By Randall S. Newton
Editor-in-Chief
Today Google is a CAD company. It’s a shrewd move.
On Monday Jeff Martin was a Product Marketing Manager for @Last Software, best known for SketchUp. On Tuesday, he went to work, but things were different. As he describes in a blog message:
“I was sitting at the breakfast table this morning, drinking a cup of coffee while I looked out at the snow. It was pretty much like any other winter morning, except—it wasn’t. When I went to sleep last night, I was employed by a small start-up called @Last Software. This morning, although I’m going to the same office, sitting at the same desk, and seeing the same people, I’m going to work as a Google employee.”
During the day, as various news sites reported the acquisition, the same question came up over and over: Why? Why does Google want to own 3D CAD technology? As I reported last October, the simple answer is synergy. Everything designed and built exists in a specific place on the planet. Google Earth shows the where, SketchUp shows the what. Since the release of the SketchUp Google Earth Plug-In, thousands of SketchUp users have placed their models into Google Earth, and used Google Earth geo-imagery to enhance SketchUp models.
Now that Google has paid millions (Google will not disclose the actual purchase price) for a CAD product, we need more than a simple answer. That answer comes from understanding a concept called “force of the many and the architecture of participation.” First articulated by Tim O’Reilly, it means that the more a web-based service allows users to participate in supplying content, the more valuable that service becomes. User-written book reviews bring additional value to Amazon.com; users as sellers are eBay’s single largest revenue stream; Craigslist.com is slaughtering the newspaper classified ad business with this "force of many." Google will benefit as millions of users, over time, annotate the earth with models of their homes, their offices, their communities. It won’t be just models, but all the relevant metadata, all searchable in Google Earth, a 3D browser that compliments Google’s existing text-based 2D work in whatever browser you now use. Such “force of many” compiling of metadata is already happening on a small scale; the purchase of SketchUp will “put a rocket on the Honda” as @Last Software founder Brad Schell says.
The simplicity and power of SketchUp combined with the ease of use and accessibility of Google Earth makes for a powerful new CAD/GIS tool, a tool and resource people want to enhance with their own data. People who would have never considered merging CAD models with GIS imagery can do it now, easily. The useful possibilities of combining architectural modeling in a GIS environment seem endless. Because the GIS environment is Google Earth, the results are accessible to anyone with the free Google Earth browser. Because SketchUp is so easy to use and so inexpensive, designers, city planners, researchers, developers, environmentalists, journalists, and enthusiasts of all sorts are starting to put this new toolset to work. The acquisition of SketchUp by Google will only accelerate the process.
While we’re talking metadata, don’t forget that SketchUp also brings Google an important new channel for interpreting and cataloging data. SketchUp is a CAD company that must play nice in the CAD universe, so it supports a wide variety of formats, including Autodesk DWG, DXF, 3DS and DEM; vector formats like BMP, JPEG, and TIFF; raster formats including VRML and EPS; publishing formats like PDF; ESRI shape files; and animation formats including QuickTime and AVI. It won’t take Google too long to add those formats to its Google Desktop search tool, as well as to web-based search.
The official spin: body language
“The mission fit is so perfect,” explains Martin. “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s data, ours is to bring 3D to everyone. We both think 3D is a great way to communicate. Our missions are aligned.” Adds Mark Sawyer, who was CEO (his new title hasn’t been written yet), “At first this was just an engineering relationship between our two companies. But as people read the body language, so to speak, everyone started putting two and two together.”
When I attended the first SketchUp Users Conference October 2005, I was compelled to give credence to the Google buyout rumor of Google because I saw what Sawyer is describing. SketchUp programmers would start sentences, Google programers would finish them. During their joint session on using SketchUp models in Google Earth, the programmers for both firms and the users in attendance were actively brainstorming enhancements. Over and over attendees would say, "gee, wouldn't it be hot if Google bought SketchUp?"
Sawyer was emphatic today that the Google acquisition is a big win not only for @Last Software, but for the users of SketchUp. “The bullet points are, number one, engineering matters—customer value matters. The professional market and domain expertise we have in AEC is important to Google too. Number two, there will be no dilution of our focus. Our professional market will still be engaged in the same way as before.”
In a letter to SketchUp users, company co-founder Brad Schell elaborated on the “this is great for our users” theme:
Are we going to give up on design and all the cool new features and products we have in the pipeline? No way! In fact, the mission doesn’t change at all. We’re all about enabling users to express themselves in 3D and share their vision with others. Architects, builders, woodworkers, gamers, students and my Uncle Bob all want basically the same thing: the most intuitive tools to help them create and share their 3D dreams. So we’ll stay the course. (Only now we have just a smidge more horsepower...)
I can’t stress this enough: the future of SketchUp just got a big shot in the arm, so please don’t worry about the product or our mission. Think about it this way: we haven't traded in the Honda for a Porsche; we've strapped a rocket to the Honda. SketchUp is still SketchUp, but now it will go places it couldn't possibly have gone before.
In a detailed FAQ (frequently asked questions) posting on the SketchUp web site, Google elaborates on the coming changes—or, more precisely, the lack of changes. To summarize:
- Will there be any change in pricing or distribution? No.
- Will you now give SketchUp away, like the basic version of Google Earth? No.
- Will SketchUp continue as a stand-alone product? Yes.
- Will there be a SketchUp 6? Yes.
- Will you still support the Mac? Yes.
There is one FAQ question that gives a bit of insight into the possible future of SketchUp:
How will Google integrate technologies and products into its products and services?
The acquisition of fits very well with the Google mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. We do not have any announced plans regarding the integration of this technology with current Google products and services, but we can say that we’re tired of all those grey boxes in Google Earth.
The grey boxes refer to the existing, bland representations of buildings in Google Earth. They currently exist for about 30 cities, and are viewable by user choice. Prior to the SketchUp plug-in for Google Earth, ESRI shape files could be imported into Google Earth to represent a building or other object, but they too lack the detail and attention to design that a SketchUp model offers.
Two final comments, tangential but interesting if you follow the CAD industry. Tomorrow Bentley Systems is holding a WebEx demo for the media, to show off a new ability to place MicroStation models into Google Earth. Timing is everything, isn’t it? And here an interesting thought: Google is now a member of the Open Design Alliance, the organization incoming Autodesk CEO Carl Bass once described to me as "the arms merchant for my enemies."
Technorati Tags: Google Earth SketchUp Google @Last Software 3D AEC CAD GIS architecture design architectural design location-based simulation