase the Pro version.

Therefore, is there any value at all in downloading the free version?

If I do download it, will it work with all my existing files and will files that I create with Pro 2013 work when the trial period is over?

Maybe more devastating would be to find that after the trial period none of my existing files work because they were converted to work with Pro 2013.

IIRC, the Pro version will revert to the non-Pro version after the trial period ends. Your files (old and new) should be OK.

mountainbreeze wrote:IIRC, the Pro version will revert to the non-Pro version after the trial period ends. Your files (old and new) should be OK.

I would feel a lot better if you had experience that led to you say "will be".

Sketchup is an excellent tool and it is a bit surprising to me that it is "free". That coupled with the fact that the original owner of Sketchup sold it to Trimble causes my concern.

I can see Trimble taking the free version out of circulation; this would be one slick way to do that.

[quote="BigSky"]I would feel a lot better if you had experience that led to you say "will be".

Sketchup is an excellent tool and it is a bit surprising to me that it is "free". That coupled with the fact that the original owner of Sketchup sold it to Trimble causes my concern.

I can see Trimble taking the free version out of circulation]

I have no experience or familiarity with Sketchup but lots of experience with Trimble through GPS software and hardware we use at work for surveying. One thing I've learned about Trimble is nothing is free and they are not known for user-friendliness of their products.

dgale wrote:I have no experience or familiarity with Sketchup but lots of experience with Trimble through GPS software and hardware we use at work for surveying. One thing I've learned about Trimble is nothing is free and they are not known for user-friendliness of their products.

Sketchup is quite user friendly but then Sketchup was not developed by Trimble. Trimble purchased Sketchup sometime within the last couple years.

From the very beginning it seemed too good to be true - free, functional, popular, user friendly and free.

Somewhere I heard that Nothing But Nothing is free. So I am just waiting.

I am not going to download the 2013 version because I know it is going away and I know that I am not popping for $600 for the Pro version. I can always go back to freehand sketches.

I have copies of Version 8 on three different computers and a flash memory stick. Hopefully that will keep me going if my worst thoughts come true.

BigSky wrote:
I am not going to download the 2013 version because I know it is going away and I know that I am not popping for $600 for the Pro version. I can always go back to freehand sketches.

I have copies of Version 8 on three different computers and a flash memory stick. Hopefully that will keep me going if my worst thoughts come true.

There are a number of work-arounds for those old or newly created files. Mostly backups.
1)dump the whole directory of drawings to a CD]

Since I have no idea if the new "free" version will do the necessary "Save As" steps, that part may not be any good. It all depends on how vindictive the Sketchup people are to people that try it but don't buy it.
I once tried a FREE version of a program that kept warning me I had 'X' number of days left of trial. I tried the "Save As" thing very early on and it worked, so I made a note to save all files when just one or two days left. Well it turned out I saved one I just happened to have open with three days left. It worked. Next day I decided to play it safe and Save the rest. The slimey &$*%#&^%s cancelled that function TWO days out. Files were unusable.

Just thought: you could also simply e-mail those good files to yourself. Then nobody could get to them.

CAD and CAM have been open source for a few years now....the individual programs are simply the interface and some are better than others. Sketchup is not the only free CAD software out there, it was just the most popular free one for a while. There is definitely demand for good, free CAD programs and something will take its place.

That said, having learned CAD on a professional industrial application I don't find Sketchup to be that great. I still prefer a pencil, graph paper, and calculator with trig functions.

frank81 wrote:CAD and CAM have been open source for a few years now....the individual programs are simply the interface and some are better than others. Sketchup is not the only free CAD software out there, it was just the most popular free one for a while. There is definitely demand for good, free CAD programs and something will take its place.

That said, having learned CAD on a professional industrial application I don't find Sketchup to be that great. I still prefer a pencil, graph paper, and calculator with trig functions.

In this discussion you and I differ significantly. I learned CAD using AutoCad Lt Version 2.0 for Windows. That was, I think, in the early days of Windows 98. My how time flies and things change!

I 'prefer' pencil and paper(old habits die hard), but, much can be said for the elimination of 'drafting errors' with sketchup(or whatever).

When you give something a dimension, sketchup draws it correctly and positions it correctly.

It is not influenced by preconceived notions(errors).

[quote="JPG40504"]I 'prefer' pencil and paper(old habits die hard), but, much can be said for the elimination of 'drafting errors' with sketchup(or whatever).

When you give something a dimension, sketchup draws it correctly and positions it correctly.

It is not influenced by preconceived notions(errors).]

Ah, yes, there's nothing quite like graph paper and a sharp #2!

But (there it is again), having gotten to the point where I almost know what I'm doing with TCad, I find myself jumping to the digital doodle first, with a new idea. Kind of a reverse process. Work up a rough drawing, print it out, then sit down- with a cool one- and noodle the details on the page. Updating is a real value, in this, erase that, change, modify, and especially ZOOM to the max to see details you didn't even know about and problems you couldn't possibly have otherwise seen, and dimensioning- Wow. The ability to zoom in and out and fly all about the object in unrestricted 3D is priceless.

I've tried Sketchup and haven't done well with it. But I see lotsa people having fun with it and producing very useful drawings. I think it's a lot like Windows versus Mac- whichever one you start with, it's the other that's then difficult. I sure hope they don't ruin it. Seen that happen all too often. For the almighty buck.