SketchUp plug in for Energy Analysis

[Anonymous]

I've been thinking for a while that the competition between ArchiCAD and Revit may be eclipsed by the rise of SketchUp.

This new energy analysis program may be a significant step in that direction.

CNET story

Developer's website

Oh, and it's a free download. (Haven't had the chance to try it yet.)

[Erika Epstein]

Looks interesting Matthew.; thank s for drawing out attention to it.
Have you used it? Do you also use archicad's add-on (?) . How do they compare?

[Anonymous]

This is great both because it is free and also since it works with Mac. IES have been going for a while in the UK and they have a sketchup plugin which is also free, but PC only ... and now looking around have a link to archicad via gbXML as well.
Re your original post, the funny thing is that sketchup led me directly to archicad. Having been (effectively) a flat-cad vectorworks user for 14 years I really got into 3D possibilities with sketchup earlier this year and quickly realised that I needed something more robust to take me to the next step - hence archicad. With multi-million jobs on the line sketchup would have a very long way to go in the BIM space. Considering the non-BIM but BIM-marketed vectorworks I do not think you can change the nature of the beast. Sketchup is very good at what it is but I'm guessing that customers will pitch them against the likes of bonzai rather than the more comprehensive BIM packages.

[Anonymous]

Of course ArchiCAD is WAY ahead in the comprehensive professional tools and features, and it can handle far more complex models than SketchUp (or Revit for that matter).

It will be curious to see how SketchUp develops. The crowd sourced warehouse is already one of the best places to get 3D bits and pieces. Now that there are parametrics in v7 it will be interesting to see how quickly this is taken up. Of course the warehouse may also be driving more traffic to the likes of Turbosquid (consistent quality and they have a street sweeper).

I think there will always be places for the high end products. I also suspect that the most successful will be the ones to figure out how play well with SketchUp.

Erica, no I haven't had the chance to use it yet. Just managed to download it while waiting for a file to export or something. Too many deadlines lately.

[Chris Phillips]

amonle wrote:
This is great both because it is free and also since it works with Mac. IES have been going for a while in the UK and they have a sketchup plugin which is also free, but PC only ... and now looking around have a link to archicad via gbXML as well.