Sketchup to Blender

I had been introduced to Google Sketchup before Blender, and while I always use Blender to render, and apply materials to finished product, I'll often use Sketchup to make the model itself. Here's a quick way to import any Sketchup file into Blender.

I'll use a model of a couch I used for a larger project.  Make sure that before you export, you explode any groups that are in your model, otherwise they just won't exist in blender.

Simply export the exploded model as a Collada.dae file.

Import the file.

Expect your model to be oversized.  If you don't see it, you might have to adjust your clipping, to let you see further.  If the model is very far from the center, then it was probably very far from the central axes in Sketchup.

Here's a completed render I made using that model.  I find Sketchup easy to use, but the model sometimes behave strangely in Blender.  Firstly, it converts all polygons to triangles, making it hard the change in Blender.    Also, when you apply a UV texture anywhere in the scene, the faces will appear one-sided, some looking as if they disappeared, however they render as normal.  Because of this, I make sure that I don't have to change anything in the model before importing to Blender, as editing it is almost impossible.