I would love to see an easy, efficient, built-in PDF import. For instance in AutoCAD you can import pdf blueprints and use the geometry as if it were created in AutoCAD. Before anyone goes on a rant, I am very aware that it depends on the pdf and how it was created… All I’m saying is it would be very helpful for importing, modifying, and converting existing prints for many purposes. Verifying unknown or uncertain dimensions, or creating g-code/ toolpaths, etc. On a side note I would like to give a shout out to Justin from The Sketchup Essentials. I like what he does and I think he’s a good ambassador for Sketchup.
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It would be a nice feature to be able to import vector pdf as sketchup geometry natively. There is a plugin from SimLab that can do that or even 3D pdf files, it’s $70 per year though. On Mac it is posible to import PDF files natively but even if it’s a vector pdf it’s imported as an image.
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Today the workaround is to open or import the PDF in an illustration application like Inkscape (free) or Illustrator and export from there as DWG or DXF.
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I’m on a Mac - so when I get a vector PDF I use an online converter that I have a subscription for then I bring the DWG into Affinity Design so I can delete unnecessary info (assuming layers came through ok), then I bring into SKP.
I can bring PDF directly into SKP on macOS - and for simple projects I do just this and scale them to use as a base - but they are raster and not vector.
I’m gonna go against the other comments here and say I’d much rather start with raster import vs vector. A very small percentage of the documents I see are vector (though obviously vector import would be nice too).
Most of the time now I end up exporting to a TIFF file and bringing that it, but native import of PDFs to simple image files would be most helpful to me.
Thank you very much - I really appreciate it! 
You should try sketchup on Mac, this feature is native on Mac devices.
I use Qcad pro to open vector PDF files, it does a much better job than Inkscape.
I put in Inkscape because it is free. PDF import is standard today in commercial CAD packages. Qcad is inexpensive, though.
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I’m good - I’d trade exporting to TIFF files to not have to use the Mac material browser 
It’s weird that it only works on one, not the other though
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+1
It would be really nice to be able to do that. We have multiple ways to convert them into .dwg at work, bricscad, affinity… And still I keep on repeating to coworkers that they can stop drawing over a jpg they converted the PDF into.
I’m pretty sure it’d make any SketchUp novice user’s life easier - or any user really
Oh and because some will complain about that, just give the option to rasterize them or not
When using PDF files converted from CAD note that they are not as accurate as the CAD file they come from. If you set your units to display the maximum number of decimals you might see small inaccuracies. Also, depending of the originating application, wide lines might come through as filled regions.
I love all the feedback and appreciate the different views but I already use the pdf importer extension and like it ok I suppose. (super helpful on complex blueprints or prints with errors or missing dimensions etc.) I just have to scale it every time. Plus AutoCAD seems to do It more naturally, both in appearance and function. I just prefer using Sketchup and I’d just love to see something like that in SU or possibly something even better where it has the ability to use both raster and vector as geometry. Perhaps once I’m done with my classes I won’t even need it anymore but I doubt it unless I miraculously learn trig 
Never had such, if properly rescaled
that is the point of the request, I guess. If we had them we would’nt be talking about how to get back to them, in a way, and have usable & editable material.
I face this very often through architecture competitions for which you have to deal with what you’ve been given with no (or few) possibility to get more, and even for individuals who often have very little and no means to change their situation.
Nearly all of the plans I receive now a days are vector PDFs. Rhino imports PDFs perfectly so I just open the floor plans I receive there first and save as a SKP to open in SketchUP for building out in 3D. If Rhino had a simpler, less engineering focused UI and better texture mapping tools, I wouldn’t even use SketchUp at all. It has a ton of great tools that SKP should have natively without paying for extensions.
I see the upgrade price for Rhino is more than a year of SKP, so even with 100$ of extensions a year you get 2 years worth of SKP for 1 seat of Rhino, not sure how often you need to upgrade though.
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Since you want to derail this thread, I’ll bite.
The cost is comparable as Rhino has major releases every 3 years or so and offer perpetual licenses not awful subscriptions that only executives and board members like. Rhino also includes a native rendering engine based on the open source Cycles rendering engine (like Blender) that can produce results as good as V-Ray without another additional cost.
Like the OP said, many of the other CAD and 3D platforms enjoy other native tools like PDF Importing without the need for yet another paid add-on. Why is it so wrong to ask for more from a CAD/3D Program like the barebones that is SketchUp?
FormZ is another 3D software that also has many more native tools just like Rhino without the need for Extensions. FormZ’s speed and usability in Rhino’s stability would eat SketchUp’s lunch.
Unfortunately, Extensions are essential to make SketchUp actually usable as a hard working 3D design professional. It’s just not feasible to do the same work I can do in other 3D programs without them. From my professional perspective, without Extensions, SketchUp just kind of sucks. With Extensions, I’ve made it work for me as well as I can, but it just gets clunky to use and more expensive. All the extensions are disjointed.
Many SketchUp extensions are clumsy to use compared to native tools because the developers may be decent at coding but are bad at UX design. For example, the very popular Fredo tools can be really powerful but trying to figure out how they work is a real chore, and the UI is terribly dated like something from DOS or WIN95 days gone past. Curic is doing a much better job here from a UX design and offers perpetual licenses too. Extensions should be required to have detailed step by step instructions and tool hints, just like the native tools have available.
I hope for more from SketchUp and you can too.
-wecandobetter
yeah, let’s not, please. too many threads have been derailed to the point most sensible users are fleeing them like the plague.
if you want the message to be legible, it has to be concise, well articulated, and it can’t derail
I can’t, I’m at my maximum really.
You sent the train off the track. I was just looking at what it costs.
Please use Rhino, or FormZ, or the tool that works for you.
It is OK. 100% agree with you on Extension UI though, total rubbish heap from a design / usability side of things. I appreciate how clean and well thought out OpenCutList is though, sad that I don’t use it every day.
When either one of those tools gets a way to do 2d construction documents (I check in usually once a year to see if there has been progress…) I’ll take a deep dive and a trial. I used FormZ way back on a PowerBook 1400… so it might be fun coming back. But for now nothing is as fast and easy to use to get what I need out of it for how I work as SKP is…
¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this way. All this super positive Rhino talk and I just cannot figure out how they’re working with those documentation functions
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Although I’m on a Mac and can import PDFs I can only import the first page. The PDF needs to be broken up, page by page. An importer would make this process so much simpler.
I think PDF is a native feature built into the Mac OS, while Windows relies upon additional libraries