Rhino to SketchUp as 3ds?

[ledisnomad]

I'm trying to transfer a model from Rhino to SketchUp for graphics reasons. I'm exporting from Rhino as a 3ds. When I import into SketchUp, it starts fine, but then starts parsing materials... and there are thousands of them, one for each surface, I think!

Does anybody have a solution or a work-around?! Please help, I need to finish this today and this is only the first of two models.

Thanks.

[lewiswadsworth]

There is an exporter available for Rhino 4.0 for SketchUp.

http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/ThreedWareHouse.html

The importer installs by default, but you need this package for export. It may fail with very large models. And it will not solve the problem with textures in exported files.

With regard to textures...this is where Rhino falls down, and I've spoken with the McNeel people about it and the local rep explained that they are working on it.

Surfaces and meshes that have been textured with bitmaps in Rhino itself will not hold their textures or their mapping on export to anything. The experienced Rhino users I know well (if they are using the Rhino Renderer or a similar plugin) often texture objects "by layer", not "by object", and then export their models as DWG or DXF to mesh modelers (and this includes SketchUp). The ACAD formats, unlike 3DS, will lose their materials but they will hold layer status and layer color. In the non-Rhino modeler they "select by layer" and apply new textures and texture mapping using that organizational strategy.

Because of this problem, it most often makes sense to import SketchUp meshes into Rhino for rendering, as opposed to the other way around. The mapping tools, lighting tools, and the Rhino Renderer are quite basic but reliable, as long as you use them to produce output from Rhino. You can also (at least for now) download free betas of several renderers for Rhino, including Brazil and FlamingoNXT.

[lewiswadsworth]

Incidentally, if you are exporting anything from Rhino 4 to SketchUp via some mesh format,
do yourself a favor:

Select the objects in Rhino you want to export and type the command "ExtractRenderMesh".

Use Rhino's selection tools to "Select Mesh" and then "Export Selected" those meshes.

Selecting any old NURBS object and then either using the "Mesh" command or the exporter itself and their respective dialogs to create meshes is much less likely to get you a decent mesh copy of what you see on the screen than simply asking Rhino to make the displaymesh "real" and exporting that. The quality of the extracted display mesh matches whatever display properties you had set for the document prior to extraction. (" _DocumentPropertiesPage
_Mesh" is the command for getting to those properties.)

[ledisnomad]

lewiswadsworth,

Thank you so much for your response. I am giving the Rhino to SketchUp exporter right now. Hopefully that will solve my problem. I don't actually want any of the textures/materials from the Rhino model. I wouldn't mind it all just going to default.

For future models, I'll keep your tips for materials in mind and I'll start using the ExtractRenderMesh command as well! I bet that will make life easier.

[lewiswadsworth]

If you only need the geometry and no textures, your best bet is to export to SU from Rhino using DWG, because any goofball materials assigned by Rhino will be shed in the process. Be careful about the export settings...the one named "2004 Lines" is generally the best built-in export scheme for ACAD export if you're going to SU using DWG.

[nankyo]

check out the Rhino Labs things : http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/RhinoHomeLabs.html
there is plug ins to im/wx directly

[lewiswadsworth]

@nankyo said:

check out the Rhino Labs things : http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/RhinoHomeLabs.html
there is plug ins to im/wx directly

Did you read the earlier posts at all?