Hi Michael,
I have been trying to use the SKetchup export. The geometries seem to be very clean, however there are a few improvements which would be very important:

- all object that share edges are welded together in sketch up, even if they were separate objects in Moi.
- materials and layers are not translated.

I am not sure how much you could add to the export functionality, but ideally, every object should be saved a 'group' in sketchup,
so that sketchup understands the different objects as such (and does not try to weld the overlapping edges).

- Object names or styles should translate to Layers in sketchup.
Otherwise, names should translate to layers, and Styles to materials.

If this could be added, it would hugely improve the functionality of the export.
Thanks!

Use the 3ds Export from Moi for have separated objects by groups in Sketshup ;)
You can always load free V6 here for have the import 3DS
http://www.brothersoft.com/downloads/sketchup.html

And why not use the OBJ export from Moi?
here an free obj import with material for Sketchup by TIG ;)
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=20584

Hi Pilou,
3ds export is useless, as it brings in a lot of triangles.
Even I merge, the geometry is no so clean.

The best way I have found is to export as an LWO, open in modo and save as colada.
This way I have the materials, the groups....

I would prefer to skip the extra step though.
Also, when I export via the moi sketchup exporter, the surfaces are really clean, especially curved ones.
I see only the boundaries of the different surfaces as I see them in moi.

Hi okapi, yup these are on my todo list.

Except you mention translating styles to layers - there was a previous discussion on the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3790.1

And the consensus from that discussion seemed to be that layers were kind of a vestigial feature in SketchUp and not really regularly used, so it would be better to transfer styles in MoI as material assignments in SketchUp, not as layer assignments. Does that approach make sense?

- Michael

Thanks for the feedback.
I am not a heavy Sketchup user.
It seems to me though that almost all the Sketchup 3d models that we receive, from different clients, are organized via layers.
The best I guess would be to have an option to choose whether styles are translated as layers or materials, (and names as layers, if styles are chosen to be translated as materials)?

Anyway, I think the main thing is that moi objects that have overlapping edges are not welded together in sketchup,
and that you can somehow choose objects by a material / layer / style assignment.

Hi okapi,

> (and names as layers, if styles are chosen to be translated as materials)?

So if each object in MoI was exported to be a group in SketchUp, wouldn't it make sense for the object name in MoI to become the group name in SketchUp as well instead of trying to make layers out of the object names?

That just seems like it would match well...

- Michael

Yes it's better to make "named group" because there is in Sketchup an "Outliner" where all named's goups are visible in a list of text!

If you have thousand of objects , that will be curious to make one Layer by object :)
Why not by styles or colors as option