Trimble ships SketchUp 2016

Trimble has released SketchUp 2016, the new version of its architectural modelling software, updating the inferencing system and texture library, and integrating the Trimble Connect online collaboration system.

Updates to inferencing and the texture library in the core software
The main changes affect the inference engine, which determines how SketchUp’s 3D drawing tools work: in particular, which plane or axis you’re trying to work in.

The new workflow improvements are quite hard to summarise, but are discussed in this detailed blog post.

Other parts of the software to be overhauled include the built-in texture library – described in the video above as “dating back to the time of steam locomotives” – which has been updated and expanded.

There is also a new option to reload or swap models from the online 3D Warehouse library. Doing so automatically updates every instance of that model within a scene.

In addition, the UI of the software has been overhauled to better support modern high-density displays. On Windows, dialogs can now also be stacked in custom trays.

Pro users get Trimble Connect and updates to LayOut
LayOut, the 2D drawing and documentation toolset included in the Pro version of the software, gets a new C API, and a number of workflow tweaks, including simplified handling of layers and dimensions.

In addition, online collaboration platform Trimble Connect has been integrated with the software, enabling Pro users to import data from or publish models to shared project folders from within SketchUp.

Pricing and availability
SketchUp 2016 is available for Windows and Mac OS X. The non-commercial Make edition ofthe software is free; the Pro edition now costs $695, following a price increase earlier this year.

Read Trimble’s blog post announcing SketchUp 2016

Read the full release notes for SketchUp Make 2016 and SketchUp Pro 2016