How do you Export SketchUp Layers to AutoCAD?

This is an open question, not a solution. Is there a Plugin for that?
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I've been asked if there is a way to export the SketchUp layers when exporting to AutoCAD as 2D drawing. All my Google searches have been useless, so here comes the question in case someone can help with this.
Is there a Plugin to Export as 2D Drawing from SketchUp to AutoCAD and get the geometry to keep the layers from SketchUp?. Right now the only thing that seems possible is to separate the geometry in Cut Edges and Profile Edges.
SO please, if anyone knows how to do this share it here! THanks


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AutoCAD: Extracting Data to Excel

Do you need to extract the object properties to an excel sheet? Easy, don't do it manually.
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Sometimes we might need to get information of some of the objects exported to an Excel Sheet to do some further calculations there. A good way to automate this process if we have a lot of objects is to use the DATAEXTRACTION wizard.
To access it simply type DATAEXTRACTION and follow the instructions. You'll be able to select which objects you want to export data from (or alternatively all the objects on a drawing or several drawings, see below)


You can always select which properties of the objects you want exported (length, object type, layer, color, etc) making it simple to later differentiate the objects in Excel.



By default, Object Name and Count will also be exported. Object Count means that if you have 2 objects with their properties being identical (those that you are exporting), the exported excel sheet will only show 1 row, and a count of 2. Name, is basically the type of object. See the image with 5 lines, and the excel sheet obtained after exporting only the layer and length of the objects.



As you can see the lines with equal length and layer show only once in the table, with a count of 2. If we had included other properties in the export settings (like start X or start Y) the lines would not have been grouped because the data extracted would be different.

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Rhino Plugins: Export to SketchUp

Export files from Rhino to SketchUp skipping any oder transition format
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When exporting files from Program to Program the best way to go is to to the export directly between this two formats. Generic formats like 3Ds work, but tend to make the process tedious, and generally the resulting file needs some clean-up.
For the transition between Rhino and SketchUp, there is a Plugin to export files from the former to the later directly.
The plugin can be downloaded here. More information about it, on the McNeel website.
I've been out on vacation for a couple of weeks. I'll try to catch up with lots of posts I have on a list during the next weeks.


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Rhino: What to Do if Make2D Runs out of Memory?

If you are trying to turn your Rhino model into a 2D drawing but your computer crashes, you might want to try this work around.
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I was recently trying to extract 2D linework from a very large 3D model in Rhino to be used in AutoCAD drawings, but no matter what I tried, either the result was not the expected or the computer crashed in the process.
What I tried first was the Make2D command, but the computer "ran out of memory" so Rhino crashed. (see that I was doing this on a 8core, 3Gb of RAM computer, so its not an old and slow machine).
Then second option I tried was to Export to AutoCAD and then try to use the FLATSHOT command, but for some reason, the geometry exported to AutoCAD was not suitable for this command. I tried to Export from Rhino to 3Ds to import it in AutoCAD, but again Rhino would crash.
So I found myself without options involving a direct transfer. The only solution I found was to Print the view on hidden line in Rhino to a PDF with big quality, and then convert that PDF to a DXF using a PDF to CAD converter. The one I used is this one, the free trial allowed me to do what I wanted, and the results are better than using the Make2D command from Rhino.

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SketchUp: Adding camera control to the Web Exporter

I found a way to control the camera location when using the SketchUp Web Exporter Plugin. A bit rudimentary, but it works.
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Some months ago we talked about the SketchUp Web Exporter that had been by then released by Google. The biggest flaw I found to that beta release was the lack of control over the camera position.
I've been waiting for a while to see some improvements on that Plugin, but since nothing happened since then i decided to try something I had in mind. As you will can read in the post about the plugin, what this does, is basically create an HTML file plus a set of images. Then I thought, what if we change the images?
This is the basic procedure I used to create the quick fly through that you can see below these lines.

What I did was basically to use the web exporter to export a set of images and the HTML file. Then, I configured the fly Path I wanted and exported the animation as still JPEG images. The next step was simply replace the images generated by the web exporter, for those saved when i exported the animation. There are some issues matching the number of frames, but the result is not too bad.
One more issue I found when using the Web Exporter is that the resulting Java Script is not very smooth to use, you will see when you drag over it that sometimes it gets locked or jumps to a different camera position for no reason. Well there are reasons, is the way the Script is created. Besides, since the path is not a loop, it is giving some problems, i am working on trying to find a better way to make it smoother.
Anyways, since my Ruby programming knowledge is so far 0/10, I just call for someone to try to melt this two processes in a script that can easily do what I did here without all the hassle of exporting twice and overwriting images. Let's see if I am lucky.

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SketchUp: Import and Export Scenes

Did you know that you can import and export the Scenes from one file to another? It is (not) a default option in SketchUp.
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Saving Scenes is an important step on the design process. As the design evolves, it is a good option to show the same view of several options to easily compare them. Trying to mimic a view manually can be quite time consuming. We can of course open a drawing that has the view we want, erase everything in it, and paste in place the new model.
But there is a better way to get views from one file to another. SketchUp has an option to Import and Export Scenes (Pages).
Update: I was using my office computer and I thought this was a default option but it seems that it is not, you need the PageExIm.rb Plugin by Rick Wilson. It costs $5 and can be found here. Anything else in the post is still valid once you have this Plugin.
You just need to go to View --> Pages --> Export. You will save a file with the extension .SUP (for SketchUp Pages I guess). Form another file you can easily import those views by going to View --> Pages --> Import, and selecting the previously saved file.
Remember that to be able to use the views saved both models have to be placed in the same location.

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SketchUp: Export to Maxwell Problems

If you can't find the Maxwell type of file when trying to export from SketchUp you might find the solution here.
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For some reason, me and some other colleagues have been experiencing problems to Export to Maxwell from SketchUp. We followed all the steps to install the Maxwell Export Plugin for SketchUp but for some reason the .MXS type of file didn't appear as a file type in the Export Dialog Box.
For some reason the installation of the plugin didn't work 100%. I got in touch with Next limit Tech Support (that I have to say has a phenomenal response time) an they told me how to solve it. Apparently, the installation of the plugin was lacking one file. The solution is copying the mfc71.dll file from SketchUp installation folder to C:\Windows\System32. That solved the issue.
I haven't figured out if the problem comes from an issue on the plugin setup file, or some problem with our computers, but the solution worked. If you are having a similar problem try this, but first be sure that you check if the .MXS type of file is there or not. It happens to be on top of the list in the export dialog box, so sometimes people think that is not there when the only thing they need is to scroll up on the file type list.
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SketchUp: Export Multiple Scene Images at Once

Exporting multiple Scene Images might be tedious without this trick.
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From pushpullbar and a post by Torlai we find a solution to a common problem when working with a large number of scenes. What if I want to export easily a JPEG of each scene at once?
The 4 easy steps to follow are very simple:

1. Go to Window -> Model Info -> Animation -> uncheck the Scence Transitions box.
2. Go to the File menu -> Export -> Animation, set the file type to JPEG
3. Use the Options button to adjust the size of the images.
4. Export animation.
   

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