LightUp for SketchUp is a SketchUp plugin that adds realistic, realtime lighting to your sketchup models. Add lights, add windows, and watch your SketchUp scenes glow with gorgeous reflected light, soft shadows, subtle shading. Gone are the flat, boring surfaces of old.
Render[in] is a fully-integrated, real-time radiosity rendering engine developed for SketchUp Free and Pro. Render[in] is fast, easy to use, and works with all the same SketchUp settings, like geometry, camera, sun, colors, textures, etc. You don’t need to change a thing – just render your project! You can also add your own specific settings like specular reflection, point lights, spotlights, and 3D sky and clouds.
September 1, 2010 - Google SketchUp 8 released with easy access to Google’s huge collection of geographic resources.
What’s New in Google SketchUp 8
Model geo-location with Google Maps
We’ve built Maps right into SketchUp. Adding a geo-location to your model is now an elegant, one-app process.
Color imagery and more accurate terrain
The snapshot you get when you add a geo-location to your model now includes 3D terrain data that’s more accurate, and -- for the first time -- aerial imagery in color.
Match Photo improvements
Our Match Photo feature lets you trace one or more photographs to build a model; it’s an incredibly powerful tool. For SketchUp 8, we’ve tweaked some things to make using Match Photo easier than ever.
SketchUp, meet Building Maker
When it comes to modeling existing buildings, it’s hard to beat Google Building Maker for speed and efficiency. We’ve made it simpler to open and refine Building Maker models in SketchUp.
Read full release note from here:
http://sketchup.google.com/product/newin8.html