Anyone have any recommendations for similar apps—i.e. apps that are focused on architecture/industrial design (not character modeling) that don't expect you to do CAD as soon as anything gets interesting?
Anyone have any recommendations for similar apps—i.e. apps that are focused on architecture/industrial design (not character modeling) that don't expect you to do CAD as soon as anything gets interesting?
How to use Sketchup for as long as you need it? The solution lies in using Wine on Linux (or wherever you want to run it) to run Sketchup. Once Sketchup tells you the trial period is over - 30 days for Sketchup 2016, the version I use - you just wipe the relevant Wine directory and re-install Sketchup. Here's a script to automate this whole business:
#!/bin/sh
export WINEARCH=win32
export WINEPREFIX=/home/username/.wine-sketchup
export WINE=$(which wine)
export sketchup_msi=/home/username/Downloads/SketchUp2016-x86.msi
export gecko_msi=/home/username/Downloads/wine_gecko-2.40-x86.msi
export vblank_mode=0
export DRI_PRIME=1
help () {
echo <<-END
use: $0 [-r] [-h]
-r: reset sketchup (does a complete reinstall)
-h: this help message
END
}
sketchup_reset () {
rm -rf $WINEPREFIX
winetricks win7
winetricks corefonts
winetricks vcrun2010
winetricks dotnet40
msiexec /i $gecko_msi
winetricks win7
msiexec /i $sketchup_msi
}
config () {
winecfg
}
while getopts "chr" OPTION
do
case $OPTION in
r)
sketchup_reset
;;
c)
config
exit
;;
h)
help
exit
;;
esac
done
$WINE "$WINEPREFIX/drive_c/Program Files/SketchUp/SketchUp 2016/SketchUp.exe"Its biggest issue right now for me is working with text. For example, sketching text on a model then extruding it to type on the model. They finally, like last year, added a text tool; its bad; primarily in the sense that you have to specify the size of the text upfront, the size you specify means literally nothing with respect to the model (just an integer). So its a dance of "op 20 is too big, lets try 18, lets try 15, ok 16 isn't perfect but fine". To be frank, I don't know how it existed for so long, at multi-hundreds-of-dollars per year, without this basic feature, and I can't imagine anyone involved feels pride in its state today.
It also doesn't have any document sync capability, which is unfortunate because, generally, getting files on and off iPads is a hassle; and Shapr3D's Windows & Mac apps have to my usage perfect parity.
It's not a drop-in replacement, but since I'm already pretty familiar with the tool, I don't really have trouble making it work. YMMV.
I've switched mostly to other open source CAD software and use an old desktop installation of sketchup 2017 when I still want to simply "sketch" a quick and dirty model, so I've not really used Brics. I've also heard some people don't like it, but it seems so few people know about it, it's hard to find many unbiased reviews/critiques of it.
It's free if you don't mind all your designs being public. I don't mind since I'm just using it for fun.