From my perspective Pro has more export formats, and some nice terrain features.
Here is a paragraph from Cadalyst:
Full article here: http://aec.cadalyst.com/aec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=339307
Free vs. Pro; Personal vs. Commercial
A senior architectural technician who prefers to be identified by his screen name, Jumbo, came to the free SketchUp forum to find out how he could use SketchUp to modify a floor plan imported from AutoCAD. He said his multidisciplinary office is made up of architects, architectural technicians, mechanical and electrical engineers, quantity surveyors, and more. They used primarily AutoCAD LT and Architectural Desktop, supplemented with Revit. He had been using the free version as a learning tool. "More time to learn at home than in the office," he said. At press time, he said his office was evaluating SketchUp Pro for possible purchase.
Schell, now Google's product management director for SketchUp, said he couldn't reveal statistics of users converting from the free version to the Pro version because of company policies. However, he said, "We're very happy with what we've been seeing." He's not overly concerned with people using the free version to do commercial design work for profit. He's banking on two important factors to discourage such practices: the affordable pricing of the Pro version and the slew of advanced features available only for Pro users. For instance, only Pro users have access to printing and exporting raster images in high resolution; support for DWG, DXF, 3DS, OBJ, XSI, VRML and FBX formats; exporting animations and walkthroughs; organic modeling functions; tools for film and stage work; and more.
Here is a paragraph from Cadalyst:
Full article here: http://aec.cadalyst.com/aec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=339307
Free vs. Pro; Personal vs. Commercial
A senior architectural technician who prefers to be identified by his screen name, Jumbo, came to the free SketchUp forum to find out how he could use SketchUp to modify a floor plan imported from AutoCAD. He said his multidisciplinary office is made up of architects, architectural technicians, mechanical and electrical engineers, quantity surveyors, and more. They used primarily AutoCAD LT and Architectural Desktop, supplemented with Revit. He had been using the free version as a learning tool. "More time to learn at home than in the office," he said. At press time, he said his office was evaluating SketchUp Pro for possible purchase.
Schell, now Google's product management director for SketchUp, said he couldn't reveal statistics of users converting from the free version to the Pro version because of company policies. However, he said, "We're very happy with what we've been seeing." He's not overly concerned with people using the free version to do commercial design work for profit. He's banking on two important factors to discourage such practices: the affordable pricing of the Pro version and the slew of advanced features available only for Pro users. For instance, only Pro users have access to printing and exporting raster images in high resolution; support for DWG, DXF, 3DS, OBJ, XSI, VRML and FBX formats; exporting animations and walkthroughs; organic modeling functions; tools for film and stage work; and more.