Versions:
16.0.19912 (Win 64-bit)
16.0.19911 (Win 32-bit)
16.0.19913 (Mac 64-bit)
SketchUp Release Notes
What’s New?Trimble Connect
Trimble Connect is a new way to store, sync, reference, share, and collaborate on design/build projects. Once you've signed up then start uploading .skp, .pdf, .dxf, .ifc. files. If you already have an account for 3D Warehouse or Extension Warehouse, we recommend that you use the same login (email) when creating a Trimble Connect Account. Trimble Connect allows users to publish, open, import reference files and update SKPs from Trimble Connect project folders. As you’re modeling you can even pull in and update reference SketchUp models as if they were locally hosted components. To learn more about Trimble Connect read this article.
Reload Components with 3D Warehouse modelsIn SketchUp 2016, a context click on a component gives you the opportunity to reload (or swap out) a new component directly from 3D Warehouse. This action will reload every instance of that component in your model (similar to the same action in the Components dialog), so it’s a helpful method for working with proxy models. And if your component was downloaded from 3D Warehouse, you can also use the context-click to quickly access its 3DWH details page.
Generate Report 2.0The new Generate Report feature allows you to choose which attributes are exported (including a new attribute for capturing quantities), assign an order for the columns in your report, and specify a units format. You can even save your formatted report as a reporting template, to speed the process of re-running the same reports as the design changes.
Enhanced inferencing and tool improvementsLearning and utilizing SketchUp’s inference engine makes for fast and precise modeling. In this release, we’ve oiled that engine to provide slicker inferencing and locking across the board. This improvement is actually an entire set of smart tweaks we’ve made to inferencing and locking. Here’s a brief description of what’s new:
Improved Parallel and Perpendicular Inferences: We’ve improved parallel and perpendicular inference display along with the ability to force the last referenced edge or plane (depending on tool) with the down arrow. This is particularly handy for drawing extending edges on off-axis planes. Now when you are using the parallel and perpendicular inferences, sketchUp will highlight in magenta, the entity which direction is based off of. Also keep an eye out for the new “Extend Edge” tooltip with magenta highlighting when extending lines with the pencil tool.
Expanded Arrow Key locking: More tools now allow the use of arrow keys to quickly lock to a direction or plane. Each arrow key corresponds to a lockable color. Right = Red, Left = Green, Up = Blue, Down = Magenta. Additionally, you can now lock normals or rotation axis or surface normals prior to first click for tools that leverage a protractor or create a surface. These tools include Arc/Pie, Rotated Rectangle, Rotation, Protractor, Polygon, Circle and the Section Plane tool.
Arc/circle: SketchUp will now easily inference circle and arc centers. While we were at it, we improved SketchUp’s ability to visualize arc endpoints. Another bonus, you can now change the number of segments using new modifier keys (check out the status bar right after you’ve drawn an arc/circle).
Axes tool flexibility: A small but useful change: when changing axes orientation, you can now toggle through the exact axes you’d like to pick first using the Alt (PC)/Command (Mac) modifier.
Inference hidden, active section planes: SketchUp will now recognize intersection points with hidden section planes. This functionality extends to snapping to elements of a SketchUp model in LayOut too: pay attention for a new inference tip “Intersection with Hidden Section.”
Miscellaneous improvements: We’ve also tweaked the Move, Protractor, Offset, and Rotate tools with miscellaneous improvements to improve usability and close up a few loose ends. Additional improvements are identified in the “Tools” and “Inferencing” sections below.
Customizeable Utility Trays on WindowsOn Windows machines, we’ve re-worked SketchUp’s floating utility dialogs (Styles, Scenes, Components, etc.) so that they neatly stack inside customizable, completely collapsible trays. This functionality also allows you to group dialogs that you may often use at the same time, and is incredibly useful for hiding, browsing, and revealing your go-to utilities.
Refreshed TexturesTextures make your models pop off the screen (and the page). In this release, we’ve reworked our default material libraries, adding contemporary textures and entirely new categories.
Support for High DPI GraphicsWe’re now rendering all of SketchUp, LayOut, and Style Builder toolbar and cursor icons from vector graphics. This means they will scale well for a variety of resolution settings, with a much cleaner look and better sized icons on High DPI screens in particular.
Extensions Loading PolicySketchUp now has three different Extension policies you can select that affect what extensions can and cannot be loaded when SketchUp starts. Starting with SketchUp 2016, Registered Extension Developers can claim their software by signing it digitally, saying “I made this”, but in a secure coded format. The three extension loading modes correspond to this digital signature that Registered Extension Developers add to their extension.
“Identified Extensions Only” mode means that SketchUp will only load extensions that have been signed by one of our Registered Developers.
“Approve Unidentified Extensions” will load all signed extensions, and pop up an approval dialog window on startup that that lets you manually select which unsigned extensions you would like to load.
“Unrestricted” mode will load all extensions, signed or unsigned. You can use this mode to continue to load old extensions that have not yet been signed by their author.
Visit the Help Center article for more information.
Welcome Dialog RefreshWe’ve given our Welcome Dialog a refresh for SketchUp 2016. Everything works mostly the same, but we’re happy to say that the “Start SketchUp” button is bigger than ever!
Knowledge Center UpdateOur Knowledge Center has been rewritten and redesigned for this release. Content is now organized in a hierarchy of “books” that focuses on learning SketchUp’s tools in the context of using SketchUp.
Support for El Capitan and Windows 10Our QA team has smashed and banged on these new operating systems enough to say that SketchUp 2016 is fully compatible with Apple’s El Capitan and Microsoft’s Windows 10.
SketchUp ExportersWith the release of SketchUp 2016 we no longer support the EPix file format for export. If you continue to use this exporter you'll need to downsave your SketchUp file to SketchUp 2015 or earlier and then export using that older version.
Bug Fixes/Small ImprovementsIn addition to the above, we’ve been heads down fixing bugs and adding some smaller features:
Stability- Fixed a crash that could occur when importing an image into a model that had a corrupt image (0x0 size).
- Fixed a crash that could occur when auto-folding certain geometry.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when copy/pasting geometry or closing models. This crash is caused by component instances that have bad definitions. We added a validity check to catch and repair this condition, so if you are crashing, especially on copy/paste, please go to Model Info > Statistics > Fix Problems to see if SketchUp finds and fixes an issue related to component instances.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when downloading a model from the 3D Warehouse by clicking on buttons rapidly.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when moving geometry and toggling auto-fold.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when changing arc segments in Entity Info. Added a new message to indicate if the number of segments is too large for a given angle and radius when changing arc segments in Entity Info.
- Fixed a specific case in which a file could not be saved or fixed with a validity check related to a bad component. This led to a crash when closing the file.
- Added a validity check to detect and fix components that have duplicate definition names (which can cause bugs/crashes when doing other things in SketchUp).
- Many “under the hood” changes to resolve warnings and improve product stability.
- (Win) Fixed a crash that could occur when closing out the Soften Edges dialog using certain key strokes.
- (Mac) Fixed a crash that could occur when closing a file in SketchUp Viewer.
- (Mac) Fixed a crash that could occur when undoing the pasting of certain components.
- (Mac) Fixed a crash that could occur when opening and closing multiple large models.
- (Mac) Fixed a hang that occur when closing the “Warning - Scenes and Styles” dialog.
- Improved the performance of Stamp and Drape and other operations where geometry is intersected.
- Improved the performance of erasing entities within groups in large models.
- Improved the performance of undoing changes to geometry.
- Located underneath the File menu on both Windows and Mac.
- Requires use of a Google account to access Trimble Connect (either a Gmail account or an email associated with Google will work).
- The Metric system is now supported.
- The ability to choose and order the report columns has been added.
- One or more reports can now be saved with a model as a template for future use. Templates can also be duplicated and edited as needed.
- The ability to filter based on component levels has been added.
- Generate Report is a Pro only feature.
- You must be online for the new version of Generate Report to work. Offline users will see the older version
- Users with Internet Explorer 8 Installed will see the older version of Generate Report. Upgrade IE to version 9 or newer for best results.
- Made the following UI changes:
- Added a Window > 3D Warehouse menu item.
- Renamed the *Get Models* button to *3D Warehouse”.
- Added a new “3D Warehouse” component context sub-menu.
- Moved the “Share Component” menu item to be under the new “3D Warehouse” component context sub-menu.
- Fixed an issue where Unicode characters were not always maintained/404 errors were issued when downloading models with Unicode definition names/file names from 3D Warehouse.
- Fixed an issue where an uploaded model could get out of sync with the model saved to disk - we now require that a model be saved before uploading.
- Made the following set of changes to retain a component’s definition name and original filename when uploading and downloading models from 3D Warehouse and when importing and exporting components locally:
- When downloading components from 3D Warehouse, SketchUp now retains the component’s original definition name and description (if defined) vs using the model’s 3D Warehouse title and description.
- Changed SketchUp to remember the definition name of components on import vs overwriting the definition name with the component’s filename.
- Added a Name field to Model Info > File to allow a user to directly specify the model’s name which will become the component’s definition name if that model is inserted as a component from 3D Warehouse or directly imported as a component.
- When using the context Save As menu to save a component, SketchUp suggests the component’s original filename (if known) vs suggesting the component’s definition name.
- Added the ability to upload the current model via the Upload Model command that is visible within the 3D Warehouse dialog (Window > 3D Warehouse > User menu).
- (Win) SketchUp now returns to your last visited 3D Warehouse location during your current SketchUp session vs redirecting to the home page each time you call up the 3D Warehouse dialog.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where a suffix could be appended to the definition name of downloaded components.
- Fixed an issue with the 2 Point Arc tool in which an arc endpoint could be misplaced when drawing in small dimensions. An excess line was created.
- Fixed an issue where the edges were not removed when creating a fillet if the arc endpoint ended on another endpoint.
- Fixed an issue where Arc and Pie detent radius tooltips were only displayed when parallel to an axis.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue with the Arc and Pie tool drawing lines were hard-coded black and not using colors style-specific colors.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue in which the Rotated Rectangle, Arc, and Pie cursors were not updating based on clicks or typing values in the VCB (Measurements toolbar).
- Fixed an issue where the Rotated Rectangle protractor was not displayed with dotted lines when on a back edge.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue with the Rotated Rectangle tool where a line could remain while locking to an axis using the arrow keys.
- Fixed an issue in which an edge could not be directly extended when the edge was too close to an axis line. With this fix, the more you zoom in, the smaller this snapping tolerance becomes allowing you to extend an edge easier and eliminate undesired snapping of edges to axes during tracing.
- Fixed a crash with the Rotate tool when using Ctrl/Option in between typing in values in the VCB (Measurements toolbar).
- Updated status bar for Paint Bucket to identify modifier keys for sampling materials.
- Changed the hotspot for the Eraser tool to be smaller.
- Fixed an issue where, when performing two offsets with manually selected items, the first offset could be undone.
- Added new modifier keys to lock just protractor orientation for Rotate and Protractor tools.
- Fixed an issue where pressing Shift would release a constraint that was locked using an arrow key.
- Fixed an issue where an invalid input in the VCB (Measurements toolbar) broke the copy mode.
- Improved consistency across drawing tools with using shift to lock through different point inferences (including endpoints, midpoints, arc centers, and guide points). This functionality is new to several tools.
- Added inferencing when using the rotation handles within the Move tool.
- Fixed an issue in which inference points could not always be found with the Move tool for points that were off of the gluing surface for glued groups or components. Expanded the list of inference types that can be found for this case.
- Fixed an issue in which an incorrect parallel inference was found after undoing a rotation or move.
- Fixed an issue in which an incorrect parallel inference was found after rotating an edge that was in a group or component.
- Fixed an issue in which an incorrect parallel/perpendicular inference was found when editing a group or component and inferencing an edge of a rotated group or component.
- Fixed an issue where Arc and Pie could show a parallel inference for a non-parallel edge.
- Fixed an issue where the Circle and Polygon tools showed axis inferences when it wasn’t possible.
- Fixed an issue in which a perpendicular inference couldn’t be found for Circle, Polygon, Rotate, and Protractor if the reference edge wasn’t parallel to the xy plane.
- Updated protractor-based tools (e.g. Arc, Pie) and Circle/Polygon to ensure consistency with using shift to lock to a plane before first click instead of just locking orientation in some cases.
- Fixed an issue in which Arc and Pie did not draw in the correct plane when using shift before first click.
- Fixed an issue where the Rotated Rectangle tool was not showing Intersection, Guide Point, and On Face inferences.
- Fixed an issue where the Arc and Pie tools were not showing Intersection inferences after first click.
- Improved inferencing with Protractor tool while outside of a component/group.
- Fixed an issue where the Center of a Circle could not be found when the Circle was contained within a Group.
- Added arc segment “Midpoint” inferences and updated the actual arc midpoint to “Arc Midpoint”.
- Fixed an issue where midpoints on Polygon segments could not be found if Polygon was split by an edge.
- Fixed an issue where the Rotated Rectangle, Arc, and Pie tools were not always showing From Point inferencing along an axis.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue where the Tape Measure, Rotate, and Protractor lines did not turn magenta when parallel/perpendicular to an edge.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue where a magenta, dotted line was not drawn between the first and third points of a 3 Point Arc when parallel/perpendicular to an edge.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue where the Circle and Polygon radii were not turning bold when locked to an inference using shift.
- Fixed a cosmetic issue with the 2 Point and 3 Point Arc tools where the drawing line could change appearance when locked using shift.
- User may see graphics on certain Ruby Extensions that look small or low resolution, as the author for the extension may not have updated their graphics (Vector based graphics) to support High DPI yet.
- (Win) When changing the screen resolution or scale% with multiple monitors, the monitor that is your ‘Main Display’ will be the one that controls how SketchUp will look when opened.
- (Win) We support an unlimited number of screen resolutions, however, we currently only support a scale percentage change of up to 150%. Screen scale percentages set above 150% can result in unreadable menu items.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where importing Classifications was very slow.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where exporting 3D formats took an exorbitant amount of time.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where the original file was not visible in Finder (or on the Desktop) after saving a file a second time.
- (Mac) Fixed a crash that could occur when closing SketchUp in Full Screen Mode using the Red X or Command+W to close the window.
- (Win) Fixed the issue where the user would lose the scroll bars on the Welcome Dialog, Templates tab, when the middle mouse wheel was used.
- (Win) Improved the look of the File > Open and File > Save dialogs.
- (Win) Fixed the "File currently locked by another user" message that was seen when opening a file via double click when the Preview Pane in Windows Explorer was open.
- (Win) Fixed an issue where you could see a CFileException 5 error when saving a model multiple times in a row without waiting long between saves.
- (Mac) Changed SketchUp to now correctly save files with the “staff” group vs the “wheel” group.
- (Mac) The Fonts dialog was refactored to fix the following:
- Fixed an issue in which a fixed height text size could not be set. The height changes were applied as a font point size change.
- Fixed an issue in which the height option was not working for Dimensions.
- Fixed an issue in which 3D Text dialog did not always remember the last used typeface.
- Fixed an issue in which the 3D Text dialog was resulting in 100% cpu usage while the dialog was open.
- Provided a more complete fix for a crash on Yosemite when the dialog was opened.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where 3D Text could not be placed after clicking on a component in the Components browser.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where Entity Info could sometimes get stuck at the top of your display window or be taller than expected.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where Entity Info could grow in size after SketchUp crashed.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue in the Entity Info dialog where the "Text Position" and Endpoints" labels were swapped for linear dimensions.
- (Win) Fixed an issue where the description could be cut off in Entity Info when multiple locked entities were selected.
- We removed the EULA license agreement from the installer. It is now displayed and must be agreed to at first launch by each unique user.
- Changed SketchUp to display the major version number in the title bar.
- Created new templates featuring Lisanne, one of our cheerful Customer Support representatives.
- Fixed an issue where exploding components sometimes unsoftened softened edges.
- Fixed an issue where hiding dialogs/minimizing SU smoothed/unsmoothed selected geometry.
- Changed the Create Component dialog to remember what was last checked in the "replace selection with component" check box.
- Fixed an issue where panning did not work in models with only construction points (e.g. point cloud models).
- Fixed an issue where a blank component definition name could be added in the Create Component dialog.
- Changed the section slice DWG exporter to export the model units (vs always exporting inches).
- Renamed the Geo-location functionality in SketchUp to be more generic including:
- renaming the location layers to “Location Terrain” and “Location Snapshot”.
- renaming the “Google” toolbar to “Location”
- removing the “Preview in Google Earth” button. Note: models can still be previewed in Google Earth by exporting them to the kmz format.
- Added the ability to extend expiring (single-user) Enterprise licenses without a user needing to re-license SU.
- Improved parsing of classification schema.
- Added classification information to Model Info > Statistics.
- Fixed an issue where the Aspect Ratio value chosen for animation exports was not saved between sessions.
- Fixed a number of translation and truncation errors in our localized builds.
- (Win) Fixed an issue where the Model Info dialog was not appropriately disabled (including the menu item) while editing a Match Photo.
- (Win) Fixed an issue where the slider text on the Shadows dialog and toolbar did not always respect the current Window’s desktop theme.
- (Win) Fixed an issue where the length snapping field in Model Info > Units updated to zero when changing precision.
- (Win) Changed the default size of the Viewer application window to be larger.
- (Win) Fixed an issue where the Add License button was unreachable at certain screen resolutions.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where textures created on Windows could not be edited via the "Edit Texture Image" context menu.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where the text seen when renaming a scene via right clicking on a scene tab was tiny on Retina displays.
- (Mac) Fixed an issue where users were able to create duplicate named scenes in the Scenes dialog.
- (Mac) Renamed the preference that checks for Software Updates in Preferences > General to “Allow checking for updates” to better reflect what the preference does.
- (Mac) Increased the time interval that SU uses when it does a check to determine if you are online.
LayOut Release Notes
What’s New? LayOut cloud referencesWith this release, LayOut’s reference objects are now web friendly. That means your LayOut projects can reference and update files that are stored and synced with services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Trimble Connect Sync. When you reference a file from any of these services (.skp or otherwise), LayOut will notify you when an update is available for your ‘web reference.’ Say goodbye to missing references when different people are working on the same .layout document within a cloud sync folder that also contains the referenced files.
Small dimensionsA smart tweak to LayOut dimensions, our new ‘small dimension’ leaders ensure that text never interferes with arrows or extension lines, and that your dimensions always have room to stretch out when you’re working in confined spaces. When LayOut detects that your text strings are going to interfere with dimension arrows or extension lines, it will automatically pop-out your strings using a leader (customizable, of course!)
Loveable LayOut layersWe’ve improved pretty much everything about LayOut’s layers. Whether you’re grouping objects across layers, drawing objects on shared layers, or unearthing the bottom of a stacked viewport, our new layers are just plain better. Here’s how:
Multi-Layer Groups: Entities on different layers can now be grouped together. If you tried to do this in the past, you’d collapse your entire group onto one layer.
Maintaining Layers During Copy Paste: Copy/pasting entities now respects the layer assignments of the original entity (previously, everything would copy to the current layer). This should make it easier to copy/paste a SketchUp viewport (along with any grouped dimensions and labels) from one page to another and maintain layer assignments. If you’d like to paste to the current layer, choose Edit -> Paste to Current Layer, or use Cmd+Shift+V (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+V (Win).
‘Move to’ layer on context click: You can now move entities between layers with a context click. Use the new ‘Move to’ command, and then select from all unlocked layers. (In the past you could only move to the current layer, which was a multi-step process.)
Differentiating between shared/non-shared layers: In order to help users understand when they are creating or manipulating entities on a shared layer, we’ve added tool highlighting that displays a different color (red) when you are drawing or selecting elements on a shared layer. (You can customize this highlighting in LayOut Preferences > General).
Layer visibility maintained on new pages: If a layer is hidden on the current page, it will also be hidden on a newly added page.
Optimized PDF Export from LayOutWe are so happy to share that you can now choose to compress JPEG’s in your LayOut files when exporting PDF’s. Since every raster or hybrid rendered .skp viewport has a JPEG image, this leads to drastically smaller PDF exports from LayOut that still have a very high output resolution, but are much easier to share with others. One of our test files shrank from 115 MB down to 18 MB with very little loss in quality. Of course, you can choose your level of image compression on export, so that 115 MB PDF is still an option!
Support for El Capitan and Windows 10Our QA team has smashed and banged on these new operating systems enough to say that SketchUp 2016 is fully compatible with Apple’s El Capitan and Microsoft’s Windows 10.
Documentation ImprovementsOur Knowledge Center has been rewritten and redesigned for this release. Content is now organized in a hierarchy of “books” that focuses on learning LayOut’s tools in the context of using LayOut. Additionally, we have now provided links to all of LayOut’s Instructors that will direct you to the appropriate Knowledge Center article.
Bug Fixes/Small ImprovementsDWG Exporter
- We fixed paragraph formatting for dwg exports. The correct anchoring and alignment will be preserved for text boxes when exported to dwg.
- We addressed the issue regarding unit inconsistency when exporting to dwg. Exporting to model space now picks up the unit set in LayOut’s document properties and exporting to paper space sets the units to millimeter if a metric unit was used, and inches if an imperial unit was used.
- We fixed a crash that occurred when exporting a document with two or more layers named the same to dwg.
- We set the dwg exporter to use a default scale of 1:1 when exporting to model space if no other scale was chosen.
- We reworked the dwg exporter to change the color of black text to white when exported to model space. We did this to avoid having black text on a black background in AutoCAD viewers.
- We addressed an issue that caused the thumbnail view in the Pages inspector to not update when a shared layer was deleted.
- (Win) We fixed a bug that prevented the ability to reorder more than one layer or page at a time through multi-selection.
- We fixed an issue that prevented the Layer’s visibility option from toggling when two documents were open.
- We fixed an issue that caused the longest page name to be rendered when converting the page name auto-text tag to text if that tag was on a shared layer.
- (Mac) We made the dialog that prompts you to either move or delete the entities on the layer when you delete the layer expandable so you can read the layer name if it was long.
- We fixed an issue where undoing a layer reorder sets a different layer active.
- We addressed the issue that caused toolbar customization to be difficult if the toolbar was docked vertically or at the bottom.
- We made several improvements to our button and icon artwork so that they appear nice and crisp on high dpi Windows and Mac machines.
- (Win) We fixed an issue that caused the default text editor preference to be reset every time LayOut was restarted.
- (Win) We fixed the issue that wasn’t updating the paper height when changed from A3 Portrait to Legal.
- (Win) We increased the size of the collapse/expand arrow buttons for the inspector trays on high dpi Windows machines. These were previously a little too small.
- We increased the height of each row in the Sets Pane within Style Builder to avoid the pixel length text from being clipped on high dpi Windows machines.
- (Win) We increased the size of the Viewer toolbar icons within Style Builder.
- We fixed a crash that could happen regularly while customizing toolbars on Windows.
- We fixed an issue in the Japanese version of LayOut that caused a crash during font substitution.
- (Mac) We fixed quite a few untranslated words in each of our localized builds for Mac.
- We addressed an bug that prevented the sample tool from applying a style default to labels if a label was sampled.
- We fixed a bug that would cause dimension text to report 0 if the dimension was resized. This would only happen if the dimension was not extended and was resized by itself (not resized by resizing the entity it was attached to).
- (Mac) We moved the default scrapbooks and templates to the users’ folders and out of the app bundle. When the ones in the app bundle are modified, a copy is made so the original can be preserved.
- We fixed a bug where sampling a pattern fill from within the scrapbook inspector wasn’t creating a permanent reference. When the document was reloaded, the reference would be missing.
- We addressed an issue that prevented pdfs to be overwritten when saving to a FAT-32 formatted external storage device.
- (Win) We fixed a bug in our text renderer that prevented the font Flux Architect from being used.
- We fixed an issue that caused some fonts, namely cityblueprint, to not get preserved when after exported to pdf.
SketchUp API Release Notes
What’s New?For a complete list of all new features and bug fixes, see the Release Notes page that we maintain for developers here: http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/developer/docs/releases
A new LayOut APIWe’re proud to announce our first step towards an extension ecosystem for LayOut. Using this new API developers can now open, create, modify, save, and export .layout files. Practically, this means that other applications can import or export the .layout file format using the C API. (This includes creating a .layout file from SketchUp). We have several sample scripts for developers to try out at release. Check out the API documentation in the Developer Center for more information.
Digitally Signing Extensions - Extensions Loading PolicyWith SketchUp 2016 we introduced the ability for users to select which Extension Loading Policy they want to use. The options are “Identified Extensions Only”, “Approve Unidentified Extensions”, and “Unrestricted.
The developer side of this feature is known as a Digital Signature. All SketchUp extensions for 2016 or later will now require a Digital Signature to run in the highest security mode - “Identified Extensions Only”. If the user has chosen “Approve Unidentified Extensions” then all signed extensions will load automatically and any unsigned extension will have to be approved by the user. All extensions signed and unsigned, will load in “Unrestricted” mode.
SketchUp installs in “Unrestricted” mode by default.
To digitally sign your extension, simply upload your .rbz package to our new Digital Signature and Encryption page and we will sign it and return it to you. Visit the new Extension Digital Signature page.
You will need to sign your extension each time you make code changes and want to re-release it. You will need to be a registered Developer on the Extension Warehouse to be able to sign or encrypt extensions. Apply here!
Ruby Encryption 2.0Goodbye .rbs and Hello .rbe! We have added a new encryption that you can use to help protect your extension Intellectual Property (IP). SketchUp 2016 can read both .rbe and .rbs filetypes. This should help make sure that we maintain backwards compatibility for authors who need some time to re-encrypt their extensions. To use our new encryption, simply upload an unencrypted version of your .rbz package to our new Digital Signature and Encryption page and we will encrypt it and return it to you. Visit the new Extension Digital Signature page for more information.
You will need to be a registered Developer on the Extension Warehouse to be able to sign or encrypt extensions. Apply here!
Developer CenterBetween the Extension Digital Signature Page we added, the new LayOut C API and a whole lot of future ideas and potential, we have decided to create a new central location to organize our developer resources, API documentation, etc. Visit (and bookmark!):
https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/developer_center
We have been working on finding ways to make observers more stable and reliable for all developers. Most of these changes happen under the hood and are not entirely visible to developers. To help with that, we added a few Ruby Warnings that appear in the Ruby Console, and two debugging methods that will determine whether those warnings are shown: Sketchup.debug_mode= and Sketchup.debug_mode?. See this pdf for a more in depth look at the changes we made to the Observers.
SketchUp C API Parity - continuedWe have focused on adding features to the SketchUp C API in 2016 to provide greater benefit to our developers and as part of our continued effort to fully deprecate and remove the old C++ API in the future. Below is a complete list of functions that we have added for 2016. We are continuing to add more until we gain enough coverage to consider the C API at feature parity with the deprecated C++ API.