SketchUp Warehouse in Blender

SketchUp and Blender are two great free tools that can be used for creating 3D objects. This is quite a simplistic description, because there are many differences, which I will briefly outline in this note. One is extremely easy to use and has a ton of free models available, the other one can produce stunning visuals – the questions arises how to make them work in tandem. Good news is – you can. Now read on.

SketchUp aims for quick and easy visualisation of architectural features, such as buildings and interiors. Its very user-friendly way of creating 3D content is one of the main reasons for its popularity. Its other strong point is its gallery of ready to use 3D objects. Hosted online by Google, it is called 3D Warehouse and contains almost anything one could think of, with the possibility to watch the model in 3D before downloading it.

Simple house in modelled in SketchUp

SketchUp is free for home user in basic version, but it remains proprietary software with some limitations that this imposes, namely the free version cannot export models in any other format than their own proprietary one, only good for exporting something for Google Earth. For access to more robust functions, users have to purchase the non-free Pro version. Also, it’s only available for MacOSX and Windows.

Blender, on the other hand, was designed for rendering digital images and creating animations, with game engine being added later on. It has enormous amount of functions and many applications, which also makes it more difficult to learn and use. The results produced with Blender, however, can be nothing short of stunning and skilled user can obtain far more visually appealing visualisations than what can be done in SketchUp. Contrary to Google’s application, Blender is 100% free software with no strings attached, distributed on GPL licence and has been ported to a huge number of systems.

Same house imported to Blender

So there we have it: two great but very different programs, each with its own advantages. Wouldn’t it be great if we could make them work together? It turns out that this is both possible and relatively straightforward.

First information I have found on the subject dates back to 2006, so it’s definitely not news. The general idea is simple – Google saves its file as a zip containing file in Collada format. All that user needs to do is to rename SketchUp file, unpack the archive and import Collada file into Blender using appropriate script. Voila, your recipe is ready.

When I was investigating the topic while creating animated music video with 3D elements, I used Alexv’s tutorial (which is well written and contains a link to Spanish version too), but not so long ago I have stumbled upon the other tutorial on Katsbits and I believe that this is the ultimate one. If you are a regular PC user, you shouldn’t have any problems with my one-sentence instruction above, but if you do, check this tutorial and almost every doubt and possible difficulty are explained in detail.

I wanted to illustrate this post with my own screenshots, showing the process of importing Fiat 126p from 3D Warehouse through SketchUp to Blender, with the final result being cel-shaded car for use in 2D animation I am hoping to complete one day, but I have realised that unfortunately I have lost my screenshots and files during system reinstall in 2008 and since I’m short on time recently, I allowed myself to use screens from Katsbits.