Sketchup-Ur-Space

SketchUp 8 M2

Debarati Nath

This Christmas Google, wearing a red fur coat gifted us a new Maintenace Release of SketchUp 8. And it is SketchUp 8 M2. This is the second Maintenace Release of SketchUp 8 after releasing of SketchUp 8 last year at Google 3D Basecamp. The first maintenace version was released on January 2011. The maintenace version means the udates which generally comes between the two major updates.

There were many bugs reported for SketchUp 8 and in the M2, Google have fixed all these and the number is over 150. And the bst part is that the M2 is FREE for all SketchUp 8 and SketchUp 8 Pro users. And it is available in all the twelve languages like Russian, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese and English (UK and US). To get SketchUp M2 you have to follow some simple steps:

Windows: Choose Help > Check for Update

Mac: Choose SketchUp > Check Web for Update

The most important update of SketchUp 8 M2 is better Ruby Script Installation along with better COLADA and Advance Camera Tools. The added functionalities of SketchUp 8 M2 are:

OS X Lion Support: The SketchUp 8 M2 can support the Lion Operating System.

Ruby Manager: This version is blessed with simple UI and upgrade Ruby extensions to make things simple.

.rbz file format: As we know that Ruby extensions typically consist of several files and the developers of Ruby have to zip up all of the files into a standard .zip file give their users instructions on how to unzip them and where to place them. Now the developers can zip up the files into the .rbz format and users can easily load an .rbz by going to Preferences > Extensions and clicking the “Install Extension” button.

Ability to turn off all Ruby plugins: With this release, it's much easier to disable (and re-enable) Ruby plugins for troubleshooting purposes. And this process is much easier to the earlier process to disable and renable the Ruby plugins for the troubleshooting purposes.

Ruby plugin hooks: In addition to the above functionality, we have added several API hooks to allow Developers to more easily write their own Ruby extension managers.

Advanced Camera Tools are now installed by default, so they no longer require a separate plugin.

Account authentication: SketchUp now uses a more advanced technology to log into the 3D Warehouse. Instead of seeing the old SketchUp login dialog, you may see two dialogs, one prompting you for your username and password, and a second dialog asking for your permission to view and manage your 3D Warehouse data. As before, SketchUp should remember your login across sessions.

SketchUp Pro Trial no longer reverts to free features at the end of the evaluation period. Instead, you'll be prompted to purchase a license or downgrade to SketchUp (free).

SketchUp 8 M2

SketchUp 8 M2