History of Sketchup

Matt Donley October 17, 2011 Tips & Tricks 2 Comments

(4-14-1: This article is out of date)

Origins

Sketchup was created to be a 3D modeling program that is powerful, but easy to use. Most
people think it was originally created by Google, but actually, it was first brought to us by @last
Software, a tech company co-founded in 1999 by Brad Schell. With an original release date in
August 2000, Schell and his team developed Sketchup as a 3D modeling tool for Architects,
designers, and filmmakers.

At the A/E/C SYSTEMS Fall 2000 exhibit hall hosted by Digital Media Net, Sketchup won the
award for Best New Products or Services and was subsequently featured on www.digitalcad.com
and www.aecnewsroom.com. Digital Media Net described Sketchup as follows:

SketchUp from @Last Software has been driven by the growing need among design
professionals for a more intuitive and accessible 3D modeling program. The core of SketchUp is
an interface in which the user simply draws the edges of the desired model in 3D space and the
software automatically fills the shapes to create 3D geometry.

After the successful launch of Sketchup, @last wanted to allow people to be able to place the
models theyve created in Sketchup into Google Earth. They collaborated with Google to
develop a plug-in for Google Earth, to allow people to geo-locate their models in Google
Earth.

The Acquisition

As a result of the collaboration for the Google Earth plug-in, Google was so impressed with the
work of @last software and purchased the company in March, 2006.

In an interview with the Daily Camera, Schell stated, Sketchups 2004 sales were $5.5 million
and growing. We can only imagine how much Google paid up to purchase @last Software. It
kinda makes me wish I had invented something Google wanted to buy from me. But a man can
dream, right?

After the acquisition, the 70 employees from @last kept their jobs, but in return became
employees of Google.

Versions
 @last was selling Sketchup for $495, but Google wanted to make
Sketchup available to anyone so they released it for free. On December 14th 2007, Sketchup 6
was released.

A Pro version of Sketchup was still available for $495, which included more exporting and
importing options, and the introduction of Google Layout, the answer to creating 2-D
presentations of your 3-D models. But the main functionality of the software was identical to the
free version.

Google has released a total of 6 maintenance updates for this version, and stopped supporting
this version in March 2010.Sketchup 6 updates can still be downloaded from Googles website.

Version 7 was announced on November 17th, 2008, and brought with it

the introduction of dynamic components. Dynamic components was a big leap for Sketchup,
allowing models to have properties assigned to them. These properties can change many aspects
of a model on the fly, making your model interactive.

Sketchup 8 is the most current version of Sketchup. Released September

1st, 2010, it includes many refinements and some new features. The Pro version includes the
Solid Tools.
http://engineering.colorado.edu/news/cue/2006/alumni/schell.htm 2006 announcement of Googles acquisition of @last software and Sketchup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SketchUp Wikipedia Sketchup

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-home-for-last-software.html 3/14/06 Official Google Blog announcing acquisition of @last software.

http://it.tmcnet.com/news/2006/03/15/1460736.htm Infotech Spotlight, report on the acquisition of @last software.

http://www.digitalcad.com/Htm/Articles/2000/11_00b/digicad.htm Community Choice Award for Sketchup.

http://sketchup.google.com/gsu6/relnotes.html Sketchup release and maintenance notes

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/introducing-sketchup-7.html Googles announcement of Sketchup 7.

http://sketchupdate.blogspot.com/2010/09/announcing-google-sketchup-8.html Googles announcement of Sketchup 8.

About the Author

Matt Donley

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Matt has been creating SketchUp tutorials since 2012. After writing the book SketchUp to
LayOut, he conducted the "Intro to LayOut" seminar at the official SketchUp conference in
Colorado. Matt writes about how to use SketchUp for design, construction and 3D printing.