Lumion releases Lumion View for SketchUp
Originally posted on 30 March 2025, and updated for the final release.
Lumion has released Lumion View, its new real-time visualization plugin for SketchUp.
The plugin provides users of the architectural modeling software with a ray traced view of their scenes, making it possible to visualize changes to materials and lighting more accurately.
The add-on is described as a “lightweight design companion” to Lumion, the standalone edition of the software, and is aimed at early-stage design workflows.
Lumion: an easy-to-use near-real-time tool for architectural visualisation work
One of the most widely used renderers for arch viz work, the standalone edition of Lumion creates renders of architectural scenes in near-real time.
It is intended to provide architects with little background in visualization with a more straightforward way to create realistic stills and animations than standard DCC apps.
Users import building models from other software, either in standard 3D file formats like FBX, OBJ, SKP and MAX, or via built-in live links to major CAD applications.
They can then edit materials inside Lumion, set up lighting and weather effects, dress the scene from the accompanying asset library, and create simple camera animations.
Lumion View: a new plugin integrating the rendering technology directly into SketchUp
The new Lumion View plugin cuts out the import and setup work, enabling users to visualize buildings directly inside SketchUp, Trimble’s architectural sketching software.
Lumion pitches it as a tool for initial design work – for exploring ideas and adjusting massing, lighting and materials – that works alongside Lumion itself “without duplication of effort”.
It provides a ray traced view of a SketchUp scene, with changes to materials and lights displayed in real time.
As well as adjusting the properties of the new PBR materials introduced in SketchUp 2025.0, users can assign Lumion’s Standard, Glass and Water materials to objects.
It is also possible to assign readymade ‘conceptual styles’, which replace all of the existing materials in a scene, aside from glass and water, with clay, wood or styrofoam.
To light the scene, users can place and edit native SketchUp Spotlights, Point Lights, Area Lights and Line Lights, or adjust the direction and brightness of the Lumion sun light.
The completed scene can be rendered inside SketchUp at up to 4K resolution, or transferred to Lumion for editing: exported SKP files retain material settings and lights created in Lumion View.
Lumion plans to make Lumion View compatible with Revit and other CAD software in future: you can register online to be notified of the wider release.
Price, licensing and system requirements
Lumion View 2025.0 is compatible with SketchUp 2025.0 running on Windows only.
It is compatible with NVIDIA, AMD and Intel GPUs, including iGPUs: you can find full system requirements here.
The software is available rental only, and licensed on a named-user basis, with subscriptions having a MSRP of $229/year. You can find pricing details for Lumion itself in this story.
Read an overview of Lumion View on the product website
Find more technical details in the online release notes for Lumion View 2025.0
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