What?s New in SketchUp Pro 2020

The new SketchUp Pro 2020 is out! You can grab the latest with the updates, if you already have the subscription. Or you can download a fresh copy off Trimble?s site. Either way, you get to enjoy the cool new additions to this hot design and modeling software. Today, let us see what are these new additions in SketchUp Pro 2020.

1. Meet Laura: Trimble has added a new and attractive personality in the SketchUp 2020. The latest scale figure in SketchUp is called Laura.

To clarify, a scale figure in SketchUp is the figure you see standing at the intersection of the red, blue and green lines, at the time when you start a new drawing. The figure is given there according to scale. This helps you to design your model and compare it to real life dimensions.

Laura, the latest addition to the line of scale figures in SketchUp, is a great fit to the modern designers empty workspace. She looks caucasian with her fair skin and dirty-blonde hair. Dressed in a simple crisp red-and-blue attire, she carries a bag and kinda brings up the working mom vibe. Mystery point: what does the pendant on her neck hold?

2. A New 3D Creative Space: To make sure the modeling space is more intuitive and the data structure more supportive to the users? needs, Trimble has made some big changes in this year?s SketchUp. The first thing you will notice is in the Outliner, then it will go on to snapping objects, then we will move on to hiding stuff and changes in LayOut.

The Outliner: A great model organization change took place in this. Now, you won?t have to keep making layer upon layer. You can directly organize your model in the Outliner straight away. Create chunks of stuff in your model and hide/unhide them as you please in the Outliner. The friendly eyeball icon comes in very handy here. More on this is detailed in this video.

Grips on Bounding Boxes: Now, things will snap to each other much more intuitively. When you are moving an object in a 3D workspace, it was a real pain before. This is because the point you needed to align with another point would most of the time be hidden behind the object.

Then you had to x-ray the whole drawing to move that simple object. Now, you don?t need to! In SketchUp 2020, when you start moving an object, you will see it become transparent automatically, so that you can align any of those hidden points anywhere of the rest of the drawing, which remains opaque as was.

Hiding Parts: The new view menu separates objects and geometry. Now you can hide either of them as you choose. From the drop-down menu, choose to see either hidden geometry or hidden objects or section panes. How will this help you? Well, this will obviously greatly ease up your workflow. Suppose you need to edit some hidden geometry on a surface, but objects that you have built up on top of that plane are in the way.

Previously, you had to move them all away to make a simple edit like this. Now you don?t have to. You can just hide the objects as previously defined, and work away on the hidden geometry that is still visible.

To be continued...
We have discussed the interface and basic design workflow changes in SketchUp Pro 2020 today. Another day, we will tell you about the new stuff they came up with in the advanced parts of SketchUp, like Layout and documentation control. Till then, sayonara!