SketchUp! goes online!

You might think that I’m no longer a fan of SketchUp! After all, I think my review of OnShape came down pretty strongly in favour of the parametric modelling tool. However, I will say that SketchUp is great for quick drawings. If you want to quickly mock up some buildings to see how they look, then SketchUp can do that in a jiffy (the one above took about five minutes).

So, I was delighted to get spam this week informing me that SketchUp is now available through my browser, and it works fine on Linux. The browser version is missing some features, like photo-match, and export, but I expect the Trimble team will continue to build out the online version.

I’m still a fan of OnShape for precise, complex drawings, but SketchUp is a great complimentary tool. It’s like having both a knife and a saw: they both cut, but choosing the right tool results in better, faster work.