A big refresh for SketchUp Mobile Viewer

SketchUp users have never been shy about giving us feedback -- and that's great. In fact, we’re always encouraging people to tell us what they’d like to see improved in our products. When we launched SketchUp Mobile Viewer last year, we received surprisingly concentrated feedback. Folks wanted to open SketchUp files from any cloud service, they wanted more model viewing capabilities, and they wanted to use the app on their phones too.

Today, we’re happy to share that our latest update to SketchUp Mobile Viewer on the iTunes and Playstores makes all of these things (and a whole lot more) possible. Let’s take a quick tour of the new SketchUp Mobile Viewer.

Available on phones, and a whole bunch of languages…

First things first: today, SketchUp Mobile Viewer is compatible with select iPhone and Android smartphones (you’ll want to check for compatibility). We’ve also translated the app into 13 languages.

Open models from Dropbox and Email Apps

Probably the most requested improvement for SketchUp Mobile Viewer has been the ability to open models stored in Dropbox or attached to emails. We’re happy to say that in addition to allowing users to sign in to their 3D Warehouse account, the app’s new cloud menu includes options for signing into Dropbox and Trimble Connect accounts as well.

The latest update to SketchUp Mobile Viewer lets you pull models from your 3D Warehouse, Dropbox, and Trimble Connect accounts. It’s also a cinch to open models stored in any other cloud storage application.

You can also open .skp files in the SketchUp Mobile Viewer directly from any other app. For example, if you want to open a SketchUp model attachment from your email app, or if you want to open a SketchUp model from your Google Drive or Box app, just tap on the file and select SketchUp Mobile Viewer as the default app for opening .skp’s.

We’ve also added the ability to copy .skp files directly to the app via iTunes (iOS only) or via an SD card (Android only).

SketchUp Mobile Viewer, now with even more SketchUppy stuff!

In this update, we’ve taken some big steps towards making mobile models look and feel more like they do in SketchUp. In particular, we’re excited to have taken the first crack at bringing Styles to mobile screens with added support for SketchUp’s standard Face Styles: WireFrame, Hidden Line, Shaded, Shaded Textures, and Monochrome, along with a toggle for XRay mode.

Face styles, XRay mode, an orthographic camera, Field of View, Layers: the latest SketchUp Mobile Viewer brings even more SketchUp to your mobile device.

Since viewing models is pretty crucial to a model viewing app, we also made sure to beef up the camera options and controls. Notably, we’ve added an Orthographic camera mode to the app. So with the right configuration of standard views and visible layers, you can now more easily create plans and elevations on the fly.

You’ll also notice that when the camera is in Perspective mode, a Field of View slider lets you control how much of your model is visible. We think you’ll find this especially handy for visualizing interior spaces. We’ve even tossed in SketchUp’s Look-around camera tool so that you can explore your field of view without accidentally orbiting into a wall.

The new Field of View slider makes it a lot easier to explore interiors

We love that our users have high expectations for how SketchUp should behave on their devices. We may be a laid-back, piñata-clobberin’ crew from Boulder, Colorado, but your expectations for SketchUp are ours too. Thanks for all the feedback on our first version of SketchUp Mobile Viewer -- if you haven’t already, we hope you’ll add this app to your home screen, load up your SketchUp models, and tell us what you think