Blimey, been having a play with V7 - I've got a certificate saying I'm an AutoCad certified professional, know my way round Solidworks and Inventor as well - but add a few of the free plug ins to Sketchup and and I have to admit it's moved on to the point where you have to say........ !!

Yep, it's pretty good now. Have you found a way to make the files useful at all though?

Don't 'upgrade' to the Free Sketchup 7.1 or above - it has all the usefull import formats stripped out
You have to buy the "Pro" version to get these now (at something like $400)

I managed to re-install 7.0 to be able to still import .dxf files.

depends what you mean by useful the full version lets you export things in useful file formats now (and having impoted a couple of pretty complex ones in to AutoCad it does actualy work!) and several of the most recent Autodesk programs let you properly import Sketchup file formats now so........ kinda it's a lot lot more than the toy it started off as being!

I use Sketchup for sketching my newbuilding garage.

btw: I have learned working with Acad 14 in school, but haven't used it much professionally.

What is useful? For me JPG's are useful...


Garage sketch

Been using 7 at home for a while now, trying to convince work to upgrade from 6pro to 7 pro (is only £60 to upgrade )

For anyone wanting to enhance their models, id recommend Podium (suplugins.com)

Check this out:
Sketcup JPG Export



Podium Render