Exporting to DAE and keep the meter scale of measurement

[csmoore]

Hello, I know this topic was discussed back in 2018 but did not see a resolution to the scale in meters issue when exporting to a .dae format. I chose a construction template which uses meters, and made sure the “Model Info” was using the only meter option (decimal option). The file is imported into Ubisense but the scale is not even close as the same meter measurements I see in Sketchup.
So my question is what exactly is the process I need to follow in Sketchup so when I export to .dae, the meter measurements remain? Is there some conversion ratio I need to use? I read that meters turned into inches on export?
thanks much for any help, greatly appreciate it.
CSM

[DaveR]

I think you need to set the units to match in the importing software

I’m not seeing that meters turn into inches in the export. A DAE file export from SketchUp imports as expected for me.

[DanRathbun]

@DaveR

I’m not seeing that meters turn into inches in the export.

This was (or still is) an issue.

Reported (Technical Problems category) in March of 2015, thread reopened February 2016.
(Help article links posted by former forum manager no longer valid.)

DAE importing wrong scale

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Reported in May of 2016 (Technical Problems category), with not much acknowledgement of the issue …

Export for Modo size wrong?

I’m using Make not Pro, I hear Pro can export to OBJ but Modo can import DAE, however when imported into Modo the scale and size is wrong. Template for Sketchup is MM when in Modo is Meters, I thought I could scale it down but the sizes are wrong anyway. Any help ?

Jim Hamilton gives an example where the 1 meter diameter sphere comes out as a 1 inch diameter sphere in DAE export. (May of 2016)

SketchUp as a hobby

Some notes on uploading this to Shapeways for 3D printing in color … Set the model units to decimal meters Use the tape measure tool to resize the model so that the sphere radius is 0.5m Export the model as a DAE file (in meters) with these options: Name: earth.dae [image] Edit the DAE file to change this line: <init_from>earth/earth.gif</init_from> to (remove directory): <init_from>earth.gif</init_from> Move the earth.gif file into the same directory as the DAE file Z…

Again reported (Technical Problems category) in Nov of 2016. Two SketchUp employees in the thread. …

Exporting to collada format in meters?

After much hair pulling, I realized why the units of my dae exported from Sketchup were showing the wrong units in Meshlab. It appears Sketchup is exporting in inches, despite the fact I have units set to meters in Sketchup. Is it possible to change this behavior? I must have units in meters so meshlab can compute inertia in the appropriate units (among other reasons). Sketchup Pro 2017 on OSX

Again reported in January of 2017 …

Exporting to COLLADA(.dae) format in millimeters?

After much hair pulling, I realized why the units of my dae exported from Sketchup were showing the wrong units in MonoGame and Jitter Physics Engine. It appears Sketchup is exporting in inches, despite the fact I have units set to millimeters in Sketchup. Is it possible to change this behavior? I must have units in millimeters so MonoGame and Jitter Physics Engine can compute inertia in the appropriate units (among other reasons). It is troubled because floating point rounding errors due to…

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I thought I was involved in a topic discussing a plugin that would correct DAE files after export, … but cannot find it now. (Might have been either a private thread or is over at SketchUcation.)

[DaveR]

I must be doing it wrong, then.

[csmoore]

Thanks for your response Dave and Dan.

• I am using the Construction template, I have set the Units (in “Windows tab > Model Info ) to Decimal meters, and the precision is set at 0.00000. All the check boxes in that window
  are unchecked.

• In the Camera tab, I have selected “Parallel Projection”, and the standard view set to “Top”

• I measured the model at 84.06522 m by 78.77723 m

I export the model as a .dae file which gets imported into Ubisense.

Once imported, the model was 39.37x larger

So 3101.605m by 3309.654m

In Ubisense, the model can be scaled down however, the issue is that is shouldn’t need to be.

I tried to reduce the model in Sketchup by roughly 39% but the scale is still off and coming in larger.

I am trying to achieve a 1 to 1 scale from Sketchup to Ubisense using the common meter measurement.

Hoping there is a setting I am missing or something to get this process to a “uniform scaling between the two apps”.

Love to hear any additional suggestions.

Christine Moore

IS D’EIRINN ME

[tab1]

Any chance you can export it in inches and convert it to metric in the target program(s)?

[csmoore]

Hi there, yes we did try that method however, I believe the customer had an issue with how the model came into Ubisense.

Will run another test with the customer and see what he thinks.

Thanks much

Christine Moore

IS D’EIRINN ME

[csmoore]

To follow-up on this item, we were provided a process from Ubisense support to follow when importing the .dae from Sketchup into Ubisense. Looks like that process will work. There is still not a 1 to 1 measurement between the two apps, but at least we can get where we need to be. Thanks everyone for all the ideas and thoughts. Always nice to know support is there for the users.

[tab1]

Mornin’ Christine,

Ran my own “experiment” (even though I don’t use converted files at this time) and found that when I converted a SU file to DAE and then re-opened that file in SU, it presented well. Then, saving THAT file to DAE again and re-opening in
SU again caused major data anomaly. (Did not try changing from inches to metric so that had no influence.)

No surprise that “import/export” exercises aren’t perfect. . . .

Thanks for your response to my comments and best wishes to our fellow SU user.

Tom

[oliver.charlet]

even though, this is a very old thread, I’d like to share my findings. As of SU Pro 2020, the export to collada files is obviously still doing the following:

• The Exporter translates all geometry to inches (!)
• The Collada file (always, as it seems) has a global scaling of meters to inch.

This is the content of an example file created by SU:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<COLLADA xmlns="http://www.collada.org/2005/11/COLLADASchema" version="1.4.1">
    <asset>
        <contributor>
            <authoring_tool>SketchUp 20.1.228</authoring_tool>
        </contributor>
        <created>2024-08-22T11:51:57Z</created>
        <modified>2024-08-22T11:51:57Z</modified>
        <unit meter="0.0254000" name="inch" />
        <up_axis>Z_UP</up_axis>
    </asset>

The unit element in this XML seems to be a global entry. It does not change if we change the measurement units in the SketchUp Project.
This entry effectively makes any importer (Playcanvas in my case) to set the scaling of the root entity, that is created, to 0.025.
So my first try was to create a cube 1m x 1m x 1m. That is roughly 40 Inches for all dimensions. The file contains geometry of 40x40x40 units (inches) and has an outer scaling of 0.025, which results into a cube of size 1x1x1 in the game engine (and any other 3D Software, I guess). But to have an Object, that looks right, but has a scaling of 0.025 is not so great. I would like to have an object with the outer scaling of 1 and geometry with values of 1.0 (instead of 40.0).

Here is MY solution:
I use inches as the unit in SktechUp, expecting a length of 1.0 means a 1.0 in the game engine.
After exporting to a collada file, I change the unit element inside the xml file from 0.0254000 to 1

<unit meter="1" name="inch" />

The resulting collada file will be imported just like I need it, i.e. an outer entity with scaling of 1.0 and the matching geometry with vertices in the range of 0.0 to 1.0 (for my cube of 1x1x1 units)

I wonder, why the exporter does not allow to change these settings in the option window. The same is true for the current view, which is exported as a camera inside the collada file. That should also be an option to switch (default should be OFF).