Wondering what the most efficient way to export a nurbs model built with Rhino to Sketchup. I understand that Sketchup has trouble handling large files. How does one know what is too large? Is there a rule of thumb for this?
Thank you.
you can use the _Mesh command in rhino to control how many polys the nurbs surfaces will be divided into… then export the mesh with the sketchup exporter included in rhino…
i don’t think anyone has published an actual rule of thumb as to when performance will suffer beyond reasonable usage but i personally start getting wary at around 100,000.
I would tend to agree, if the number means edges or faces.
Anssi
Thank you, guys. 100,000 POLYGONS right?
it’s tough to say… if it’s all flat surfaces you’re exporting from rhino then 100k polygons in rhino is going to fair better in sketchup… sketchup supports ngons so many of those polygons may combine or, coplanar surfaces can merge and it will be less taxing on sketchup…
if it’s a bunch of curved surfaces, what shows up as a quad in rhino may need to be triangulated in sketchup so the 100k polygon export becomes 2-300k in sketchup and the model will be (generally) very sluggish.
pretty much, you’re going to just have to experiment with your exact models / hardware…
but generally, use the lowest amount of polygons which still allows the sketchup model to maintain visual integrity… just try not to get mad at sketchup for not supporting lots of polys 
i once tried to bring this rhino mesh made with a python script experiment into sketchup (approx 2.5million faces)… it took sketchup almost 2hrs to open the file then was completely unusable afterwards… moral of the story? don’t do that
(expand pic to see mesh lines)
Thank you. My file had a lot of pipes (architectural railings).
That’s really helpful.