Trimble this month announced the new SketchUp AI, a suite of AI tools that simplify modeling, visualization, and navigating the SketchUp ecosystem of 3D design solutions.
Importantly, SketchUp AI introduces two new powerful AI tools—AI Render and AI Assistant.
Sketchup AI
Trimble SketchUp now deploys “AI-driven modeling assistance.” These are the intrepid early steps BIM and 3D modeling companies are taking with AI inference, and where we point out in our special feature (coming Christmas Eve day), it shows direction for the future of BIM and how such compute workloads (in this case, inference-based generative geometry creation) are executed more favorably on GPUs and NPUs, and in this particular case, in the cloud.
AI Render
AI Render is the other half of the new SketchUp AI. Formerly called Sketchup Diffusion, this technology is also inference-based and can work with negative prompts, reference images, and inpainting. The goal is for SketchUp users to rapidly produce compelling visualizations, working with AI Render’s capabilities and predefined styles.
Trimble’s new SketchUp AI offers powerful generative-AI 3D capabilities, allowing users to text-prompt to new geometric 3D forms.
With AI Render, a user can combine their SketchUp model with a text prompt and/or predefined styles to create rendered images in seconds. These can be early-phase images or final quality images for realistic client deliverables.
AI Assitant
This new technology is a chatbot that is a 3D modeling partner. ‘AI Assistant’ can help the SketchUp user navigate, troubleshoot, or create 3D geometry in SketchUp. Generate Object, an AI Assistant capability, allows the user to turn a text prompt or image into 3D objects in seconds. These objects can then be utilized as part of your SketchUp model or scene.
“The design process should feel intuitive, not cumbersome,” said Sandra Winstead, senior director of product management at Trimble. “We are continually pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI. By reducing time-consuming tasks and lowering the barrier to entry for modeling and visualization, SketchUp AI empowers professionals to explore creative ideas more freely, work more efficiently, and make informed decisions at every stage of the design process — all within SketchUp.”
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Architosh Analysis and Commentary: In the case of SketchUp AI inference abilities, they are offloaded to the cloud and are possibly being computed on Nvidia Blackwell or Hopper GPUs at Microsoft Azure. Since SketchUp Diffusion requires an active internet connection to work, we know these AI features are not locally computed. So what we see here is what we are talking about in the special feature on silicon’s role on the future of BIM. SketchUp AI is a classic example of “heterogeneous” compute, mixing CPU, GPU, and NPU-based workloads. Though at this moment, it likely is just CPU and GPU (local) and GPU (cloud AI).
