Export to SKP with group for each object?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Hi,

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but I can’t sort this out.

I have a bunch of planar surfaces which touch each other, but are actually separate objects.
In SketchUp, objects that touch each other are automatically merged, unless each object is a group.
Is there a way to tick an option in the export menu so that each object stay as individual/grouped entity?

The other workaround would be to convert every object in my Rhino scene to an individual block, which is not ideal. These would come up as components inside Sketchup instead of groups.

The other alternative is exporting as dxf from Rhino, with solids option, this does retain the individual objects, but instead of being a single polygon which can be extruded, they are made of many faces…

Basically I am needed the standard sketchup export but with the option to retain individual objects.

Edit: I just tried making a block out each of my 5000 curves with GH and I had to cancel it because it was taking about 2 seconds for each curve.

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2

If surface edges are coincident within the modeling tolerance, you would Join them into a polysurface.

Block and Group are not going to help.

Explode is the opposit of Join in Rhino.

It’s a fool’s errand to compare SketchUp and Rhino.
They are intended for very different purposes.

SketchUp is a Mesh based file.
Rhino uses NURBS Surfaces.
SketchUp is intended to quickly make realistic images of objects to sell an idea.
Rhino is intended for building smooth, accurate models that are ready for manufacturing.

When you export Polysurfaces to SKP, the resulting mesh facets are joined so you have the objects you expect in SketchUp.

You can also import the SKP file right back into Rhino to check you are getting exported what you expect.

3

I didn’t…

I know that.

Thanks for the suggestion but sadly joining my geometry does not achieve the export I am looking for.

The polygons in SketchUp still get merged and you can’t move them individually.
So for instance if I want to move this polygon away from the rest, this happens.

image
image1707×1038 183 KB

I basically need each hexagon separately.
The same way I can do in Rhino I want to do in Sketchup. Its quite simple.

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image1165×750 96.4 KB

4

I’ve never used SketchUp.
Perhaps try this process…

Run the Mesh command in Rhino. Adjust the settings until you get a mesh that looks like it will work.

Then Hide everything except the meshes.

Explode the meshes so each facet is an individual object.

Export the diddled mesh to SKP.

Any better?

5

I think that any process that involves converting to meshes will not work John.

Rhino’s Sketchup exporter has a very important option which makes planar faces a single polygon. This is because Sketchup support ngons.
image

When you convert to mesh, you lose the ngon. The result is a super heavy sketchup file and the face is destroyed intro triangles, so when you try to extrude you extrude triangles instead of faces.

6

Thanks good to know.

As I said, I do not use SkethUp and don’t see a time I ever will.

7

I know, you keep saying that every time a Sketchup question pops up so I don’t get why you keep answering these. Nor why no one else from McNeel does.

I don’t enjoy using SketchUp and if I worked alone I probably wouldn’t.

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8

I trie dto answer it because no one else had.

I think if you setup your questions a little differently, you would get better answers.

Start off stating the problem you’re trying to solve.

Then if needed, include a tiny example file and the specific steps to follow to show the problem.
If a screenshot would help include that too.

It will make your question much easier to answer.

Thanks

9

I’m exporting a lot of geometry for sketchup and in most situations my preference are blocks.

In your case I think I’d try to script a conversion from a block to a group. Look up ruby scripting.

Ok, since I’m also interested in a solution to this problem, I played around a little bit and created a topic in the Sketchup Forum. Let’s see if someone is going to help us.

Create groups from entities in nested component - Developers - SketchUp Community

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10

As my objects are all repetitive I was able to, with Gh, create 3 individual blocks and move/orient them where my objects are in Rhino.

After this I exported as normal to skp, with planar polygon option ticked.

Then inside SketchUp I could run a small line of code to make all blocks unique. There are also plug ins for this.

This only worked for me because I actually had 3 types of objects in my original Rhino file. Not sure why Elefront takes so long to define and bake 100+ different blocks.

Edit: here is the thread to make all components unique.

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