I’m a long-time professional user of SketchUp and in the last five years, I’ve exported all my SketchUp models to Blender, to handle all of my renderings. It’s not always a straightforward process, so I’ve written a basic tutorial on the way I do things (https://www.dndrawings.com/sketchup-to-blender-dae-clean-tutor), there may be other ways but with the latest releases of Blender, I’ve found this to be the most effective. So just wanted to share with the community, if anyone is interested.
If you’ve never tried Blender before, it’s an unbelievably powerful tool for photorealistic rendering, simulation, animation, 3D modelling, sculpting, amongst many other things and it’s free and open-source. You can also export models from Blender into SketchUp, which is a great way to fill some of the gaps (without plugins) that SketchUp has, like cloth simulation, quad modelling and subdivision.
I find using SketchUp and Blender together makes for a great modelling workbench. I’d love to know if anyone else is doing the same.
Let me know if you try the tutorial and it’s useful to you. Also, if there’s interest, I can do a tutorial on how to render in Blender.
Note: The tutorial requires downloading Blender 2.8\2.81 and also a free add-on I’ve developed, to clean the model that has been imported to Blender.
Thank you… I use sketchup to Blender workflow sometimes, for fun… Thank you for the article… A few days ago i export a seat model from sketchup as obj and import to blender to drop a cloth on it, but couldn’t do it…
I’ve always had issues exporting with .obj. Not sure whether it’s the way SketchUp exports or the way Blender imports. It doesn’t work nicely the other way either, if you export a .obj from Blender and import into SketchUp.
If we’re thinking of the same plugin, the problem is that it hasn’t been updated since 2017 so is for older versions of SketchUp and Blender (as you mention). It also triangulates all the model faces which isn’t ideal.
I’ve tried a number of plugins for SketchUp and Blender to handle export/import and they’ve either stopped being developed (so only work on older versions of either piece of software), or didn’t work very well in the first place.
I find using the exporting to .dae, so much more straightforward, as it works in all versions.
@dannorris Hi, I know this topic is old, but I hope that maybe you can help me.
Recently I was able to finally get a working version of Blender onto my Chromebook.
My problem with it arose when I wanted to import a SU dae; file (collada). I knew the procedure before from having Blender on my old laptop, or at least I thought I did.
But now when trying to import the model, I get another window with no tab or link to open my file. Here are two screen caps to show what I have.
Hi, This is a strange issue. Can you send through your .dae (or any exported .dae) and I’ll take a look? I find it odd that if the .dae is in the folder (in your screenshot) Blender can’t see it.
Thank you for your speedy reply Dan. Firstly, as I tried desperately to find a solution yesterday, if you look at my second screenshot in the left side box ‘system’, one of my friends said I should find my files there; for some reason I think since I am using a Chromebook, the Blender isn’t recognising folders as it would with a normal PC.
Bugger, it simply refuses to upload! Can I send it to you anywhere?
No problem. It seems like there may well be a problem with the way Blender is seeing the files/folders. I’ll DM you with my email and you can send a file through. At least we can rule out a problem with the file.
Finally! The problem was with the older 2.7 Blender. Even though it was uploaded correctly via Linux, it just didn’t work. I found a 2.82a version which while a little more complicated to add, worked straight off. Now all I need to do is to learn how to use it.
According to the Blender enthusiasts it is more powerful, intuitive and easier than SketchUp. I don’t think I can make out heads or tails out of your screenshot.
Really glad you worked it out. 2.8+ is so much easier to use than the older versions of Blender.
Blender can be hard to get into but once you get used to it, it’s incredibly powerful. I’ve built an add-on that has a set of tools that makes Blender work a lot more like SU. I’m releasing an update in the next few days, so I’ll post a link if you’re interested?
So am I. It was driving me nutso! But as a stubborn bugger I was determined to get it!
Oh and something else I learned, you need to put the files into the Linux file folder for the Blender to find it.
