SH3d now not free?

[NickB]

I have used SH3D for many years, for projects around my property, solely for personal use. I recently downloaded it onto my laptop, it is installed on my PC which I am unable to access at the moment.

Every time I try accessing an existing project, or start a new one, I get a pop up page asking me to pay for SH3DPro, or have a 7 day free trial. I am unable to use SH3D now. Since when did it become a paid for service? It is still advertised as free for personal use.

Any ideas?

[Puybaret]

The free GNU GPL version is still available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/sweeth ... ome3D-7.5/

[Annie.builds.stuff]

I've looked into their FAQ, and it insinuates that if you get it from the official website, it should be free. But if you get it through the Microsoft store, it's a one-time purchase. Nothing was said about subscription. Or maybe I'm stupid. I don't know.

[Puybaret]

It all depends what you call an "official website"… As Sweet Home 3D installer isn’t available on sweethome3d.com, you’ll have to rely on an other source, and the version distributed under GNU GPL at sourceforge.net is free as stated in the FAQ.

[soundguru13]

Yeah I've also noticed this. I've been using 7.5 (windows 11) for quite some time. Recently, the "Create photo" thing has been crashing and just not working. Seems there's a new version 7.6.8, but it's asking for 9.99 per month as a subscription fee. I closed the window when this popped up, and it continued to run. Opened an existing project and the create photo renderer works, and is super fast. Dunno if I'm on a free trial or not. Interesting. I also saw posts here about others who paid for it via the MSFT store, and then still got asked for a monthly fee, and the admin didn't respond to any of those people. Usually, the guy who runs the forum (and presumably wrote this awesome software) is responding to questions all the time.

[soundguru13]

update: after 1 hour's use with the new version, i can't change anything. > It prompts me to subscribe and I'm stuck. Fortunately, the recently saved project still opens up in the old v7.5. Whew.

[soundguru13]

another update: according to chatGPT, v7.6.8 is NOT the official current version by the original author: v7.5 is. Altho 7.6.8 is newer and i've installed it and run it and it looks different and has new stuff, and does rendering of photos waaay faster and appears to be a true 64bit version; but it's behind a paywall and I"m betting that if you pay for this via subscription, that money doesn't go to the original author of this great software. So what gives? Did he get pirated? How is this even allowed?

[Keet]

...and I"m betting that if you pay for this via subscription, that money doesn't go to the original author of this great software. So what gives? Did he get pirated? How is this even allowed?

Sweet Home 3D was sold to spacemushrooms (under the presumption that it would remain open source).

[soundguru13]

Well this does explain it then. Thx for the information. However, the updated version 7.6.8 is not available via SourceForge, nor is it free anymore. And I guess that makes sense if they invested in the product and then put more work into it. I'd be interested in hearing if anybody who's paid for the monthly or yearly subscription has been happy with that purchase. I've seen quite a few who are not happy with that i.e. unable to 'unsubscribe' when they decided to. Cheers. jmm

[Puybaret]

Recently, the "Create photo" thing has been crashing

It was probably a RAM problem. See how to increase the memory used by the program in the FAQ and/or remove objects which 3D model uses a lot of memory (display model size column to find them more easily).