Alias UpFront included just such an automation tool with the sole purpose of generating what it called a “Turntable Movie.” Fredo’s Camera Around looks like it does just that and more with paths other than just a circle.
Here’s a turntable movie from UpFront:
(Mind you, this was done in 1997 - 2~3 years before the first version of SketchUp was created?)
The problem with SketchUp’s native tools which hasn’t been mentioned yet is the flying transitions between scenes and bounce that happens at each if the camera isn’t level. You can avoid the problem with a dead level camera:
If you want to look up or down with the camera, you have the bounce problem:
Not too terrible in this example, but you can see it. You can fight it by making lots and lots more inbetween scenes, but that’s just a lot of work, and you never really totally get rid of it. If there were a check box to change how scene transitions were generated in SU, it wouldn’t be hard with native tools to do a good job of these.