Critical Issue with Revit Importer – All Instances as Unique Components

Hi everyone,

I’ve updated the Revit Importer extension to the latest version (1.2025.0312), but I’m still experiencing a major issue in both SketchUp 2024 and 2025.

When importing a project file from Revit, all instances of Revit families (doors, windows, etc.) are now recognized as unique SketchUp components. This significantly increases the file size, making it slow, heavy, and nearly impossible to work with.

I first noticed this issue after a Revit Importer update over a month ago (unfortunately, I don’t recall the exact version). Despite multiple updates and the release of SketchUp 2025, the problem persists.

Has anyone else encountered this? Any workarounds or fixes?

Thanks!

That is what happens if you export Revit to IFC or 3D DWG too. All components become unique. I would guess that this is a function of the Revit file format itself.

Before the February update, the Revit Importer extension was able to recognize Revit families as SketchUp components—mostly… because, if an object was even mirrored in Revit, it would be treated as a separate component in SketchUp.

With the February update, all objects are now recognized as unique components, making the model much bigger and harder to work with. Essentially, this makes the export/import process basically no different from using IFC or DWG formats, as you mentioned.

I have been exploding all the walls into one object, mullions into one, etc. That seems to help and make the Outliner view a bit more sane :smiley:

This is being addressed so users can choose what behaviour they want to use, an option will be added to the new UI.

1 Like

To add to Tiago’s comment, this was changed in 1.2025.02.14 to improve metadata support - I’ve updated the release notes on SketchUp Extension Warehouse to try and clarify this.

Hi Tiago and Daniel,

Thank you for your prompt reply. I’m glad to hear that this issue has been addressed.

In software development, best practice should be to enhance existing functionality rather than remove it (even temporarily), as losing a critical feature can significantly disrupt professional workflows.

IMHO, I don’t see the reasoning behind making this function optional in the next UI. A key value of the Revit Importer extension—and the justification for upgrading to the Studio version—is to ensure that Revit families are recognized as true components in SketchUp rather than single-component entities.

I hope the ongoing improvements in metadata support will further enhance how SketchUp recognizes Revit families. As I previously mentioned, when the extension was functioning, even mirrored objects in Revit were treated as separate components in SketchUp.

Thank you for your attention!

Matching semantics between two different solutions is not always straightforward, as we are currently limited by the available SDKs. For now, we are required to provide a UI option to choose between a single component definition for geometry or a unique component definition for data. Let’s see how things evolve, this option may not be necessary in the future.

I get it, and I know it’s not easy working with their SDK. I’m looking forward to see how things evolve. In the meantime, is there a way to roll back to the previous version of the Revit Importer extension, at least in SketchUp 2024? Thanks.

@francesco.dambrosio You should be able to uninstall Revit Importer from the extension manager, then restart SketchUp and you will be back with the version of Revit Importer that it shipped with (2024.03.18).

We’ve tested this internally with SketchUp 2024 and it worked OK.

Dan

Thanks, Dan! It works! Once again, the ability to recognize components from Revit families is essential. I hope you can fix the new version ASAP. Thanks!

1 Like

Hi everyone,

I’ve looked at this conversation with interest cause i’ve had the same problems as francesco,

I completely agree with him, the previous version was working better. If i can add another issue i’m having with this latest version is about geometry normals!

In previous version i’ve never encountered this problem but actually, many objects have normal issues and as the components are uniques, it’s a pain to change normals!

Do you have any solutions about it? someone else struggling with it?

Thanks for support,
Raffaele

Hi Raffaele,

I hadn’t noticed the normal issue, but yes, it is definitely annoying.

I’ve gone back to SketchUp 2024 with the previous Revit Importer (2024.03.18).

Hopefully, the next update will sort out all these issues. Soon.