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Comment by OJFord | Hacker News Reader

Loads of woodworking is done on SketchUp version whatever that's pre-cloud licensing, dating from 2008 I believe. (Cloud aversion, if you will.)

Picasa & Earth era desktop Google software.

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I remember using those pre-cloud versions. I loved them. Sketchup was so intuitive (as a 3D modelling noob) it was ridiculous. My tool of choice for making 3D levels for my various OpenGL projects.

I tried to do some rudimentary modelling with modern day Blender and failed. It‘s quite the juggernaut to learn.

What software today do people recommend as an alternative to Sketchup? Is the cloud version any good?

> What software today do people recommend as an alternative to Sketchup?

onshape (web; free to use unless you want to protect your designs) and fusion (autodesk; free license available) are both really popular right now. they work differently than sketchup. i never really made friends with sketchup but the parametric modeling system used in fusion and onshape clicked with me and i really enjoy using them.

I remember running Sketchup for the first time. I had zero experience but in less than 20 minutes I was drawing large complicated machinery, tractors, buildings.

They made a 3d drawing application without a learning curve O_O

Since this thread is about TUI, I confess that horrible 3D interfaces drove me into SCAD.

It's ideal for typing in your 3D geometry.

A bit of searching turns up lots of references to SketchUp Make 2017. Could this be what you mean?

IIRC SketchUp 8 (released in 2010) was the last version released by Google, which had licensing allowing commercial use of the free version. After the sale to Trimble, later versions of SketchUp 8 and all future free versions become for non-commercial use only. SketchUp Make 2017 was the last free version that could run locally.

Loved using Google Sketchup back in the day! My high school engineering teacher would show off his 3D modeling of cars during class. It was so cool seeing what you could do with that software!

All three were bought by Google, they didn't start there.

IIRC that version made it really easy to design things with dimensional lumber. 2x4”s, 2x6”s etc. I have vague recollections of designing a dog house that way from that time period.

I’m not sure how I’d do the same thing now. If I tried to do that now with Fusion, I’d probably have to build out my own primitive set of lumber sizes, right?

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