3

I have been trying to import a model from Google Sketchup 7 into Blender 2.49.

I have read countless tutorials on how to export it using the Sketchup program into various formats, but these are not the most viable solution to me because I run a pure 64-bit Linux system (Wine is 64-bit only) and Sketchup isn't available for 64-bit Windows (or 64-bit Linux for that matter). Honestly, I'd much rather find a standalone conversion tool.

I've done countless searches for a viable solution to this problem, and the best near miss I have come up with is using no-longer-maintained Collada plugin for Blender, but, while this is a valid Blender script, it seems to have suffered some software rot, as the models it imports do not have any size and are stuck waaay above the origin.

I have also tried using this Blender import script to import the models. The problem with this solution is that the script seems to have been written for older versions of both Blender and Google Sketchup—Sketchup 3 is the latest it supports.

I have also tried finding many other routes of finding a converter to a go-between format that is a standard model format (md2, md3, md5, ase, obj, wml or 3ds) which Blender can read.

My question is, has anyone come across, or has written a standalone program that will convert, preferably in a higher-level language like Perl or Python, or even Ruby, either Google Sketchup 7 (.skp) or Collada v1.4.1 (.dae) to a format Blender can read?

If not, I'll write one, but I'd rather not reinvent the wheel if it's out there already.

1 Answer 1

2

I've managed to import simple Sketchup models in Blender 2.49 using the Collada 1.4.1 importer. The xml file creates some unnecessary nodes that end up as parent/parented empty objects in Blender.

Ira Krakow's KMZ Import tutorial shows some nice techniques, but mainly there's still plenty of cleaning up to do.

With a custom importer, this could be avoided.

I haven't used Ruby before, but it looks somewhat similar to Python. Maybe this Direct X exporter script can be a good starting point for your exporter.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .