As many expected one way or another, Google has made SketchUp, the 3D design product it acquired from @Last free for personal use. (Now Windows only, but Mac coming soon. A non-free Pro version offers more tools and can be used for commercial work.) The announcement came last night and is covered at AECNews.com by Randall Newton, a CAD industry guru.

As intriquing as the free SketchUp is, the 3D Warehouse is moreso, especially in the hands of Google. The warehouse is where you store your designs for others to find (if they are say doors or windows - perhaps with links with info for purchasing them in the virtual world) or 3D visualizations of homes, buildings to put on Google Earth. The Warehouse allows posters to "tag" their creations for others to find and provides URLs for further information.

This comes as no big shock really. Gary Smith, who's actually noted in the announcement page, wrote in Directions why Google bought SketchUp: "From Google’s standpoint, the concern might be that someone else would buy @Last Software and they would lose this terrific solution to build 3D content for Google Earth. Now, that can’t happen." Joe Francica and I saw much the same thing: "What Google, via SketchUp, will do in time is just what these other services mentioned above have done: they've captured the creativity, energy and, frankly, free labor of the planet to build content."

Newton notes that Google doesn't want to be a CAD company and think it's telling the truth. It wan't to manage the world's information and with this pair of free offerings, its taken another step in that direction.