I have noticed that the guys from Google are really busy these days. They tried to cover all basis and have supremacy in all the fields. Well, sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed (like the project called Google Talk – that was meant to be something like Yahoo messenger, only it was not at all successful). However, they tried. Everybody knows and uses Google search engine and Google Earth and Moon which was a great hit. I simply love it and so do many other people. To my surprise, I have just discovered that they launched another project, some software utility called Google SketchUp 8.0.3117. As you can infer from the title, this is only the latest versions, as there have been others before and, of course, the producing company is Google Inc and the software can be downloaded for free, which is great in my opinion.
This time Google tried a totally different way - 3D sketching and building software. There are so many features available that I am simply amazed. You can use it for getting a three dimensional model of everything: a house, a piece of furniture, a building, a complex of buildings, a statue, a town, a shed, whatever you might think of. You just need some imagination and this software. The good thing about this software is that it can be used by both beginners and professionals, as it is at the same time complex and easy to use.
Google SketchUp 8.0.3117 has enough tools that can help you draw and change the geometry of things like Polygon, FollowMe, Offset, and Intersect with Model and also some more tools to help you build things – Dimension, Tape Measure, Protractor, Section Slice, Layers, Area & Length Calculation.
You can use this software application for anything that needs to be designed, drawn, built. For example if you want to design your own house before building it, you can place the furniture in the house, see the way the light will get in the house and even view the place of your future house with Google Earth. You can see what your future house will look like if its surface will be smooth or rough, you can see a slice of it and you can apply some of the many tools and features provided by this software until you get exactly the result that you wanted.
Google SketchUp 8.0.3117 allows you to use different formats for obtaining the model that you like. You can also export animations and walk throughs as video files that you can save on your computer. You can import and export all kinds of data that you need for your project and you can get email support from the professionals working for Google for two years after you have purchased the software .
Use this application either in two dimensions or three dimensions and you will see the difference. You can actually “see” the edges and faces of the thing you want to have in the future and you can make accurate measurements, which allow you a very exact approximation when it comes to materials, cost, space and the way the furniture fits into your home, etc. You can visualize everything from a different angle and change position, rotate the model and apply all the available features. But this is only the surface. I invite you to use this software and tell me your opinion about it. It has 40 MB and can be easily downloaded and used. Only this edition of the software is free, as it is designed to be used for personal purposes ; the Pro version can be purchased for money.
