Google SketchUp is a deceptively simple, amazingly powerful tool for creating, viewing, and modifying 3D ideas quickly and easily. Google SketchUp was developed to combine the elegance and spontaneity of pencil sketching with the speed and flexibility of today's digital media.

Developed for the conceptual stages of design, Google SketchUp is a powerful yet easy-to-learn software.   It combines a simple, yet robust tool-set with an intelligent drawing system that streamlines and simplifies 3D design.   The result is an interface that supports a dynamic, creative exploration of 3D form, material and light.

Google SketchUp combines a compact yet robust tool-set with an intelligent guidance system that streamlines the 3D drawing process.

From simple to complex, conceptual to realistic, Google SketchUp enables you to build and modify 3D models quickly and easily. If you use Google Earth, Google SketchUp allows you to place your models using real-world coordinates and share them with the world using the Google 3D Warehouse.

Next Limit Technologies has produced a plug-in for SketchUp Pro which provides designers, architects and modelers the ability to render their SketchUp Pro models and scenes with Maxwell Render.

Key features include:

• Multilight
• Maxwell Materials
• Full Global Illumination
• Physical Sky

With the Maxwell Render plug-in, users simply model their scene in SketchUp, apply materials and other settings inside SketchUp using the plug-in, and render the scene.

The new plug-in for SketchUp6 has many improvements from previous versions including a complete redesign of the support for Maxwell Materials.