SketchUp 2025: Elevate Your Designs with Next-Gen Visuals

SketchUp 2025: Elevate Your Designs with Next-Gen Visuals

Experience the latest innovations in SketchUp 2025, designed to enhance your visualization and interoperability capabilities so you can bring your ideas to life with ease.

Another year, another upgrade to the design tool trusted by over a million creatives worldwide. This latest release introduces photorealistic materials, seamless integration across platforms, and a curated selection of configurable content—helping you accomplish more with less effort.

The Community Center model displays new Photoreal Materials with an Environment active as both a background image and a light source.

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Advanced Visualization at Your Fingertips

Enhance your designs with a new collection of Photoreal Materials that bring models to life with accurate textures and realistic light reflections. Unlike traditional flat images, these materials use layered textures to replicate effects like shine, roughness, and metallic surfaces. Look for the 3D cube thumbnail to identify Photoreal Materials in the library.

From simple drag-and-drop material applications to customizable settings, SketchUp 2025 offers an all-in-one solution for creating everything from stylized visuals to photorealistic designs. Get started with default Photoreal Material libraries and expand your options with hundreds of additional materials in 3D Warehouse.

Want to create your own materials? The new Generate Textures tool uses AI to transform an image or classic material into a unique, tileable texture with a single click. Now, achieving a seamless, high-quality look in SketchUp is easier than ever.

Interior view of a lounge and dining space with Photoreal Materials adding texture and an Environment active as the light source to show true-to-life materiality.

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Environments 

Set the perfect scene with realistic environmental lighting that reacts dynamically with Photoreal Materials. Environments are 360-degree HDR or EXR image files that provide both realistic background imagery and an interactive light source for your models.

These lighting settings are crucial for achieving accurate material representation. The Environments Panel allows you to customize exposure, reflection, and skydome settings, helping you fine-tune the ambiance. Browse the 3D Warehouse for a variety of pre-built environment options.

A Revit model imported into SketchUp for construction phasing analysis; Photoreal Materials and an Environment are active, offering a detailed understanding of site conditions in the model.

Seamless Data Integration with Interoperability Updates

Move between SketchUp and other tools with confidence. IFC support enhancements for Pro subscribers ensure better data preservation, reducing manual rework and improving workflow efficiency. Key updates include improved IFC class recognition, version retention, and optimized geometry.

Studio subscribers can take advantage of updated Revit Importer UI, offering greater control over what Revit model elements are brought into SketchUp. This evolving interoperability makes for smoother design collaboration and increased project accuracy.

"The new IFC import feature has significantly improved project coordination in architectural design. Plus, the new material editor and HDRI styles unlock endless possibilities for visual storytelling. We’re thrilled about these updates!"
— Lucas Grolla, Architect & Owner, Grolla Arquitetura

An IFC file imported into SketchUp with IFC classes translated to SketchUp tags.

Curated Content for Subscribers

Access high-quality design assets more easily than ever with the SketchUp Content Library in 3D Warehouse. This collection includes curated models, Photoreal Materials, and Environments designed to streamline your workflow. Stay tuned for regular updates and new additions.

Live Components Are Here to Stay

Live Components—configurable, pre-built objects—are officially graduating from SketchUp Labs! These dynamic assets allow users to adjust parameters such as size, type, and material, enabling rapid customization. With over 200 refreshed components available in 3D Warehouse, Live Components are now a fully integrated feature.

Photoreal Materials bring the basketball court and running track to life in SketchUp, and the menu shows a possible configuration of a Live Component roof truss.

Smarter, More Intuitive LayOut

LayOut gets a major usability boost in 2025. Core tools now function more consistently with SketchUp, making the transition from 3D modeling to 2D documentation smoother than ever. Additionally, LayOut viewports now support Environments and Photoreal Materials, ensuring a cohesive visual experience across the entire SketchUp ecosystem.

New visualization features translate to 2D documentation in LayOut. It also highlights toolbar updates, showing standalone Move, Scale, and Rotate tool icons (left to right).

Bring Your Ideas to Life with SketchUp 2025

With powerful visualization tools and seamless design workflows, SketchUp 2025 empowers creatives to bring their visions to life more effortlessly than ever. Want to learn more? Join our release webinar to explore all the latest features in depth.

Experience smoother, more efficient design workflows with this latest update. Be sure to check out the Extension Migrator, which allows you to seamlessly transfer your existing extensions to SketchUp 2025.

If you’re new to SketchUp, try it out with a free trial or explore our subscription options to access these game-changing features.

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