• Homepage: https://github.com/rpavlik/sketchupToOSG
• Downloads: https://github.com/rpavlik/sketchupToOSG/downloads
• Release Changelog: https://github.com/rpavlik/sketchupToOSG/blob/master/CHANGELOG.mkd
• Documentation: https://github.com/rpavlik/sketchupToOSG#readme

Original Author:

Ryan Pavlik [email protected] [email protected] http://academic.cleardefinition.com

Iowa State University HCI Graduate Program/VRAC

Google SketchUp is a pretty slick application, and OpenSceneGraph (OSG) is a great 3D rendering system. SketchUp can export its models to COLLADA (.dae), and OpenSceneGraph conveniently has a plugin to load COLLADA models, though it (and/or its dependencies) can be tough to build. You could create native .osg/.ive models by exporting to COLLADA, then using osgconv to convert them. Since SketchUp has support for plugins written in Ruby, why not combine the steps and make a plugin that bundles a COLLADA-capable OSG build and can set up the COLLADA export and conversion processes for the best results?

Well, that's what this is - a plugin for combining those steps. It's been useful to us - hopefully it's useful to you as well!

If you have modifications or improvements, they're gratefully appreciated. Just use GitHub to fork/edit the scripts, then send a pull request if you'd like your improvements integrated upstream.

A simple installer is now available - just download it from GitHub. If you would prefer to do it the hard way, see "Manual Installation," below.

No matter how you install, the results are the same. SketchUp should have an Export to OpenSceneGraph menu under File next time you start it.

We have only used this with the free version of Google SketchUp 8 on Windows - compatibility with other versions is unknown.

The installer has been built with Inno Setup, so the normal command-line arguments used by that installer system are available. In particular, if you want to run an unattended install that shows the progress dialog while it's working, run a command like:

setup-sketchupToOpenSceneGraphPlugin-VERSIONGOESHERE.exe /SP- /SILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

For an unattended install that doesn't show any windows at all, run something like:

setup-sketchupToOpenSceneGraphPlugin-VERSIONGOESHERE.exe /SP- /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

Unzip this somewhere, and drop the osgconv folder and the openscenegraph_exportviacollada.rb file into your Google SketchUp Plugins folder, something like:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins

This plugin is free and open-source software.

The Ruby scripts serving as the SketchUp plugin may be distributed under the following license:

Copyright Iowa State University 2011

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.

(See accompanying file osgconv/LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)

A local copy of fileutils.rb from the upstream Ruby project is bundled.

An actual in-use instance of this plugin makes use of the OpenSceneGraph package and its dependencies, including but not limited to COLLADA-DOM, which have their own licenses.

If you find this useful, we would appreciate hearing from you. If you use this for academic work, we would also appreciate a copy of the publication and a citation: this helps make a case for our work. You may contact the main developer, Ryan Pavlik (Iowa State University), by email at [email protected] or [email protected].

Paper materials and copies of publications may be mailed to:

Ryan Pavlik

Virtual Reality Applications Center

1620 Howe Hall

Ames, Iowa 50011-2274

USA

Of course, this plugin would not be possible without the work of the OpenSceneGraph and COLLADA-DOM teams. Thanks to them and the others in the open-source ecosystem supporting them.