@rsullivan said:

1.) I cannot write a 'C' exporter that will appear within Sketchup
as a plugin (i.e appear within the Sketchup Export menu). I will need to write
it as a stand alone application and have the user manually select the Sketchup file
for export.

Correct. Plugins have to go through a C++ interface but they use the C API to implement the actual import/export. They'll need to use the same CRT since they'll communicate with SketchUp via the C++ interface. For a standalone application, you can use any VS version you'd like. Our slapi.dll will still need Visual C++ 2010 redistributable package installed in order to run. But you can write your code in any other VS version (or even any programming language that can talk to a C API, which is almost any language).

@rsullivan said:

2.) The Sdk has a director: C:\Source\Sketchup2013\Sdk\SketchUp-SDK-Win\binaries\x64
which contains a slaip.dll and .lib. I assume these are valid for x64?

Yes, they are the 64-bit binaries.

@rsullivan said:

3.) I am not able to write any sort of Sketchup 'plugin' with the C Sdk (Like
the ones available via the Sketchup Extension Warehouse. These are all Ruby based).

Yes, the SDK can currently only read/write .skp files and it is not a replacement for the Ruby API.

Hi Robert,
The problem is heap allocations. More specifically the std::string parameters being passed back and forth. They can't be allocated in one heap and deallocated in another. Binaries built with 2010 and 2012 will operate on different heap managers. To make this work, we would need to expose a C interface (as we did with the new API). But that causes very verbose code, especially when dealing with strings. Since plugins have to run in the SU process anyway, it was implemented with a more convenient C++ interface. The downside is you have to use the same compiler.
Maybe when C++ gains modules support, we can implement a better solution. but as it stands, the standard makes no guarantees of ABI compatibility between binaries, unfortunately.
Regards,
Bugra

Hi,
The XML Exporter sample builds an exporter plugin for SketchUp and runs in the same process. Due to its C++ interface, it has to be built with the same Visual Studio version as SketchUp, which is VS2010. If you let VS2012 upgrade the project, the resulting DLL will not be compatible and it will likely cause crashes.
Thanks,
Bugra

Yes, we certainly do. However, I can't really promise when we'll be able to get it done. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Bugra

Hi,
The new SDK does not yet support 64-bit on Mac, sorry! We will make this clear in the docs.
Bugra

Hi, sorry about the delayed response. One important thing about the current SDK is that it cannot work with the in-memory model that's live in SketchUp, it can only open existing skp files. So you'll have get the file saved first.

Here are some answers to your questions. For the ones I skipped, it means we should be able to do it.

@th3lurker said:

4b. I used to create new faces using a mesh(because of speed issues), but this poses several problems. The face does not "exist" until i use fill faces from mesh, so i have to store the texture information separately. Fill from mesh erases all entities that existed previously in the group, so i have to wait until i am sure i have no more faces to add to the mesh. Could i use SUFaceCreate instead? Like i said, speed is an issue here, some of out projects have thousands of entities, and 10+ faces/ entity is not uncommon.

Yes, you can use SUFaceCreate but using meshes (i.e. SUGeometryInput*) is currently the only way to map textures due to various reasons. We are looking into adding that to individual faces as well.

@th3lurker said:

6. Locking the group is not that important

We do not support locking groups yet. I'll make a note.

@th3lurker said:

8. Are the .skp's backwards compatible?(sketchup8, maybe even 7, i have no real idea what
   the clients use).

We currently save only in the 2013 format. It's on our list to be able to save in older formats.

Thanks!

I think we can do most of those but not all. Take a look at the SUGeometryInput family of functions. It lets you create big meshes of geometries at once and add them to an "Entities" using SUEntitiesFill. We don't have great support for modifying the geometry once you create it though. So creating geometry and splitting them into groups would not work yet. You'll have to create them in the group to begin with. So it requires a bit more careful programming as it stands today. We also don't have support to lock groups. I'll add that to our list.

Thanks!
Bugra

Here it is:
http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/developer/sdk_start.html

Hi th3lurker,

Yes, this is a brand new SDK that exposes a C interface. We think it exposes cleaner API and it is easier to use. We are fully committed to supporting it for the foreseeable future. It is not yet as fully featured as the old SDK was, especially for creating skp files, but we are slowly building up the needed features and we need more feedback. So please check it out if you can.

Thanks!
Bugra Barin
SketchUp Team

Hi Jake,
I assume this is for a standalone application and not an exporter plugin into SketchUp.
slapi.framework uses @rpath in its in "Installation Directory" path. So you'll need to set the "Runpath Search Paths" project setting in Xcode to the path of slapi.framework relative to your executable file location. So typically it would be something like:
@loader_path/../Frameworks
Assuming your app is a bundle and you placed slapi.framework under "Frameworks" directory in your bundle. I hope that helps.