Trimble Navigation Ltd has agreed to buy SketchUp from Google Inc. Trimble will take over marketing, development, and everything else related to SketchUp. Under the terms of the acquisition, Trimble also will run the SketchUp 3D Warehouse in partnership with Google.

In Google's official SketchUp Blog, SketchUp project manager John Bacus wrote that the Trimble acquisition will allow SketchUp to grow:

"That's why I'm sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble," he wrote. "We'll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products.

"Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble's commitment to invest in our growth, we'll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before."

"In the short term, this change will have zero impact on SketchUp plugins and businesses. Everything will work exactly as it does today. In the longer term. Trimble wants to invest strongly in SketchUp as a platform, and advance its mission of "3D for Everyone."

We at Render Plus are looking forward to working with the new team (mostly the same people we work with now). Hopefully this will create new opportunities for us and everyone in the SketchUp community.

Read more on the SketchUp Blog

Also, there is a healthy discussion about the purchase, with responses from SketchUp, etc. on the SketchUcation Forum

SketchUp Artists.

James Harrigan, the Co-founder of SketchUp Artists, says:

"Check out the large collection of SketchUp Styles which we make available for free. I believe its the largest collection in one place on the net at the moment. They were created by some of the very best SketchUp professionals in the world, who have freely contributed their time and skills to produce them."

There are more than 130 free SketchUp Styles available at the moment. These visual libraries will be a useful reference and inspiration in your future creative process.