Sketchup Blog - News and Notes from the Sketchup folks

Oh hai, SketchUp Mobile Viewer!

As designers, makers, builders, artists, teachers, students, and all around 3D troubadours, we're passionate about our ideas, and even more so about seeing them take shape. If you're reading this, chances are that either you or someone you know is as obsessed about SketchUp as we are. And you know how that obsession can penetrate every corner of your life. Sometimes, the only compulsion greater than push-pulling your ideas to life, is the desire to show off your brilliantly creative work, on any and every device you can get your hands on.

Up until now, one aspect of (most of) our lives has been sadly neglected by SketchUp's addictive lure. That deliciously curvy piece of brightly lit glass you call your iPad (maybe you call it something else, but lest we digress...).

Today, we're incredibly excited to announce all that changes. As 3D Basecamp kicks off in Vail, we’re also welcoming the SketchUp Mobile Viewer for iPad to our product family.

We’ll be telling you all about our new tablet viewer in this blog post, but we’re guessing that some of you might already just want to go buy the thing. You folks can find the SketchUp Mobile Viewer here on the iTunes App Store.

Say hello to the new SketchUp Mobile Viewer for iPad

The SketchUp Mobile Viewer app lets you explore, and present SketchUp models on your iPad. The app’s touch interface provides navigation controls for Orbit, Pan, and Zoom, allowing you to swipe and pinch your way to 3D nirvana. And you’ll notice that models are rendered with certain Style settings based on your Last Saved View, including the Sky, Ground, and Background color, as well as Face settings.

Model Viewer screen with the Cameras list open

Additional navigation controls include a Zoom Extents tool, and a Cameras list that gives you access to SketchUp’s standard camera views (Top, Front, Left, etc) along with any camera positions that were saved as Scenes in your model.

After starting up the app and logging in to your 3D Warehouse account, you’ll find your public and private 3D Warehouse models displayed on the home screen. From there, you have the option to view your models and/or download them for offline use.

The SketchUp Mobile Viewer also lets you search and browse the entire public 3D Warehouse, meaning you can explore the millions of glorious creations available in what we consider to be biggest and best repository of 3D models out there. After clicking a search result, the app’s detailed view provides a high resolution thumbnail along with key model details like title & description, author name, and file size.

Detailed search results: get a better look before opening a model in 3D or downloading it

We’re incredibly excited to make this app available to SketchUp and 3D Warehouse users, and even more excited about what’s in store for future versions. (Hold tight, Android folks!) We hope to bring even more of the SketchUp model viewing capabilities you’ve come to know and love to the SketchUp Mobile Viewer, and to expand the ways that folks present, share, and collaborate on the tablet platform. That’s where you come in: let us know what you think of the SketchUp Mobile Viewer. We’re always listening for ways to improve our products, to make them the tools you’ll want to use. So thanks for your feedback, and happy orbiting!


Posted by Mike Tadros, Product Manager

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29 comments :

Unknown said...

This is great! Any chance that the Sketchup app will come to Web? That would enable the use of Sketchup on Chromebooks without having to use Virtual Desktop service like VMWare.

Unknown said...

Hi Alex- You can view SketchUp models on your Chromebook today. Check out 3D Warehouse in your browser and click on the 'Orbit' icon.

john
.

Unknown said...

Will it be possible to add models through iTunes or Dropbox? I don't think everyone wants to upload to the warehouse first... And what can it do more than the free Sightspace Free-D app?

Unknown said...

Hi John, thanks for letting me know about that feature. That is a good first step, but it would be nice to be able to access the full editing features of Sketchup on the web.

I'm not a developer, but I have been learning about Google's NACL and PNACL (https://developers.google.com/native-client/dev/) which lets you use C and C++ code in the browser. Maybe that would be useful? Although I don't even know which language Sketchup is programed in.

tnrkitect said...

We need Android support too. Not everyone has drunk the Apple Kool-aid.

Unknown said...
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DB16/4 said...

Well, I've bought the app as I've been using SketchUp for years and think it's a great step forward in showing clients my work. However, not only can I not sign in to the 3D warehouse on the app but I can no longer sign in to the 3D warehouse on my Mac! I get signing in error on the app and the following on my Mac:
Sign-in error. Could not obtain user information from the identity provider.
Does anyone have any solutions? I can sign into Google fine on the web browser by the way. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Hi DB 16/4,

Please contact us so we can investigate further.

Unknown said...

Hi,
Just bought mobile viewer and can't sign in to Google account inside app. Typing login and Password and on this stage it's jamming. I still getting sms with google verification code however can't proceed
Alex

Unknown said...

I have bought The app it's seem slow with large models - more than 10MB, i closed all my other apps to see The model, sometimes it's no run...what is the minimum requerest system to Ipad?

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...
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tegartegartegar77 said...
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Mitch said...

Great start! Two additional things that are critical to me and my organization for this to be implemented properly:

1. "Open In" support - or at least integration with popular cloud services
2. Scenes need to retain layer visibility, section planes, styles, etc.

Thanks for the update!

Grkf said...

A paid app and I cannot even sign in! Have the same problem that I use Google 2-factor identification with SMS - app sign-in ends up in infinite loop and no field popos up where I can enter the additional verification code.

Poor experience after having paid 9 EUR.....

MapMe said...

Nice work guys really looking forward to the Android version as well.

The iPad version just needs to be able to log users in who use Google Authenticator 2 Step Verification.

The mobile viewer hangs when logging in with a 2 Step account.

Otherwise nice release.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hi all,
Thanks for the feedback.

For those of you reporting issues with sign in, we've identified the bug related to 2-factor authentication and are working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We'll push an update to the app store as soon as we have a fix. Sorry for the inconvenience.

@Henrique Barros, t's recommended that your device have at least 1024Mb of RAM. Devices that meet those specs include iPad 3rd gen or newer, or iPad Mini 2nd gen or newer.

@tnrkitect, rest assured an Android version is in the works.

@Mitch, thanks for the feedback. Fully supporting Scenes is a high priority item on our list.

Masrul Arief, ST. said...

are u guys gonna make an iphone version from this app?

Unknown said...

Its an amazing sketchup mobile show on to the blog.
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Unknown said...

I've just brought app, and have logged in successfully ! - but I cannot figure out how to open .skp files from my dropbox / email (on my I pad). Am I being stupid ? is this possible - I don't want to have to upload to warehouse..

J Mike said...

I'm in the same boat - can't figure out how to open my files on Dropbox, email, "open in" or on iPad. I'm not interested in uploading to the warehouse.

JCincotta said...

Warehouse uploading is difficult and cumbersome. Is there a way to use google Drive ?

JCincotta said...
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Unknown said...

I've just bought and installed the viewer. Login to google account doesn't complete. Please fix. Thank you in advance.

Unknown said...

I've just bought and installed the viewer. Login to google account doesn't complete. Please fix. Thank you in advance.

May 4, 2014 at 1:55 AM

Edit: works on second attempt. Thank you.

Crixs Axque said...

Hi cant login to Sketchup viewer. have two step sign in on google account tried application specific password wouldnt take it. tried rebooting ipad tried re-installing app. just keeps cycling at sign in never stops. "it has made me miserable"

Bshelia said...

I can't sign in ? Just keeps cycling. What should I do?

Crixs Axque said...

Turned off google two step verification temporarily. Then I could login. Application specific password didn't work either.

SketchUp Team said...

Hi everyone,

We just pushed an update for the app to address the problems you've been having with the two-step verification sign-in. Please try again, and sorry for the inconvenience!