Google Sketchup is a 3d modeling program specially designed from architectural projects.

I’ve heard about this software from Google before, but only now I had time to download and test it. I’ve watched some tutorials and just learned how to draw a chair.

It’s known that Google Skecthup is good for modeling, but not for texturing. So, I decided to export my simple chair to Blender. It took me sometime to find out how to “sucessfully” do it.

First of all, I used the most recent version of Blender (2.48a), Python (2.5) and Sketchup (7.08657). Then I exported my chair through : File > Export > 3D Model… and saved with .kmz extension.

Now, you have to rename the extension to .zip and extract it. One of the items extracted is a folder named ‘models’. There you’ll find a filename with extension .dae. Now open blender and go to Import > COLLADA 1.4 … and import the .dae file.

So far so good, but when I tried to export my simple chair it could not import the legs and the cilinders correctly. It creates empties instead. I don’t intend to spend more time learning this tool by now, but it’s always good to learn new stuff.