SketchUp 3D File Format Conversion System

Okino's SketchUp conversion system intelligently and robustly creates native SketchUp files from almost every 3D CAD, DCC, animation and VisSim program, such as: 3ds Max (via PolyTrans-for-3dsMax), Maya (via PolyTrans-for-Maya), ACIS SAT, Autodesk Inventor, CATIA v4, CATIA v5, Collada, DirectX, DXF/DWG, DWF-3D (AutoCAD and Revit), Electric Image FACT, ESRI, FBX, HOOPS 3D, IGES, JT, Lightwave, OpenFlight, Parasolid, PDB (protein database), PLY, Pro/Engineer (using real PTC Pro/E, not reverse engineered software), Rhino, Softimage (XSI), Solid Edge, SolidWorks, STEP, trueSpace, U3D (from PDF), VRML1+2+X3D, Wavefront OBJ and others (if you don't see your required format then just email us and we'll explain the standard conversion route for that program or file format).

Okino's conversion system is and has been the key reference-implementation tool for repurposing all major CAD/MCAD, DCC and VisSim content into quality SketchUp models, in particular for the creation of .skp models for Google's "3D Warehouse". If you have 3D models which you can't get converted to SketchUp format properly then we can help you easily do it -- the default conversion options will always perform a proper conversion (although, at most, you may need to change the relative export scaling, as SketchUp is senstive to model size).

Please also refer to the corresponding SketchUp import converter.

The SketchUp import/export conversion system is provided as part of the base-level PolyTrans and NuGraf programs.

If you are new to Okino and our software then please take a moment to read this page about what has made our software's usage so wide spread throughout the 3D industry. Okino's core and founding philosophy has been "one to one" personal customer relations and support, an often overlooked and neglected aspect of today's software industry. Our software is used throughout the world by tens of thousands of 3D professionals in mission & production critical environments, backed by respectable personal support directly from our core development team.

If you wish to export to Collada, or Google Earth, then please also refer to Okino's extensive Collada implementation (which includes refined and special support for Google Earth).

SketchUp is a popular 3D design product originally developed by @Last Software (http://www.sketchup.com) and now owned by Google, Inc. Okino recognized the growing popularity of SketchUp (well before it was purchased by Google) and as such we worked directly with the original SketchUp developer to create the first set of independent and fully compliant SketchUp 3D converters outside of the SketchUp program itself.

SketchUp has stringent requirements on the 3D data that it can import and hence this Okino exporter 'goes the extra mile' to clean up, optimize and manipulate the exported data so that it will show up properly within the SketchUp program. All these manipulation options are exposed through the following two exporter panels.

Obtaining the Newest SketchUp Import/Export Modules

The SketchUp import/export modules are obtained from the main system architect of Okino software, Robert Lansdale. After you have installed the commercial release of Okino's stand-alone PolyTrans/NuGraf software please email support@okino.com to obtain the current release of these modules.

For demo users, the simplest and most direct method to "evaluate" the SketchUp modules is to send a source file (in a ZIP archive) to Robert Lansdale and he'll convert it immediately to any destination format or 3D program, without the demo limitations and without you having to download and install the entire demo software package -- this will provide you with a clean example of the conversion process and without every fifth polygon removed as imposed by the demo software.

Features and Benefits to SketchUp Users

• The most robust, efficient and highest quality 3D production-proven converters for SketchUp. The modules have been heavily utilized by our high-end 3D professionals and production studios, and hence are well refined and robust at this point in time.
  
  
• Resulting translated files are 'Render Ready' meaning that they can be loaded and manipulated in the SketchUp program with little or no changes necessary.
  
  
• Conversins are provided to all standard and common 3D file formats as noted in the list above and as listed here. Additional file formats and native integrations are provided by third party products, such as from Act-3D/Quest-3D, CATS/Pytha, Maxon/Cinema-4D, NGRAIN, Realicon/VirTools-Exporter and Visual Components/3Dcreate.
  
  
• One of the key uses of the SketchUp conversion system is with our dedicated PolyTrans-for-3dsMax and PolyTrans-for-Maya native conversion systems for 3ds Max and Maya. The native conversions will allow models, such as office buildings, with large amounts of instancing (such as windows), texturing, hierarchy and polygonal count to be efficiently converted bidirectionally. Controllable via a MEL-script interface (Maya) or MaxScript (for 3ds Max) for both importing and exporting of SketchUp files.
  
  
• Over the last 2 decades Okino has pioneered the entire concept of bringing complex CAD assemblies into SketchUp. These are very refined and efficient CAD pipelines. A typical complex CAD conversion process only takes a few minutes or less, including full scene optimizations. There is no concept of spending days or weeks 'trying' or 'struggling' to get CAD data into these programs, a myth wrongly and purposely propagated by others.

  Very strong and robust CAD file support: ACIS, Autodesk Inventor, CATIA v4, CATIA v5, DXF/DWG, DWF-3D, IGES solids, JT, Parasolid, native Pro/Engineer (which uses an embedded copy of PTC Pro/E for perfect translations), Rhino, Solid Edge, Solid Works, STEP, STL, U3D, VDA-FS, VRML & X3D.
  
  

  The hidden magic in the conversion process is Okino's unique and proprietary CAD optimization processor, integrated into each of our CAD importers. This processor is by far the most complex aspect of our entire 3D CAD conversion software pipeline. Turn it on and it'll wrangle large and unwieldy CAD assemblies into refined datasets for efficient animation, rendering or interactive viewing.
  
  

  Most importantly, Okino does not use reverse engineered CAD modules as is done by others, but rather licenses, utilizes and/or accesses the industry standard CAD geometry engines from Autodesk (Inventor), Dassault Systemes (CATIA), PTC (Pro/E), Solid Edge, SolidWorks, Spatial (ACIS solids engine), UGS/Siemens (JT Open toolkit) and others.
  
  

  Import parts, assemblies, hierarchy and materials directly from a running copy or native file of Autodesk Inventor, Solid Edge or Solid Works into any Autodesk product. Unique!

• Strong ties to the visual simulation (VisSim) community with proven OpenFlight, VRML 1.0 +2.0 and X3D support.
  
  
• Automatic conversion of foreign 2d bitmap image file formats. During export, these file formats are converted on the fly and embedded directly into SketchUp files. During import from SketchUp files, the images are extracted and converted to disk-based TIFF files.
  
  
• Access to robust polygon processing tools which can take impossible-to-render datasets and turn them into renderable models (auto-weld, auto-unification, reorientation of normals, polygon reduction).
  
  
• Okino provides free, quick and highly educated support for its software direct from the main management team and senior developers, and not from online forums or untrained front-line tech support people. Unlike faceless companies where support may be non-existent, we personally know thousands of our customers by first name, email address and company background.

Dialog Box Options - Enables Panel # 1

Flip 'Y'-Up to 'Z'-Up coordinate system

This option allows the default coordinate system to be set for the SketchUp file. It defines what will be considered the "Up" axis in the exported SketchUp file. Okino software uses a "Y" up coordinate system. Enabling this option will flip the source Y-up data of the internal Okino scene graph to a Z-up coordinate system of the exported SketchUp file.

Output mesh data

If this checkbox is checkmarked then mesh geometry will be exported.

Output u,v texture map coordinates

If this checkbox is checkmarked then (u,v) vertex texture coordinates will be exported along with the mesh geometry.

Output smoothing information (smoothed edges)

If this checkbox is checkmarked then the vertex normals of the source 3D scene graph meshes will be approximated into SketchUp mesh edge smoothing information. In SketchUp, two adjacent polygons will appear smooth shaded if their shared edge is set to 'soft' and 'smooth'. This exporter will examine the mesh object and use the source vertex normal information to determine which polygon edges should be marked as smooth.

If this checkbox is disabled then all mesh objects appearing in the SketchUp file will look faceted.

Weld Vertices, Tolerance = #

In order for SketchUp to make two adjacent polygons appear smooth shaded, the vertices of the shared edge need to be identical and shared. Enabling this option (which is the default) will remove all redundant vertices from the mesh and weld together vertices into one vertex which are "close together". The tolerance value is the maximum distance allowed (in object space coordinates) for all vertices to collapse into one.

If your model appear to collapse together, then (1) your model is unnaturally small, (2) you need to decrease the tolerance value by a factor of 10.

Want convex polygons only

Checkmark this checkbox to cause non-convex polygons to become triangulated.

Want quadrilateral polygons only

Checkmark this checkbox to cause 5 or more sided polygons to become triangulated.

Want triangles only

Checkmark this checkbox to cause 4 or more sided polygons to become triangulated.

Want planar polygons. Tolerance = #

This option should remain enabled in order to provide proper mesh output to SketchUp.

SketchUp will not accept polygons which are non-planar. In other words, if some vertices of a polygon do not sit on the averaged plane of the polygon then they are thrown away.

Enabling this option (which is the default) will cause all mesh objects to be examined and those polygons which are deemed non-planar (to a tolerance level) will be triangulated.

The "tolerance" value determines how far away a vertex of the polygon must sit from the averaged plane of the polygon before the polygon can be considered non-planar. This value is measured in object-space of the mesh object (before the mesh is scaled and translated into its final world-space location).

Enable polygon reduction

If this checkbox is enabled (check-marked) then the SketchUp exporter will apply the global polygon reduction algorithm to each mesh object just prior to them being embedded in the SketchUp file.

The algorithm allows the number of polygons in the scene to be greatly reduced. The parameters used to reduce the polygons can be modified by pressing the "Edit Polygon Reduction Global Options" button. Press the "Help" button on its corresponding dialog box to learn more about the polygon reduction system.

Set all boundary Edges to:

These checkboxes allow you to forcibly override the smoothed, soft and hidden states of each "boundary" edge on a mesh in the SketchUp file. A "boundary edge" is one for which a polygon does not share it with any other polygon (ie. the edge of a disc).

Normally you would never want to change this option because the SketchUp exporter automatically sets the 'smoothed' and 'soft' states on each exported edge of each mesh object.

Please note that you may have to disable the "Merge coplanar faces" on the second exporter options panel for these overrides to take effect.

Smoothed - Setting this checkbox will set all boundary edges to "smoothed", meaning that the vertex normals (used for shading) will be shared between the two adjacent polygons.

Soft - Setting this checkbox will set all boundary edges to "soft", meaning that the two adjacent polygons should be considered as "one surface" (a concept used within the SketchUp program), and hence they are rendered as being hidden.

Hidden - Setting this checkbox will set all boundary edges to "hidden", meaning that the edges will not be visible at all within the SketchUp program. Normally you would never enable this since the 'soft' option often is used more often to hide edges.

Set all non-boundary Edges to:

This is the same as above except that only non-boundary edges are affected. Non-boundary edges (internal edges) are those which have at least 2 polygons sharing the same edge. Enables Panel # 2

Measurement Units for Exported File

This combo box determines how the internal scene units will be matched to those which SketchUp can understand and accept. For example, if the internal scene is defined using "kilometers" but this combo box is set to "Scale scene to meters" then the SketchUp file will be written to use "meters" and all geometry will be scaled 1000 times larger.

Use current scene units (scale if necessary)

If this combo box option is chosen (which is the default) then the exported SketchUp file units will be made the same as the internal scene units. If no match is possible then the exported file will use meters. The geometry of the exported scene may also be scaled larger or smaller in order to provide exact unit matching (for example, if the internal scene is defined using "kilometers" then the SketchUp file will be written as "meters" and all geometry will be scaled 1000 times larger due to the fact that SketchUp does not support kilometer units).

Use current scene units (no scaling)

If this combo box option is chosen (which is the default) then the exported SketchUp file units will be made the same as the internal scene units. If no match is possible then the exported file will be set to use meters. No scaling of the geometry will be made if there is no direct mapping of the internal units to the exported SketchUp units as is done by the previous option.

Blindly set to inches (no scaling)
Blindly set to feet (no scaling)
Blindly set to millimeters (no scaling)
Blindly set to centimeters (no scaling)
Blindly set to meters (no scaling)

If any of these combo box options are chosen then the exported SketchUp file units will be set to inches, feet, mm, cm or meters. No scaling of the geometry will be made. This simply overrides the "Length Units" shown in the "Model Info" dialog box within SketchUp.

Scale scene to inches
Scale scene to feet
Scale scene to millimeters
Scale scene to centimeters
Scale scene to meters

If any of these combo box options are chosen then the exported SketchUp file units will be set to inches, feet, mm, cm or meters. If the current internal scene units is not the same as the chosen SketchUp export units format then the exported geometry will be scaled larger or smaller so that the units will match.

Dialog Box Options - Enables Panel # 2

SketchUp document file version:

This combo box determines which SketchUp file version will be used to create the .skp file.

Use SketchUp geometry instancing to reduce file size

SketchUp promotes the concept of geometry re-use via "Component Definitions". A component definition is a container of one or more 3D faces (polygons). The internal Okino 3D scene graph also uses a very similar, but more extensive concept, called "master objects" and instances whereby one geometry object can be instanced multiple times in a scene.

If this checkbox is enabled (which is the default), then any Okino object definition which is instanced 2 or more times will be mapped into a SketchUp "Component Definition" and a corresponding number of "Component Instances". This will make for much smaller output files.

If this option is disabled then every internal instance will be expanded into a full, unique object inside SketchUp. Thus, 1000 instances of one common mesh object will be expanded into 1000 unique, copied meshes in the SketchUp file (and thus, taking up considerably more room).

Force every object to be a 'Component Definition'

Normally this exporter will only create a SketchUp "Component Definition" when the corresponding object inside the internal Okino scene graph has been instanced 2 or more times. This results in cleaner scenes to navigate inside the SketchUp user interface.

However, if this option is enabled then each and every Okino scene graph object definition will be turned into a SketchUp "Component Definition", even if it is only instanced once in the scene. Why would you want to enable this option? It is useful is you envision creating more "Component Instances" of these exported "Component Definitions" inside of the SketchUp program. Rather than have to select the faces and create your own component definitions, they will already be created once the SketchUp file is loaded.

Allow export of these curve types (as PolyLines):

SketchUp only allows for 3D line segments. It does not have spline shapes or NURBS curves. The following options control how Okino's 3D curves are converted and output as PolyLines to the SketchUp file.

3D PolyLines

If this checkbox is checkmarked then all 3D indexed line set primitives will be output to the SketchUp file as 3D PolyLines.

Splines

If this checkbox is checkmarked then all 3D spline shape primitives (based on curves such as Bezier, B-Spline, Cardinal, Tension) will be converted to linear curves then exported to the SketchUp file as 3D PolyLines.

NURBS curves

If this checkbox is checkmarked then all 3D NURBS curve primitives will be converted to linear curves then exported to the SketchUp file as 3D PolyLines.

Output materials ('surface' definitions)

If this checkbox is checkmarked then materials will be exported along with any associated texture map.

Multiply color by material shading coefficient

Inside Okino's internal scene graph each material has a "diffuse color" and a corresponding "diffuse shading coefficient". The "shading coefficient" can be considered a variable intensity control that brightens or darkens its corresponding diffuse color, without having to modify the color itself.

If this checkbox is checkmarked then the diffuse shading coefficient is multiplied into its corresponding diffuse color value before being exported to the SketchUp file material.

If this checkbox is not checkmarked then only the raw diffuse color will be output to the SketchUp file and its corresponding shading coefficient value ignored. This will typically result in brighter, bolder and punchier materials, what we ourselves term "OpenGL" shading which tends to be more saturated than colors seen in photo-realistic rendering programs.

Embed texture maps into SketchUp materials

If this checkbox is checkmarked then a diffuse texture map associated with the material will be embedded directly inside the SketchUp file, attached to its corresponding material.

In most cases you will need to press the "Modify Source Bitmap Image Search Paths" button and tell the exporter where your source bitmap textures are located.

Modify Source Bitmap Image Search Paths

In specific circumstances you will need to inform PolyTrans where your source bitmap images are located so that automatic bitmap file embedding process proceeds properly. If PolyTrans reports warnings that specific images could not be located during automatic bitmap conversion press this button so that the Search-Paths dialog box appears. Using this dialog box you can tell PolyTrans where your source bitmaps are located.

Apply Global Transformation

If this checkbox is enabled then a general purpose global transformation will be applied to each exported scene. A new top-level grouping node will be added to the scene called "Global Transform" which will contain this new transformation matrix.

This option will allow you to, for example,

• Re-center all of the geometry so that it is centered at the origin (0,0,0) in the SketchUp scene.
• Move all of the geometry so that it is sitting on the Y=0 (XZ) horizontal plane.
• Auto-scale the geometry so that it is no larger than a specific bounding box size.
• Scale the scene by a (X, Y, Z) value.
• Shear the scene by a (X, Y, Z) value.
• Rotate the scene by a (X, Y, Z) value.
• Translate the scene by a (X, Y, Z) value.

Fix up any container errors

This is a generic mechanism provided by the SketchUp software. It is enabled by default. It will examine the exported file and provide any necessary tweaks to it.

Merge coplanar faces

This is a generic mechanism provided by the SketchUp software. It will automatically hide edges in the mesh if a series of adjoining polygons all sit in the same plane.

Export meta data

SketchUp allows for "meta data" information to be defined per entity. Enabling this option will output such meta data to each entity.

The following internal Okino scene graph meta data types are supported when exporting to SketchUp: strings, shorts, ints, floats, colors, vectors, double precision vectors, 4x4 matrices, 4x4 double precision matrices, time, double precision floats, 4 valued vectors, and 4-valued double precision vectors. All numeric values will be converted into meta data string for output to SketchUp.