Redevelopment of Place Van Zeeland, Belgium - Google SketchUp Workshop: Modeling, Visualizing, and Illustrating - page 78

In our practice, SketchUp fits perfectly into our production pipeline:
First, it imports AutoCAD DWG files directly. Also, if you are a landscape
architect, its tool set, enriched by the plug-ins created by and for the user
community, gives you a terrain modeling tool that is almost made to meas-
ure. SketchUp is really unmatched in efficiency and in the intuitive nature of
its tools. Its approach to modeling still lets you retain the feel of traditional,
hand-sketched design and is extremely easy to understand.
Still, at the end of the day, SketchUp has its limitations: As models grow
in complexity, they can start to slow the program down; navigation and
working on the model can become difficult, even on the most high-end
graphic workstations. The limitation lies in the software, and not in the
hardware.
Dealing with shadows can often prove problematic. With a complex model,
shadow calculations can take several seconds, which means that navigation
in real time can soon become all but impossible. On top of this, there is a
bug at the heart of the OpenGL rendering engine that can create artifacts
whenever a component finds itself between the camera and the source of
illumination. Luckily, Kerkythea is not plagued by these problems.
FiG 4.23 View of the southwest corner of the square toward the amphitheater.
Originally intended as a tool to demonstrate the preproject design to
the client, over the course of the project the model proved itself to be an
indispensable means of communication on numerous occasions that we
had simply not foreseen, such as meetings with other residents, project