Latest release enhances interoperability and design workflows.
Trimble announced new visualization and interoperability capabilities in SketchUp 2025 release. The 3D modeling software now provides designers with photorealistic materials and environment lighting options, along with smoother transitions between SketchUp and other industry tools. With enhanced visualization features and improved interoperability, the release supports designers in creating, managing, and sharing complex projects with improved efficiency.
The new visualization features enable designers to apply photorealistic materials, turn on environment lighting and see how they interact in real time without hitting a ‘render’ button or waiting to see changes. From whitebox massing studies and stylized images to photorealistic visuals, environment lighting conditions and new background imagery, the capabilities create a richer picture of a project’s materiality. The latest visualization features include:
- Environments: 360-degree HDRI or EXR image files act as a light source, reflecting off photoreal materials.
- Photoreal materials: Dynamic materials more accurately convey texture and represent how real-world materials absorb and reflect light, producing richer, more realistic visuals within SketchUp.
- Ambient occlusion: Adds visual emphasis to corners and edges, increasing perceived depth and realism with or without having materials applied.
The new release also has more advanced interoperability with Revit and IFC files, including more predictable IFC roundtrips, greater control over which Revit elements and 3D views are imported, and improved support for photorealistic materials when exporting USD and glTF file formats. From initial design to final construction, more robust interoperability ensures a seamless roundtrip data exchange between different software platforms and between different collaborators across various stages of project development.
In addition, LayOut, a tool for creating documents from your SketchUp model, has been updated to provide a user experience more consistent with SketchUp. 3D Warehouse, one of the world’s largest libraries of 3D models, also now offers curated photoreal materials, environments and configurable 3D assets in the SketchUp content library, which can support a wide range of use cases and workflows. With 3D Warehouse, designers can model more efficiently with pre-built, configurable objects that better accommodate their design needs without the time investment typically required to produce tailored 3D assets.
Availability
Visualization updates are viewable across the SketchUp ecosystem, offering consistency regardless of platform: SketchUp for Web, iPad, and Desktop, LayOut, 3DW, and viewers.
For more information, visit trimble.com.
