Google’s Free Open Source 3D Modeling Program
I was just surfing the web looking for new ideas to talk about and I came across Google’s SketchUp 7. It’s free software straight from Google that you can use to create things like a mock-up of a piece of furniture, a skatepark for your hometown, or you can get really creative and design an addition for your home. You can build models from scratch, or you can download what you need from Google 3D Warehouse. It’s a huge, searchable repository of models, and it’s all free!
Check out this promo video for Google SketchUp 7:
SketchUp was developed by a startup company @Last Software in Boulder, Colorado which was formed in 1999. SketchUp was first released in August 2000 as a general purpose 3D content creation tool and it won a Community Choice Award at its first tradeshow in 2000. The key to its early success was a shorter learning period than other 3D tools.
On April 27, 2006, Google announced Google SketchUp, a freely-downloadable version of SketchUp. The free version is not as capable as SketchUp Pro, but it includes integrated tools for uploading content to Google Earth and to the Google 3D Warehouse, a repository of models created in SketchUp. They have also added a new toolbox where you can walk, see things from a person’s point of view, labels for models, a look around tool, and an “Any polygon” shape tool.
While the free version of Google Sketchup can only export 3D to Google Earth’s .kmz file format, the Pro version extends exporting support to include the .3ds, .dae, .dwg, .dxf, .fbx, .obj, .xsi, and .wrl file formats.
Google SketchUp can also save “screenshots” of the model as .bmp, .png, .jpg, .tif, with the Pro version also supporting .pdf, .eps, .epx, .dwg, and .dxf. However, the free version of Sketchup does support Ruby scripts which has allowed many people to get around sketchup’s importing and exporting disabilities.
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