sketchUcation

Trying to follow all the latest news on SketchUp happenings can be a full time job. Wouldn't be great if there was a constant feed of SketchUp news directly within SketchUp?

Now you can with Alex Schreyer's latest plugin SketchUp News. It trawls Trimble SketchUp, SketchUcation, Twitter, Facebook and many more sites for tutorials and news and displays an overview of all the comings and goings directly within SketchUp.

Need to see if there's any updates in the plugins forums? Want to see what is trending on Twitter? Read on....

Hello fellow SketchUp users/lovers/groupies/etc. I've come to a point in my life where it is time to move on. I have quit my job as a landscape architectural design associate in an attempt to move on to greener pastures. I'll be packing my bags and leaving California as well. I've just accepted a position with a company in Colorado that deals with Satellites, drones, GPS, and some 3d modeling software...

says Chris in his forum announcement today about changing his job.

Inglobe Technologies just released a free fully functional version of the popular ARmedia Augmented Reality Plugin.

The new ARmedia Plugin v2.3 release is intended to provide access to the complete set of features of one of the most trusted and easy to use augmented reality authoring tools in the market.

Besides being available in a fully functional free version, the ARplugin now also allows to export videos for iOS.

Revizto converts Revit and SketchUp models into lightweight, interactive virtual environments with tools for simple collaboration.

Architects, engineers, contractors, and facility managers need easy-to-use tools for visual communication for building construction. Revizto uses game engine technology to provide an interactive visualization of a building’s construction in 3D. This lets users see potential problems before construction, and visualize the building and its internal systems once the building is in operation.

The Plant Factory by e-on software will allow you to create any kind of vegetation - real or otherworldly. Announced earlier last week, according to their site, more news will come soon today (March 11). 

The Plant Factory is e-on software's revolutionary new plant modeling and rendering technology.

This new technology represents the culmination of e-on software's decades of expertise in the field of digital nature and delivers unsurpassed realism and performance.

Now for a limted time, 20% discount! 

One of SketchUp's favourite rendering solutions is now officially available for OSX! Having looked enviously over the shoulders of PC users for the last few years Mac users can now enjoy the power of unbiased rendering directly within SketchUp.

Based off the Kerkythea engine, Twilight is a photo-realistic rendering plugin that puts the power directly into your SketchUp scenes.

Free high quality HDR panorama environment maps, from HDRI-Hub.com, that are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported are hard to ignore.

These are incredibly detailed and a must for anyone who is serious about photorealistic rendering. Creative Commons license means you a free to use these for your commercial work.

Ultra-low cost 3D Scanning is now possible using Skanect by ManCTL. Skanect is developed by the ManCTL company, a french-american entity founded in late 2011 and its aim is to take either a Microsoft Kinect or Asus Xtion camera and turn into a 3D scanning device.

So far the results are really impressive and so is the price! Read on to get the full lowdown and some examples of what the Skanect can do.

Adobe's trending towards integrating more 3D features continues in their latest update to Photoshop CS 6.

In the latest CS6.1 update there are tons of new options that further improve the 3D pipeline. From clever soft shadows, normal map generation and a new image based light system this latest release is showing Adobe's intent in the 3D industry.