Google buys Sketchup... holy crap!

well, sketchup has been a favorite app of mine. Way back when, I messed around with 3D apps at OSU, and got pretty handy with them, but times changed, I left for Canada, had to work (and I was not going to get hired for 3D work with my few examples), and also foudn that every 3D app had a completely different way of working. So picking just a single app was like choosing a major. You were going to learn that app, and any other app would seems utterly foreign to you, so choose widely. And, of course, the two that everyone recommended at the time - 3D Studio MAX and Maya - were out of the price league of your low income family.

But Sketchup is one of those apps that did such a brilliant job of making things easy. Of course, they also had their own way of working, but it made up for that by removing a lot of the math and boolean understanding etc., and just focused on "make objects."

And now they're part of Google. Consider, for a moment, coupling their super-fast, easy 3D rendering, their GIS integration, and Google Earth. You'll be able to walk through wireframes of towns around the globe before you even set foot in them (with the regular caveats that Google Earth is only as good as its last Satellite fly-by).

Pretty cool stuff, folks.