I hate to burst your bubbles here, but I spent about 6 hours trying to get sketchup to run under wine and ultimately failed because my graphics driver and sketchup won't play nice together. I spent all this time because I wanted to build the routy router and the instructions to build it say, "Oh just open the 3D model and look at the photos". Well I don't use Windows and sketchup isn't available for Linux and so I was forced to go through the pain which wouldn't even be necessary if the model was uploaded into an open source format like blender.
Ok so I spent a couple hours getting it exported to Blender. Here's how to do it: 1. In Sketchup 2013, Select File->Export->.obj 2. In Blender go to File->Import->Wavefront(.obj) Then you press "Home" key on your keyboard and search around for the object. It's there, but the scale and scene are all hosed so it's like a game to find the imported object. I found the routy and saved it as a .blend file and I will be uploading it shortly to the resources files. And here is the file http://www.openbuilds.com/resources/routy-router-3d-model-for-blender.18/
If you are exporting a solid model for importing to other programs you could try the Extension Warehouse for SU there is a large community writing ruby scripts that allow SU to become a very powerful tool in many ways. Browse around and see if there are some plugins that may help most are free. There is a STL export/importer that may do the trick as well. http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/sketchup-stl P.S. just found this and it looks like fun! http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/ar-media-plugin What would be nice is an open source file converter that will cross convert all (as many as possible) cad formats to and from one another.
Anything is better than Sketchup. Proprietary formats that only work on Window$ create headaches for those of us who don't have any Micro$oft operating systems within 15 miles of our homes.
Well I'm just letting you all know that you're walking into a format war. It's like MS Office vs Openoffice. You can't build a viable community of volunteers and makers when you throw up a $600 barrier and the tools you use can be changed on a whim. Yes I realize you can get the crippled sketchup for free and it may work if you have windows/mac. Yes I realize it seems easy to use. This is the classic Microsoft tactic of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. One day all your hard work will be useless when Sketchup decides it's no longer profitable for them to enable you. Oh you want to upgrade to windows 9? Well you have to get the new version of sketchup, oh and btw none of your work will be backwards compatible so the whole community you are a part of will have to get windows 9 and the new sketchup. See how that works?
What are you using for a cad/cam? I see your point and I think with all the open source extensions made for SketchUp they would have a hard time at closing them off. In fact they have contacted several of the these coders and asked if they would be willing to incorporate some of their plugins in to SketchUp. This is where we get the SketchUp to STL plugin for instance. We are always on the lookout for an easy to use solution like SketchUp. There have been lots of attempts but none have come close to the widely acceptance that Sketchup has gained and for good reason, its great when you need a quick model-up of an idea. SketchUp also offers an open API and that allowed the coding of a cam solution SketchUcam which in turn allows us to work up parts right in SketchUp and export them to Gcode! I am not sure what more you could need in the way of a quick molder and a cam solution all in one but this has it and it does it very well. Maybe someday that will change and it works to our advantage to switch but until then it really does the job nicely for those who use it. As for it being crippled, a quick peak look into the 'plugins' extension manager will show you otherwise and that its a program that will continue to evolve and grow. To export DXFs to us in other CAD's check out this plugin. http://www.guitar-list.com/download-software/convert-sketchup-skp-files-dxf-or-stl
Well I'm all for freedom of choice and if that's what you like then by all means... When you save to a format that is incompatible with any other program, it limits my choice of software.
my notes to myself on using Sketchup in wine has this as the first line "do the regedit mod for HWok (search wine faq)" did you do that? this tells the OpenGL renderer that the hardware is ok and then Sketchup works. I am using Sketchup 8 on Ubuntu Studio 12 on a Gigabyte motherboard with Intel chipset. it currently has one annoyance in that the screen does not immediately update after some graphics operations, so I just roll the mouse wheel one click each way to force a zoom redraw. I expect this will be fixed in some update that I might bother to install, sometime. as a Linux user you already know you have to go the extra mile, it is part of the choice simply because it is free and not mainstream. a little regedit-ing is part of the package.
