Sketchup is more popular than Rhino in a few categories, but why exactly?

whatever success autodesk failed to achieve with trying to give away a free competitor, I think it is hardly analogous, as google had google earth and gained a sketchup userbase in the range of 2-3 million; I have been writing render plugins for sketchup since 2005, so I have seen up close the whole saga, and am comfortable speculating, based on my observations personally supporting some thousands of customers, and visiting arch firms over the years to discuss their rendering needs, that a substantial portion of the remaining sketchup userbase would never even have heard of it, and made their workflows dependent upon it (and this is why the IE comparison is not applicable), had it remained with @ last

imo they (trimble) have done their best to drop the ball, but I don’t think it can be overstated, when the question is about popularity, the lingering effects of the specific, unique history of sketchup

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The response from everyone I know is that Rhino is definitely a better CAD tool but can surely take a leaf or two from SketchUp’s playbook in terms of interface.

There is a merit in splitting the modelling file and the documentation file which I personally think is valid.

The way I personally use rhino is to have one .3dm file for modelling and create another file using worksession for documentation. Pretty much like how SketchUp and Layout work together.

Maybe Mcneel should look into and make this workflow possible instead of becoming BIM like which is not rhino’s strength anyway. Whereas 2d drawings is something not only architects but any engineer / designer will require. SketchUp closes this gap beautifully with Layout.

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@keithscadservices - Thank you for the kind words. I should also apologize. My original intent was to help re-focus the discussion on your original, constructive pursuits. I may have gone off-track from some of your original desires re:Rhino

I didn’t overlook your concerns; rather, I felt they were all rooted in ubiquity/popularity. For example, your #2 item (plugin development), #3 the modeling standard for architects, and #4 content/warehouse – each of these is directly related to the product’s popularity.

I also appreciate the great deal of time you have invested to foster constructive communication which (to me) is genuine, well-intentioned, and raises excellent points I’ve often wondered myself.
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@jdhill - I didn’t intend to argue any of your fundamental points. You clearly have a great deal of stopied experience and knowledge on the history.

With that said, I believe there may be some misunderstanding in regard to my post.

  1. In my post I explicitly stated, in three instances, that Sketchup’s popularity was related to its early market positioning. It’s also fair to mention, this wasn’t just the Google-effect.
  • (a) Early boost from @ Last Software’s early market-entry and new paradigm. Multiplied by excellent branding and viral campaign. Don’t forget that SketchUp had to be so successful that it appeared on Google’s radar as an acquisition candidate.

  • (b) The boost from Google’s acquisition was primarily in the first two years and primary due to Google’s free version of SketchUp Make. Meanwhile, the paid/professional userbase did not increase (relatively) by much more than years prior. However, this is eclipsed by the early bump from SketchUp Make’s publicity and 6 years growth by @Last Software as an early pioneer of the easy-3D massing concept.

  • (c) Trimble (I agree with you: Trimble is horrible company, not known for much innovation -vs- revenue) has been particularly successful promoting a product that Google was willing to let die / had no interest insofar as direct-revenues.

  • (d) Growth based on search-trends has been exceptionally consistent; however, while this correlates with sales in many cases, SketchUp’s free product is responsible for a large portion of that growth. Sidenote: current reporting “activations” (include free products) total 41 million.

  1. Despite the fact that I acknowledge SketchUp’s early growth and its importance, I explicitly stated this wasn’t the sole reason for their sales eclipsing Rhino. As I explained, their early userbase is only part of the equation.

  2. Anyone that proclaims: a userbase that is orders-of-magnitude higher than the next closest competitor in responsible for success 15 year later … Hasn’t done a great deal of market research in tech. To be clear, I’m not proclaiming this to be your position. I’m merely clarifying that a large userbase, while valuable and important (again) is not the whole enchilada.

  3. Based on your comment re:Internet Explorer, you misunderstood my intent. That may be my fault, I’ll clarify: I did not suggest a reason for Internet Explorer’s failure; merely that in tech, it’s not uncommon to go from 30:1 …to… 1:30 over 15 years time. More simply: Investing time/money marketing to SketchUp’s demographic is not a futile endeavour.

  4. To reiterate my original post, there are a variety of factors including the Google-boost:

  • Brand-equity
  • Market-positioning/impression (clean, easy, modern/uncluttered welcoming interface)
  • Advertising-budget
  • Ease-of-Use
  • Secondary: Word-of-Mouth / Viral spread.
  1. I was also attempting to explain how a large part of this process is the secondary-stage. Simply put: as you create a product that people love (eg Apple, Tesla, etc), the userbase begins selling it on your behalf.

With software, this is most often promoted by favorable articles/videos. Favorable articles are most-often written about solutions that are “shiny” (most succinct abbreviation I can provide). Shiny doesn’t mean “new”; rather, it would be closer to: interesting, motivating, modern, novel, low-barrier-to-entry (both price/labor investment).

This is where we come to the modern advantage of SketchUp. Yes, their early market position helped them. Yes, Google & “SketchUp Make” (free) being the greatest effect.

However, a software company cant rest on those laurels 15 years later.

And this is precisely my point: Rhino can’t turn-back-the-clock and establish a larger user-base. They also can’t flood the market with billions in advertising.

Therefore … What can Rhino do that is within-reach?

My post addressed this explicitly. I explained that simply because SketchUp has far more users, that’s not necessarily written in-stone, game-over. Fortunately, with a Trimble-business, the odds that Rhino can steal market-share are … even higher.

Which brings me to the final point
In short, this is precisely why I believe that @KeithsCADservices is absolutely correct to pose the question: Rhino is the better product; why not go after that large block of ~6 million paid licenses or ~35 million free-word-of-mouth limited copies. Why not invest a bit of time to consider high-ROI changes/marketing/affiliate programs that will expand the user base?

Some have said “Because they are two different products”.

From a technical standpoint? Sure. From a marketing standpoint? Let’s just say that if you worked in business development under me and you made that claim, I’d be looking for your replacement ;-).

It’s an excellent question, in my humble opinion. I also believe Rhino would have to be crazy not to be concerned with a portion of that market. Perhaps Rhino has no interest… None-the-less, it’s crucial to understand why SketchUp continues to grow --rather than-- throwing your hands in the air proclaiming “they have more users/resources, there is no point.”

I did my best to provided an objective, well-rounded basis for that. I don’t believe any of my statements contradict your point. I hope this fosters more productive conversation regarding the original post. Better yet, that someone at Rhino stumbles upon this thread and it helps spark some ideas, if nothing else.


EDIT: It just occurred to me that Form-Z is another good SketchUp alternative that never developed a sustainable growth. Not because they aren’t better (sure – they’re not Rhino, but they’re far better than SketchUp) – rather – they’ve made the same mistakes I’ve mentioned above.

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@Tiffany4: I’ve watched Dan Brown for over ten years, probably one of the best Sketch Up teachers in the industry, train people from more walks of life (aka different industries) that I never would have imagined people coming from those industries using Sketch Up to do some amazing designs. Could they use Rhino to do the same work, 100% but the one thing that you are all missing out on, which is the one main consistent thing that users would say is that “Sketch Up is much more approachable software”.

That for them it wasn’t about what software was better or anything else. Some had heard of Rhino, Revit, Vector Works… others hadn’t. Some had never used 3D Software before. The UI/UX experience that Sketch Up brings to a majority of people is enough for them and that some of you are here saying that Rhino is a superior product is kind of a snub to their direct experience. It’s not about the superior/better product being the one that “should” be the industry leader, we all know that overall there are better toolsets in Rhino, but clearly you’re missing some of the base points which is “For what the software offers, can I get my work done?”. If the answer is yes then seems like you have your answer.

Most of you have said that Sketch Up can net some great results, but Rhino can take it further. But then how can you stop short of that same thought process and not also say that Revit is by far a superior software than Rhino, when it comes to the whole Architectural process than both?

@keithscadservices I think we can agree that no studio only use one software…From Lumion, to Enscape, UnReal, NavisWorks, AutoCAD… etc the list goes on. Why this push for Rhino to overtake Sketch Up or at least you’re aim to understand why it hasn’t?

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@arthurys - I believe you may have misunderstood my point.

I went into thorough detail explaining that the technical robustness is often less important than the impression in the market. That to compete with SketchUp would require a tool that was less intimidating and offered a “quick massing” option where one could go soup-to-nuts in an hour, similar to SketchUp.

You suggested we’re “missing out on” the following:

the one main consistent thing that users would say is that “Sketch Up is much more approachable software”.

It’s false to say this point was overlooked. In fact, it was the most fundamental point to my first post. In my second post, I defended that exact point over the counter-point that SketchUp’s userbase is the sole basis for its continued success.

If you re-read my first reply, I’m communicating that point in great detail. If you re-read my second reply, you’ll see that I’m defending this same useability point by clarifying to @jdhill that marketshare alone does not alone account for SketchUp’s success and I again return to the simplicity (along with the secondary, tertiary effects that result).

Furthermore, while SketchUp and Rhino can be compared because they are both, first-and-foremost, modeling tools; the suggestion that Rhino and Revit offers an analog, is misleading/false. While Revit can (painfully) do freeform modeling, it’s a true BIM tool, through-and-through.

If you were to use BricsCAD BIM or Vectorworks, I’d be more apt to consider the point; however, pedantic reasoning aside: two different markets for very good reason, not to mention BIM doesn’t have any business in the industrial design/3D printing space, etc.

If we’re talking about the specific niche of architecture (to be clear, I’m not limited my comments to architecture alone; there is a large industrial design/3D printing contingent in this market/aid to developing word-of-mouth) … every experienced person in architecture knows the world of difference between the idea phase (simple massing) versus the intention of BIM, which is not at all effective at the idea phase, unless you have relatively simple/limited parameters to begin within.

I recently developed an 8-unit “Tahitian village” on a five acre private island. There would be no way for me to iterate dozens of designs in Revit to pitch that. Not because it doesn’t have a welcoming interface, less marketing, fewer tutorials, etc. Rather, because Revit’s objective has no relation (nor price-point for that matter) to a modeling tool, for those familiar with BIM v freeform-modeling.

In SketchUp or Rhino, however, I can create a dozen initial sketches to sell my friends/investors on the deal and begin discussing the direction of the project. While I could accomplish the entire project in SketchUp or Rhino – make no mistake – that doesn’t make it functionality similar to Revit.

I suspect you’re not arguing that Rhino is similar to Revit in this regard; however, your point:

But then how can you stop short of that same thought process and not also say that Revit is by far a superior software than Rhino, when it comes to the whole Architectural process than both?

The answer: quite easily; there is no parity here.

The statement leaves the impression that you see an analog. Revit cannot be “superior” to Rhino because they are doing two entirely different things (both use-case/marketing-niche, as well as functionally). To the contrary, Rhino can be considered “superior” to SketchUp because they’re both modeling tools that have the option of quick massing to create architecture at all levels, from rough sketches, to construction docs.

Again, we’re not discussing the product’s architecture alone; we’re discussing the market.

Sidenote: unless we’re arguing for sake of argument, or of of the positions is overly pedantic, the ability for a plugin to offer “BIM” features doesn’t make Rhino any more of an analog to Revit.

In short:
I think we all agree that SketchUp enjoys a large market share (41 million activations) due to several factors. Approachability, ease-of-use, modern/clean interface, and expedience in simple push/pull modeling being one of those factors. The point is that Rhino could invest in some UI and “quick massing” modes, rewrite the narrative, and potentially capture a chunk of that market.

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check out auto cplanes, inset, and pushpull in rhino 8 wip

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@Tiffany4 I believe that the initial context was Rhino and Sketch Up specifically within the Architectural vertical. Now if we’re willing to now add product design and other areas, then yes Rhino is by far superior. But then again I’d throw into the mix that Modo or even zBrush as two modeling tools that are by far heads above Rhino as a modeling tool. (But won’t open up that can of whooopazz right now… :slight_smile: and it’s also “somewhat” subjective.

I think we all agree that when it comes to the design phase and massing models then let the user use what they’re most comfortable with. You can already see that Rhino 8 WIP is adding something that’s been base line push/pull functionality that’s been in Sketch Up day 1 so they are making some additions. It this “superior” aspect that makes it come off as “Holier than Thou” rather than being inclusive POV.

Sure Revit can’t do more of the organic shapes like Rhino can but within the initial conversation, as pointed out previously, this was mainly within the Architectural world. And if going off the notion of superior for the whole process then that edges out to Revit over Rhino was my point. The goal is to create buildings that will ultimately be built and no one is taking things from Rhino as being CD level. So if we’re willing to let Rhino not be Revit then we’d also have to let it be ok that Sketch Up isn’t Rhino. That’s just my opinion and we don’t have to agree.

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Much of what initially got me pondering this was the many planned updates in R8 including what you’ve mentioned. And then there’s the visuals: the new styles look like they would transfer incredibly well to architecture. Like the ‘Sketchy’ style for example. I’m pretty excited for it actually. And I still haven’t even really seen what’s in store for Visual ARQ 3.

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The thing that interests me most about Sketchup is the quality of work that’s turning up. I could share a few links but it’s pretty easy to find on a Google image search or Pinterest. And given your background you probably know all about it. The work is amazing! Chief Architect also achieves a really high presentation standard. The big catch here is how long it took and how talented the creator(s) are. And some of the pages might be adjusted in photoshop and illustrator (but only some of them, I’ve seen live videos of some of the work as well).

I had a serious run at learning BricsCAD BIM. My own personal opinion of the overall system wasn’t good. I went in really wanting it to work out for a few different reasons. Personal anecdotes and experiences aside, one important thing I noticed is that there is a lack of completed projects available to view (which I think is an important point). One thing I concluded is that the user base is integral to a program’s success. It’s also worth noting that I wasn’t able to get BricsCAD BIM to achieve what I did in my example above.

We all know Revit. I have a bit of a storied history with Revit; I kind of hate the thing and it’s actually a big reason I’ve explored as many alternatives as I have. My belief is that firms that can ditch Revit are in fact at a competitive advantage. I will mention (and this does weight into my opinion of Revit, but I still hate it) that good results can be achieved. Revit includes some very impressive sample projects: The custom luxury home, the office building in an ultra-dense German? city’s neighbourhood (shown below).

Rhino of course has some pretty cool architectural projects. But fully-completed annotated and documented projects created in Rhino are quite rare. So does this place it in the same category as BricsCAD BIM? Maybe, sort of… but to me I feel like Rhino is kind of the wild card. I just don’t see why it can’t do all this stuff even though it hasn’t (per say).
With the sample project above: I know that they had to go full-send and push Revit to it’s limits (at the time) to model that building the way they did. The walls aren’t just basic Revit wall families, they are fully detailed and all the components are separate entities. To model with such detail in Revit kind of isn’t practical. Rhino as-is (perhaps also using Visual ARQ) might actually be better at it. But who’s going to put the work in and risk their time to try and prove it? Maybe me someday :crazy_face:

I might have been faced with a similar situation a few years ago. I was helping someone design a Bamboo Hut but naively defaulted to using Revit. And Revit fell flat on it’s face; it just didn’t jive with what we were trying to do. I had to do the old start-with-Revit bail-out-to-AutoCAD… Sometime afterwards I started using Sketchup and realized it would have been 100 times better for that particular style of project. And Rhino/Grasshopper would have been better yet (maybe, I’m just speculating).

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This is vastly incorrect. Rhino is used all over the planet in large and small scale architecture by the biggest and most prolific firms in the world. Many large scale projects have IP issues that prevent sharing info about them and as such we don’t share much about them.

rest assured rhino is all over the architecture biz, often even when “other companies” claim ownership of the project. :wink:

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Are you sure? I mean with respect to fully annotated and documented projects. Not projects that are mainly just visuals even if they have a few annotations or comments. I’ve seen a lot of visuals created in Rhino but very few fully annotated drawing sets. That’s the key qualifiable criteria I’m looking for. And by “quite rare” (which is ambiguous) I mean compared to Revit, Sketchup, ArchiCAD, and even less-used programs like Chief Architect and Vectorworks.

This is a case where I’d be happy to be wrong. But I’m not so sure I am. There may be firms that are using Rhino 100% (or close to) but they still fall into my “quite rare” argument life saver :wink: . They might protect their work because being able to create drawings exclusively in Rhino could equate to a big competitive advantage. But still, I think it’s a rare breed.

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Yes, quite sure :wink:

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Honestly, without any evidence, I really doubt that.

“But fully-completed annotated and documented projects” - without the any use of any other software like Revit, Archicad, Vectorworks, etc. to do the architectural part of the job.
We don’t talk about e.g. Rhino.Inside Revit or any other importing to the BIM software to do the documentation.

If we compare number of projects done in Revit, Archicad and Autocad to Rhino only projects what would be the proportions? 1% is quite rare.

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Prior to posting this I searched high and wide. And I did another search after my last post. There are projects, mostly non-architectural, that the creator has done everything in Rhino. That (sort of) proves it’s possible; the tools exist. But such a project like I describe is really a unicorn. 1% might be a lot of we are comparing to the more popular BIM programs. Comparing to Sketchup I think there might be at least 50 Sketchup users who are doing everything from modelling, annotating, and printing the final PDF’s from Sketchup/Layout for every 1 Rhino user, but probably more.

Drawing examples, or at least parts of them, are very easy to find for almost every program. Not so much for Rhino. I would love to see some examples. And I’ll create my own someday as well. But until then…

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Hello, I could attest that an entire project can be done in Rhino from the concept, energy analysis, 3d modeling, all the architectural documentation and soon inspection in AR with the app (a 100% Rhino workflow, visualarq and Grasshopper without using AutoCAD, revit, or sketch up) I think that rhino is a tool with a very versatile and serious potential. It should be noted that for the rendering and video part I use other software because I think that RT is more efficient and faster to view in other software but within rhino I texture and map, in the other software I place furniture, cars, vegetation and the sky

If you have all the time in the world you can do a lot on a piece of paper too. Most of the users see the potential of Rhino and it’s flexibility but all that positivity is often covering the hard truth of all workarounds and time sinkholes Rhino has if you want to do some required (often more mundane) pieces of work in the whole process.

I feel there is too much hype and confirmation bias among users that for some reason use Rhino to do things where other software excels. This is misleading the same as what marketing departments are doing for other companies.

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This sounds awesome! I would love to see an example someday or a case study. I’ve found 'em for Sketchup.

One reason I post things like this is I’m trying to get people to come out and share ways they were able to use Rhino for what I’ve described. I know I didn’t specifically state “architecture” in the subject but that was more or less where I was heading.

I’m somewhat guilty of this aren’t I? But that’s not my intent I swear :wink: .

I previously tried to put together a workflow… and failed… I would say I was killed by 1,000 paper cuts. Some of which were due to my own personal knowledge shortcomings, some due to having to sort through unintuitive and hard-to-find settings, and a few others from things like PDF printing woes. As my skills and overall knowledge improves I’m thinking about giving it another go. If I complete a template I figure I can place the starting line 75% past most the workarounds and sinkholes. But for now it’s all talk…

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I really shouldn’t but I can’t help myself, I’m curious… in which markets are Rhino the dominant product? (Only one I can think of is jewelry, perhaps? But then again, they use add-ons which cost more than Rhino itself…)

As for the answer to the topic title, it’s quite simply UX. Rhino has been lagging behind in this area for more than a decade now (it’s marginally better on MacOS, though). And every time people want more convenience, the answer from McNeel is that you have more flexibility in Rhino. They don’t get that you can have both, and that’s why it’s not more popular. :person_shrugging:

Popularity is often based on multiple factors, and a higher level of popularity does not necessarily indicate that something is better or even has any redeeming qualities at all. For example, take smoking.

Once one of the earliest 3D modelling tools available, at this point in time Sketchup can no longer be considered a professional 3D software. It begs to question if it ever was.

When compared to contemporary 3D software such as Rhinoceros3D, Cinema4D, 3dsMax, Maya, and even Blender, SketchUp is extremely outdated. As if comparing a kids toy truck to an actual truck.

It was cool in the early games of 3D modelling, but it seems as SU got stuck in those times and never left.

When I hear people endorse SU I just feel pity for them because they don’t know anything better.

Let me develop:

Basic 3D features:

  • SU is bad at moving assets around. There is no Gumball or Gizmo. (basic tool in any 3D software).
  • SU only has 1 viewport available. (Rhino has 4 by default and you can add more, and dragging across viewports is supported).
  • SU is bad at texturing. Or rather nonexistent. Not only are there not mapping methods available such as (box, planar, cylindrical, etc), the whole texturing experience to edit textures is forced to be per face, meaning you have to edit the texture on each face of your mesh. There is no global texturing.
  • SU has no support for curves.
  • SU has no piping tool.
  • SU has no loft tool.
  • SU has no mirror tool
  • SU has no distribute or align tool.
  • SU has no sphere tool.
  • SU can’t extrude edges to form surfaces.
  • SU history (undo redo) is terrible and with 20 steps at max.
  • SU has no randomization tools to scatter and scale objects.
  • SU has no parametric tools nor node modelling.
  • SU has no support for drafting which forces user to create 2D drawings in CAD or Rhino to import into SU for 3D modelling.
  • SU overall snapping precision is bad, which often leads to inaccurate models. There also no possibility to edit snapping options. Also, in perspective camera one will often run into issues trying to snap things around that should be snapping from that viewing angle.
  • SU does not allow the uesr to turn off snapping for freely placing assets.
  • SU only has windowed selection. (no brush, no free form, etc)
  • SU boolean operations often fail or create horrible results, any terrain perforation is doomed to fail.
  • SU scaling tool does not allow the user to input a specific value for the object to scale to. (it only allows scaling factor values).
  • SU viewport visualization tools is extremely limited with no support for ambient occlusion.
  • SU has no layers which allow you to apply materials, lock objects, change colors, etc.

Basic interchangeably/collaboration features:

  • SU is bad at importing assets. It does not support most common 3D file formats such as OBJ and FBX.
  • SU is bad at managing large meshes. It has no optimization what so ever and anyone that tried to work with topographical meshes is Skechup or any other imported mesh know what I’m talking about.
  • SU models are often terribly modeled with many errors in the meshes, manifolds, etc. The software allows all without any kind of warning. SU modellers often know very little about technical modelling.
  • SU has no export selected.
  • SU tag folder which replaces sub layers does not copy from one file to another.

Basic Rendering features:

  • SU has no default renderer.
  • SU has no lights
  • SU does not allow the user to freely move the sun around (azimuth and altitude) instead you have to pick a time.
  • SU can’t export cameras from one SU file to another.

The list can probably be much more extensive.

My theory is that anyone who uses SketchUp by choice is +40 years old and have never tried anything else.

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