Public Beta for Obj, SolidWorks, STEP, and FBX importers

Mra

Hi,

Is there a possibility that there can be an FBX plugin that exports out of SketchUp and replace the current default exporter?

The default FBX exporter by Google is actually a couple of years out of date and very old. I think current version is FBX 2011.3, wheraes SketchUP uses FBX 6.1! Thanks

ashraf

Sure we can do that,

We can add a new FBX exporter for SketchUp, this should be available soon.

Mra

Sounds good ashraf, thank you.

ashraf

Your request was fulfilled.

We have FBX 2011 and OBJ exporters ready for SketchUp 7, 7.1 and 8.
The plugins should work on Windows with the free and pro versions.

FBX exporter can be found at
http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins/FBX_Exporter_From_Sketchup-main.aspx

OBJ exporter can be found at
http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins/OBJ_Exporter_From_Sketchup-main.aspx

Cheers.

Ashraf

thomthom

Updates - sweet.

I submitted some reports of some models that took an extremely long time to import - some never seemed to complete. Any changes in this release that would address that?

ashraf

The update you are looking for, should be available in January. We invested time in handling instances in the SketchUp files, which can be found extensively in Revit models, this update should be ready in January.

The last note was about two new Exporters for (FBX and OBJ)

Those exporters can serve a user who wants to use SketchUp models in other applications that do not have native SketchUp import capabilities

thomthom

Oh - exporters - didn't notice that!

I'll wait for the January release of the importer.

Mra

Hi ashraf,

I have to thank you for the very quick response, truly appreciated. However I have to be honest. I have requested a trial licence for the FBX exporter but have noted a few pros and cons over the default FBX editor. I am importing straight into Maya.

Simlab Pros:

Imports Sketchup's scenes and successfully converts into Maya Cameras
Textures are saved into the FBX file
Handles materials much better than the default except there was an instance where one material was duplicated about 100 times

Default FBX Pros:

Groups objects as groups in Maya rather than using Maya locaters
Seems to preserve geometry better
Hidden geometry in Sketchup is completely discarded

Default and Simlab FBX Cons:

FBX 2011 supports instances but neither plugins seem to preserve this on import
No layers support

Currently I appreciate the dev work put into this but feel I cannot justify the price as I prefer the Geometry outputed by the default FBX converter even if it is an older version and has a few limitations. I think geometry preservation is a must, I found the same problem happened with the Sketchup to Maya converter too where all geo was triangulated. I post this in the best possible intentions.

ashraf

Thanks for the great feedback, We will work on addressing those issues in the next update.
The next update will have a better handling o instances.

thomthom

@ashraf said:

The next update will have a better handling o instances.

Yay!

Mra

I got an email today about an update, is there possibility to get a changelog? I'm still interested in the instances/components in FBX and the ability to not triangulate the mesh. Thanks.