Polycam to SketchUp

Hey @Mattyk95 , got your note, here is my best answer, good luck.

The central challenge here I believe is your use of SketchUp on your iPad. The iPad import and export formats are limited, currently .stl is the only 3D format I am aware of that can be imported on the ipad version. To further complicate things when exporting scans from Polycam, the app packages the chosen file type as 3D data along with a raw texture file and some texture mapping files all inside a .zip. It’s not a bad practice as it keeps things compressed and tidy but it requires one more step to get to teh importable file.

SO… There is a pathway to get your raw geometry only scan from Polycam into SketchUp completely siloed on the ipad. Export from Polycam as .stl, in the pop up dialogue about where to save it choose Save to Files at teh bottom, this will save a .zip folder to your files (you can choose where in the next window, either On My iPad or Downloads, dosen’t really matter as long as you can find it). Next close Polycam and open the Files app on your iPad, find the .zip wherever you saved it and press the icon once, this will unpack the .zip and create a .stl file next to the .zip. Now open the SketchUp for ipad app and use the import button, choose files at the bottom and find the .stl file, in the dialogue: merge coplanar faces YES, Preserve Drawing Origin YES and Swap YZ YES (Polycam exports like that I don’t know why) and set the import units to meters then hit import. Phew! You have your geometry, except unfortunately .stl is a triangulated, unit-less and textureless file format, so while you can get a tessellated representation of your scan from Polycam into SketchUp for iPad this way, it’s a big compromise, it will not have any of the texture data, no pictures of the walls which is really half the fun. So…

The proper way to get your scan into SketchPp is to process it though the desktop version of SketchUp Pro. Export from Polycam as a COLLADA file which is .dae. This format contains both the geometry and texture data all mapped correctly. You can email the file or airdrop it to your Mac right out of Polycam. It will be a .zip so you will need to find the zip on your Mac (or PC) and double click it once to unpack it, the Finder will make a fresh folder next to the .zip with the same name, containing the .dae file and a texture file .jpg. Open a fresh file in SketchUp pro and File>Import the .dae file, it will arrive correctly scaled and in glorious color. It will show all the tessellated edges in black which does not look as good as it could. You have a few options, the easiest is to change the rendering style to one that does not show edges, problem solved, however if you intend to work with the file you may want to see edges of some geometry at some point, another option is to open the scan component for editing, select all and adjust the Soften/Smooth settings (coplanar and up the angle between normals) until the surfaces are all smoothed and the edges are gone.

Once you have a working SketchUp file you can easily share it back to your iPad through airdrop or email or Trimble Connect and open the file in SketchUp for iPad. In SketchUp for iPad you can use, alter, and navigate the scan as normal. Long winded, but I hope that gets you closer.

Note: SketchUp Go the paid version of the web application also imports .dae, so you could complete this process with that as well.