"Tom Watson" wrote

The little bit of playing around with Sketchup that I've done makes me
think that it is a decent rapid design sketch tool but is not really
in the same league with Inventor, SolidWorks, ProE, etc.

I agree ... it took me about three passes at it (thinking all the while it
seemed more worthy of comic strip work) before it finally dawned on me
exactly how really astounding the program is for it's quickness in allowing
you to get your point across to a client.

I'm not being dismissive of its abilities, particularly because I may
not fully understand them.

I understand perfectly. However, I've since learned, in a relatively short
time, to do everything from quickly 3 D modeling a project, to building a
house with the assistance of the free version of Sketchup ... that's a
pretty good ROI for the utility gained.

I also liked the relatively gentle learning curve over the high priced
competitors ... although I still have a lot to learn before I consider
myself as proficient with Sketchup as with my old 2d CAD programs.

That said, I find myself becoming more evangelical about SU every time I do
something with it.

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Last update: 5/14/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)