SketchUp is the neatest 3D-drawing application I've seen yet. It was so neat, in fact, that I looked into it about a year ago, but it was far too expensive for me to justify even putting it on my gift list. I instead turned to Blender, which is free and extremely powerful, but has a steep learning curve up which I have just begun to climb.
But recently I found out that Google, who bought SketchUp last year, is releasing a free version. It is available to the PC now and promises a Mac version soon.
I'm so psyched that I downloaded the time-restricted demo version of the full software so I can start playing with it now, instead of waiting for the Mac version. I want to design a 3D layout of my home, just for fun.
It took me a minute to understand why, number one, Google would buy SketchUp in the first place, and two, why they would release it for free.
At the time, the acquisition appeared to be just a random business move. Honestly, I didn't give it much thought. But I went to explore the free version (whose feature set is reduced from the professional version), and all of the examples and tutorials were about building the outline of a house. It went on to say how you can place these models in Google Earth to represent an actual structure at an actual location.
Then it hit me. The free version will allow anyone with the interest (like me) to contribute to the fidelity of the Google Earth representation of the planet. It's a way to tap into willing volunteers to help reconstruct reality within the Google servers. Google had already created the building outlines for most metropolitan areas, but how in the world were they to get all the other 99.99% of the buildings on the planet reproduced?
The elegance of this idea really impressed me. I know I'll be contributing to the virtual Google world once the free Mac version is available. Check out my house in a few weeks in Google Earth to see my handiwork.