Product Reviews

SketchUp is a unique piece of software, designed to bridge the gap between 2D drawing and 3D modelling. At its heart is a brilliantly simple 'inference' system that constantly checks the line you're drawing on the 2D screen against the scene's underlying 3D geometry, enabling you to easily draw true 3D objects. Compared to the complexities of traditional modelling and CAD, it's a breath of fresh air - as the company slogan puts it, it really is '3D for the rest of us'.

SketchUp's working environment has always been comparatively friendly and intuitive for what is, by its nature, a complex field. But that doesn't mean it can't be improved. In this latest release, the menus have been rationalised, splitting the main drawing and manipulating tools, while improved on-screen indicators highlight inference locking, squares and golden sections. Viewing and navigation has also been improved with new options for changing the camera's field of view, zooming to objects and quick panning. The program's palettes have also been revamped. The Components palette now provides thumbnail previews, and the new Entity Info palette gives feedback on the currently selected object. It's a smoother working experience all round.

So what new power is there? As well as its main drawing tools, SketchUp has always prided itself on its innovative and intuitive manipulation tools, such as the excellent Push-Pull tool for painlessly managing extrusions. New in version 4 is the Follow Me tool that allows users to push or pull a surface along a path. This is ideal for jobs such as adding mouldings to a fire surround or, when used with a circular path, for producing rotated shapes, such as bottles and vases. It's powerful, effectively adding both sweep and lathe-style modelling to SketchUp's armoury, but it isn't easy to get to grips with.

The second major advance in SketchUp 4's modelling capabilities is much more low-key but proves even more powerful. Now, when you have two overlapping objects, you can right-click on one and select the Intersect with Model command to automatically create edges where the objects overlap. You can then delete the portions you don't want to keep, and go on to manipulate the new subdivided faces. This new capability provides

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the benefits of traditional Boolean-style operations for quickly creating complex shapes, and becomes especially effective when used with groups. Once again though, you'll need to invest some effort to get the most out of it.

Once you're happy with your 3D objects, you're ready to format them. SketchUp doesn't provide the typical procedural materials of 3D apps, instead offering excellent support for tiled bitmaps, including real-time recolouring. In version 4, this bitmap control is taken to a new level. To begin with, you can now quickly and interactively scale the texture tile when you apply it. You can also fine-tune the positioning, scale, rotation, and shear of the tiled pattern after it's been applied. This is surprisingly awkward, involving entering 'fixed pin mode' and then manipulating coloured corner pins, but you can also switch to 'free pin mode' in which you can stretch the bitmap like a skin over a drum - especially useful when using a photo as the basis for a model.

Textures are usually applied to a flat surface, but for objects with apparently curved surfaces -such as cylinders made up of numerous smaller flat planes - this can cause problems. SketchUp 4 lets you place the sized bitmap in front of the object and turn it into a material that's then wrapped round the surface. Alternatively, you can import your bitmap and directly project it onto your model. Even better, you can continue to edit your model and the projected texture automatically follows the new contours. An obvious use is to convert a scanned contoured map into a projection slide, which you can then quickly build up into an accurate and ready-textured 3D terrain by using the Freehand Pencil, Push-Pull and Move tools.

The power is impressive and again opens up whole new areas of potential - typical of the release as a whole. With its new modelling capabilities, texture wrapping and projection, SketchUp 4 is increasingly encroaching on traditional high-end 3D territory. It's a feeling reinforced by other new professional features, such as the option to check your model for invalid geometry, to purge materials and layers as well as improved AutoCAD import, including support for solids and splines. There's also the new Ruby API that allows users to automate their work.

The downside to version 4's new power is that you need to be an expert user to fully benefit, and we can't help feeling that some of the spontaneity and sheer fun of working in SketchUp has been sacrificed. But at least version 4 adds one new feature for the rest of us. A new Face Me option has been added to components, which makes them always face the camera - ideal for making the most of 2D elements by ensuring that they look as contextualised as possible. It's a useful reminder of SketchUp at its best: easily and effectively bridging the 2D to 3D divide.