I am currently an Instructor at Brunswick Community College in the Surveying Tech Dept. Recently I was "asked" to teach an introduction to CAD Class for Electrical Students using a "free" software which SketchUp. Being wary of "free" stuff I was apprehensive to say the least. My attitude has changed but I have been approaching this as a learn as I go situation and have had success. This semester we did not have a text book and working exclusively with the on line help and student who has been using this for some while. Next semester the text will be Sketch Up for Dummies to learn the basics. Now as a Surveyor I am interested in how this program can be beneficial to the surveying students and with Trimble involved it can only get better. What I would ask is if anyone has any suggestions for text books or articles in regard to using this for surveying... any and all suggestions are appreciated.. :-S
It is useful for 3-D renderings of proposed structure, landscapes, buildings that be overlayed onto Google Earth.
Sketchup could get better with Trimble owning it - I certainally hope so - I like the idea of Terramodel with a SketchUp as the interface
But it could just get buried, forgotten & unresourced - which is another of their business techniques 🙁