sketchUcation

Yesterday (August 6), Google announced that user generated 3D content for the official 3D Layer of Google Earth will soon (with October 1) be over. With this move, an era of over seven years will be over. Google acquired SketchUp in 2006 and immediately released a free version of the software in order to encourage modellers to populate Google Earth with 3D content. Later Building Maker was also added (this was stopped in June this year) and eventually 45 Degree 3D Imagery was also added - this latter one to finally replace 3D models made in either SketchUp or Building Maker.

The guys at Maxwell have just released Maxwell for SketchUp 2013. This latest release has some major updates but mostly it is under the hood to make it compliant with the latest release of SketchUp 2013.Along with the added support the the latest SketchUp release it is now distributed as an RBZ file for easier install, the color picker now has both RGB and HSV modes and added support for setting per-Channel output formats.

Industrial Light & Magic ILM and Sony Pictures Imageworks have released their geometry caching format Alembic 1.5. The popular open source tool now includes new support for multi-threading which results in significant performance and efficiency improvements for all users.

Sharing files with embedded animations just got a lot easier.

NewTec Inc. has pre-released its new time-based application for sculpting and modifying animation caches in VFX and feature animation pipelines called ChronoScuplt.

ChronoSculpt is a powerful new stand-alone application that revolutionizes working with animation and dynamic simulation cache files from any application. ChronoSculpt also introduces a radical new geometry engine based on their “Hydra” technology which "allows the deformation and manipulation of 8 to 10 million polygon objects with ease."

Read on to see ChronoSculpt in action at SigGraph 2013.

Autodesk FBX Review is a new lightweight and free software tool for reviewing 3D assets and animations without the need of using a 3D authoring tool.

Users can toggle shading modes, animations, cameras, and lighting options to better evaluate their 3D content through a touch-based UI on Windows 8 or with a mouse and keyboard on Windows 7.

To find out more about what's inside FBX Review read on...

Yuzu is a software suite by Picard Innovations aimed at professionals in the field of measuring spaces and buildings. Part of this platform is an extensive SketchUp plugin which allows the user to connect a laser distance meter and create SketchUp models while taking measurements in real time. Yuzu also offers a set of useful tools to automate common tasks and get things done more easily.

Your favourite plugin for SketchUp just got an update and it comes with some killer new features you are gonna love.

Our Plugin and Extension Manager now allows you easily set up custom loadouts for SketchUp. Need to load a plugin or extension just for that session? We got you covered!

To update to v1.2 just AutoInstall directly within v.1.1 or if you are new to the PluginStore you can grab a download for free here

E-on software, the leader in 3D Immersive Nature technologies, today announced the immediate availability of LumenRT 4 GeoDesign. Packaged as a add-on plug-in product for LumenRT, it delivers the full power and capabilities of LumenRT Immersive Nature to users of ESRI CityEngine Advanced.

Thea Render v1.2 and it's new GPU plugin Thea Presto were finally released late last week. This update to Thea Render is the most comprehensive to date with the whole UI within Thea Render Studio getting some attention and of course there is the new GPU rendering ability for nVidia CUDA enabled cards.

See the promotional video here and grab it while it is discounted by 35%!

SketchUp's Product Management Director, John Bacus, has issued a call to action for SketchUp users everywhere to help shape SketchUp's development for 2014.

SketchUp has a long history of implementing users requests and now with yearly release cycles this means they will be a very busy team over the next 12 months.

Read on the get the full details...