From Business Week:
Back in 2006, when Google acquired startup @Last and its 3D modeling product, SketchUp, most observers saw it as a nice add-on for Google Earth, perfect for hobbyists and enthusiasts. But since then, the SketchUp program has blossomed into a tool in its own right, used by design professionals to fashion everything from consumer products to urban landscapes to country homes.
Green design professionals are particularly taken with the program. Widely praised by the architecture and design community for its “intuitive” nature, SketchUp, one of the few 3D rendering programs on the market, is also by far the easiest one to use. And its integration with Google Earth and the Google 3D Warehouse has elevated the program from a simple design tool to a location-based, product-inclusive architectural design powerhouse. As a result, SketchUp is nurturing a growing ecosystem of green design startups.
Renditioner
There are a few extras that IMSI have produced of late that either help out specific TurboCAD users, such as furniture makers, or greatly improve other products with IMSI technology.
One of these is the IDX Renditioner. It is a plug-in for Google SketchUp that provides high-quality photorealistic rendering – fast and easily. Renditioner works directly within SketchUp and lets you control the materials, advanced lighting components, environments, background images. Renditioner is “one button” easy with 3 render options of Preview, Standard and Presentation. It is simple enough for novices and yet powerful enough for professionals. Powerful features are optimized in a jargon free interface. Simplicity paired with speed and working directly in SketchUp, means you can achieve design visualization objectives more quickly. Renditioner offers 16 megapixel renderings for large-scale printing and powerful presentation of your designs.
It is available for Windows XP or Vista on the PC, and OS/X 10.4 or 10.5 on the Mac and runs on either PowerPC or Intel-based Mac computers. As an extra it obviously requires you to already have SketchUp, but will be fine on the free version as well as the Pro version 6.4x or later. Like all photorealistic rendering, IDX Renditioner uses a system’s RAM and CPU power extensively, and is not recommended on systems with less than 1 GB RAM, with 2 GB recommended. Being fully multithreading, dual core, quad core, or dual quad core machines will each improve system performance dramatically.
SketchUp is a nice piece of kit, but with the edition of Renditioner it jumps from good to professional, and then you import the SketchUp drawings into TurboCAD to add another dimension.
Nice stuff,
Thanks for sharing.