Features & Tools:  

SketchUp Pro has five templates from which to begin building your 3D world or model: Plan View, Product Design and Woodworking, Engineering, Google Earth Modeling, and Architectural Design. Each template can be used with either metric (millimeters) or imperial (inches) measurement systems, and each is suited for specific design tasks. Since we were working on a home design, we chose the Architectural Design template, and as mentioned previously, turned out a decent exterior home design in under an hour. In three hours it's conceivable that we could have designed the interior and maybe even the landscape.

There isn't a single object type that we couldn't find in Google's 3D Warehouse and it was really fun to browse the thousands of available (and FREE) models.

All designing is done in 3D, but you can still import a 2D picture of your home or yard and trace the lines for easy duplication of your home. If you've designed your home in, say, Adobe Photoshop, you can even import .psd files and build it up in SketchUp.

If you're a more advanced user, you can import 3D files in the .dxf and .dwg AutoCAD formats. Once your design is finished you can export it to the most common 3D formats for SketchUp (.skp), AutoCAD (.dwf, .dxg) VRML (.wrl), Google Earth (.kmz), SoftImage (XSI) and more. For 2D pictures, you can export to JPEG, BMP, TIF, EPS, and PDF files. If all these extensions and acronyms confuse you, don't worry about it. Just know you're covered if you want to share your work with clients or your significant other. Speaking of presenting demos to clients, SketchUp Pro has an easy way to create animations of your work, so you can impress prospects with a nice 3D fly-around and walkthrough video.

Ease of Use:  

Google Sketchup Pro Mac home design software has such a smart visual design that it wouldn’t intimidate the eldest and itty-bittiest of Grandmas. Every time you start SketchUp you’re treated to a video tutorial, with easy access to the remaining 27 beginner tutorial videos. We used Sketchup Pro for half of the allotted 8-hour trial time, and only used the help system once.

Support & Documentation:  

SketchUp Pro 7 has the most video tutorials we've seen for any one home design product. They're organized for those new to SketchUp and home design in general, and also into more specific groups for advanced design tasks. If the 28 beginner video tutorials don't get you well on your way to remodeling your kitchen or designing your own home and landscape, then you should probably take a class or three at the local technology college on basic computer use.

Google's online help is full of FAQs and tutorials, and with such a large community of modelers and designers, chances are you'll never have to email Google proper about any questions or problems as other SketchUp users are helpful and offer polite and thorough advice.

Google has pulled another one out of the hat with SketchUp Pro 7, a complete Mac home design software solution with a unique combination of ease, flexibility and power not usually seen in other home design software.

Note: If you enjoy creating 3D models or you want to experiment with your own home’s design, the basic version of SketchUp is free and well-suited to those tasks; and did we mention it’s fun? Both the free and Pro versions include full access to Google’s 3D Warehouse, where you can browse thousands of 3D models to find the perfect roof material or see how various bathroom/kitchen fixtures would look.