Import Dwg Into Sketchup

[Lalo Scalf]

Ihave a client who has done their entire scenic design in Sketchup. I don't have Sketchup, but can preview it using the web based Sketchup GUI - so I know it's a "working" file. Every time I try to import into Vectorworks, I get the error saying that it is "Either damaged or created by an unsupported SketchUp Version."

@trashcan Vectorworks 2021 should be able to import SketchUp 2020 files. It sounds like a problem, do you think you can send me a test file that fails, so we can see what's going on? (send to vst...@vectorworks.net)

Good rule for Sketchup imports is to use a Sketchup file one year older than your Vectorworks version. This has been the workaround since the Sketchup import feature was integrated into Vectorworks. Would be helpful if there was a note in the Vectorworks import dialogue.

Is there any way in either Sketchup or Rhino to improve the mesh settings so I get much smoother surfaces once model is imported into rhino? Or is this just down to the level of detail on the original sketchup model?

Hi, you are welcome. Can you please reach out to Sketchup support as they will proffer better suggestions on how to go around importing unsupported Sketchup CAD elements.

I see that Sketchup ignores unsupported CAD elements in 3D imported files and there is SKB plugin that can be installed to help with this. You can see more about this from this article: -cad-data-layout

I had the same question as you. I do have AutoCAD as well and just did a test with all the available formats. It looks like x__t and STEP works the best, then IGES. I import them into CAD, and then save as DWG. I then import the DWG into SketchUp

1.

Is there a way to "name" Groups (Component ?) in Sketchup.

That may help Bricscad to accept them as "not-so-anonymous"

and even accept them as Blocks.

At least Vectorworks tries do do so when chosen in Export Settings.

For me Bricscad IFC import is very good and IFC in general is for me

one of the best or most lossless conversion option.

Still lots of cleanup and rework needed.

So normally I try any possible exchange format and in the worst case

I try to mix the best results from all into my file.

I think Sketchup has tons of Plugins, maybe some can also help for

exchange.

Maybe a second Translation Software in between that has more

lossless Sketchup import and export options more suitable for Bricscad.

Maybe some of the authors of the Sketchup Files could be persuaded

to try Bricscad Shape instead. OK, that's not the same in many ways,

but would be perfect for Bricscad BIM.

I have been working with sketchup for years now now and the benefits (speed / visuals) of 3D modelling and materials in sketchup are still important for us, at least until Shape can add customizable material maps (material management as of now is very basic).

I therefore have been trying to test a reliable import process from sketchup to Bricscad.

I get at least a few Layers in for further separation.

I get Materials in (although I have never seen them assigned in Bricscad so far)

I get geometry in mostly as proper Solids.

If I get some Meshes in that may have been only Meshes before, they unfortunately

get some extra unnecessary tessellation (or they were corrupt already)

And I get all spatial elements and locations and BIM Tags in Structure tree.

Revit import gives no Layers,

no Materials (not sure if that is as designed),

some geometry missing and some destroyed L or T-connections

But at least also Solids, BIM Tags and Hierarchies ...

DWG would be the best import into Bricscad.

Unfortunately I get DWG only for 2D Plans. DWG got quite unpopular here.

While in the past DWG 3D was used mainly as an exchange between non Autodesk

Apps, with questionable quality. Meanwhile most switched to IFC instead.

Importing into Rhino and using its cleanup and remeshing tools may solve some or most of the mesh issue you get from importing Sketchup files. Once the cleaning up has been done you can then export to DWG or import the Rhino file. I used this route for getting triangulated 3D dwg files into Vectorworks as that gave a cleaner result than directly importing the dwg files into Vectorworks.

Maybe it will work as well for Sketchup files.

SimLab composer is a 3D rendering program but it does import geometry quite nicely most of the time, though I haven't tried with Sketchup so far. You can download a trial, import one of your problematic Sketchup files into SimLab composer, if it looks ok then export to DWG and see what happens regarding geometry and what is retained regarding properties etc. Maybe you'll get cleaner files into BricsCAD that way.

And I have to update my Revit vs IFC experiences.

It is not clear what brings in more Solids.

IFC has better L/T-connections while Revit brings in Solids where

IFC has extra tessellated Meshes.

All Strange ....

this ability has been around for quite a few years , the quality depends on the 3D artist though some are very good , some not and have high polygon counts .so really slow 3D views down, but importing of .skp's is fairly common . its the 1st place to check if the CA library doesn't have what you need.

Texture, colors, and scale are all imported. Since the model comes in as a symbol, it has only one layer - the one you assign the symbol too. Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that none of the SketchUp layers transfer.

I saw that someone else posted that the Mac version of Chief will not allow for Sketchup to be imported. Is this true? As I have a Mac trial version and I cannot import Sketchup. I figured it was the trial version limitation.

Save to COLLODA and import that way. The toolkit that we use doesn't have a 64 bit version that works for Mac. The vendor of the toolkit has been unresponsive to our requests to make it work

I've just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out why this article 'Importing a 3D Symbol from an Outside Source' Reference Number: KB-00117 Last Updated: 07-30-2014 02:01 PM wasn't working - is it possible for someone from Chief to update the article to include Mac Users?

SKP import is not available on Mac owing to a lack of support by the vendor of the library we use for 64 bit applications. We have contacted them about this, but they are unresponsive so we don't know if it will ever be an option. Export to COLLADA (.DAE) and use that on the Mac. It is unfortunate that this option is not available, but it is out of our control.

I'm not using a Mac so can not verify this, but on a Windows machine the step would as follows if I wanted to import a .dae file:

1) download the .skp file from the warehouse

2) open the .skp file in SketchUp

3) In SketchUp I would 'EXPORT 3D model' in .dae format

4) import model in the .dae format into Chief.

This of course means you need to install the free version of SketchUp on your Mac...

Given that a 1x1km area consists of roughly 4,000,000 datapoints, I suspect that the first step is to create mesh with significantly less points (e.g. 100,000 to 400,000) before importing it into Sketchup.

My second attempt was to visit This data is slightly older (AHN2 from 2008 instead of AHN3 from 2015), but has similar high resolution (0.5 meter), and served my purpose. The websites has a great export function to select and download the region I was interested in. I downloaded two LAZ files with a 4mln and 150,000 point cloud, the later for testing.

This worked reasonably well for the sample export (170,000 points translated to 130,000 faces). It will not work for the 4,000,000 point export. Unfortunately, the subsampling resulted in a slightly larger mesh size (150,000 faces), not smaller, and I can't find a way for CloudCompare to reduce the complexity of the Mesh model. An alternative is to hand-pick points, and export that point list, but that seems rather tedious.

I have been trying to import some sketchup furnitures from sketchup into revit, I have no problem doing that but when I try to apply any material this doesn't work at all. Some links say I have to separate each piece and assign a layer "bylayer" before importing into Revit, some people say I need to explode the furniture and then I will be able to apply materials but when I explode the furniture disappear and I window pops up saying something about 3D elements were not recognized.

As you have seen exploding files can give other problems. Especially when exploding you will get a load of 'garbage' with it, like new linetypes, patterns and so on. If you have several of those families, your project will become one big mess.

Style of what? Entities? Materials? I don't immediately see in Sketchup what this is referring to. Maybe it's something super basic that I never learned? I know bylayer in Autocad, but haven't seen it in Sketchup. Thanks for your patience.

SketchUp Studio 2023 now has a direct Revit import tool that makes it really quick and easy to bring Revit models into SketchUp. As a test, I used a project that had a lot of Enscape assets placed in Revit. These come across into SketchUp as the familiar grey blobs. Because I had just downloaded the installer and had not added the Enscape plugin, I did not have a chance to try and see if they rendered using Enscape within SketchUp. Can anyone answer if they would? If they don't, can I make a feature request?

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