Collada Export Sideways

[bmike]

I've been doing some testing with Collada (DAE) export - and everything that comes out of SketchUp is tipped on its side. I have to re-orient my model prior to export.

Is this a common bug?
I'm placing the exported files directly into iBooks Author. Happy to push through another program (free, if possible) - to correct or adjust the export.

[Alan Fraser]

It may be a problem with IBooks Author rather than SketchUp. I've exported Collada models to a number of other heavyweight 3D programs without them changing orientation.
Some model formats do use a different axis for 'up'. Models in the obj format, for example, are often to be found lying on their side. SU recognises this and has a setting to swap YZ axes on export. There's no such setting for Collada, because it's not thought to be needed.

If the problem persists, then the easiest solution would probably be to make the model as usual, then on completion, but before dae export, right click one of the axes and select Move from the context menu. Then in the dialog box, experiment to see which combination of rotating 90° around the one or all of the axes gives you the result you want in iBooks Author. Once you've discovered the right combination of rotates, it ought to be just a matter of the same few mouse clicks for each model.