SketchUp

[Cyberguy34000]

Recently, I found out about this very impressive CAD tool called Sketch-Up (now Google owned). I thought that the Chief Delphi community might be interested to know about this very powerful program. The SketchUp website has lots useful information on it, and does a very good job of explaining what's unique about the software.

While many different CAD programs have their pros and cons, one of the most impressive things to me about SketchUp was the sheer speed at which I can model things. The software is incredibly intuitive and easy to use. Want an example? Within an hour, my little 7 year old sister was making little houses with some pretty cool features with almost no help. But just because it's easy to use doesn't mean it isn't powerful. I've been using it for about 2 days now, and I've already been able to create some pretty convincing 3d mock-ups of a few robots modeled from pictures on Chief Delphi. Most of them were made in about an hour or less.

As far as I can tell, the software is completely cross-compatible with AutoCAD Inventor, which means that it could concievably be used side-by-side in robot design, if teams wanted to do so.

The website has a free 8 hour trial (no restrictions). But get this, the software is free for students and teachers! See this page for more information. The only catch as far as I can tell, is that the free version won't run over networks (see the page for more info).

Check it out, play around with it for a bit, and tell us what you think!