google exhibiting @ aia new orleans

To say that I'm intrigued by Google is an understatement.  Google's web search engine is nothing short of amazing.  To be able to type almost any topic of interest and find highly relevant results within seconds has become the norm over the last few years. 

A less known tool that's been tremendously beneficial for years is Google's SketchUp, 3d modeling program.  I've been using this little gem for almost a decade for design, and now furniture 3d layout and design.  SketchUp was originally developed by Last Software in 2000, and at some point (maybe 5 years ago or so??) Google purchased it and made it available like most of it's software for free.

Because Google is so powerful, yet so secretive about just what they're up to, I seem to be magnetically drawn to them in the rare instances of direct communication.  Google had quite a presence here at the AIA expo.  They were promoting their upgrade to "sketchup pro" featuring "layout" to the egos (I mean architects) throughout the convention.  After receiving a brief overvue by one of the google reps, the upgrade seems to have some very nice features for architects.  The layouts features primarily seemed to be more aimed toward "sales" than actual architectural drawings.  Looks like I'll stick with the basic v. of Sketchup, which I use for almost every custom job we design.  Google is awesome.  Google sketchup is awesome.  Not so sure about Google sketchup Pro, but I'm guessing for the right market, it's awesome too.

Google had what I'd call a medium sized presence as well as areas (pictured above) where they taught some basic classes - primarily showing benefits of SketchUp pro.