From SketchUp to Second Life

writes "Roo Reynolds of Eightbar (an external blog written by some IBMers) has put together a tool to export Google SketchUp models and import them into Second Life. It only seems to work for fairly basic objects, and cylinders and non-rectangular surfaces 'are particularly badly hit.' Along with the Prim.Blender project, this sort of tool looks like it could make building in Second Life considerably easier, allowing people to choose their preferred tool rather than be constrained to the in-world editor."

Comments

why do i see so many second life links on slashdot

[circletimessquare]

is there some sort of link deal?

Of Course it Sucks and is Incomplete

[A*OnYourA**]

Anything other than exporting faces of cubes would be extremely difficult. SL prims are based off parametric equations and are incompatible with 3D models based on sets of vertices (Sketchup).

If someone found an efficient algorithm to convert 3D models based off vertices into a group of simple parametric objects, they would be very, very rich. It would be the Computer Graphics equivalent of an alchemist discovering a way to convert copper into gold.

What this guy did was paint a piece of copper with liquified gold, then wrote a blurb about how great it would be if this was pure gold. It's not, although it's good to dream. I'm sure a lot of alchemists made progress in chemistry just by trying to solve the copper-into-gold problem. I just don't think people should get their hopes up about a Sketchup to SL importer that does anything worthwhile.

Re:(Friend Spam) In Game Editor Augmentation

[John Hurliman]

While we are talking about related projects, we (the libsecondlife project) are working on a C# importer and exporter for xml prim data. The .prims format that prim.blender uses now has an XSD and primimport and primexport are both in early testing. A screenshot is up here. Sometime in the next couple months we hope to have a completely open design chain for Second Life where you can model and texture in any combination of Second Life, SketchUp, prim.blender, or whatever comes up.

Re:why do i see so many second life links on slash

[mwvdlee]

It's not censored at all (the top places either deal with gambling or sex).

To many slashdot readers the idea of a big sandbox would be very tempting.

I guess you're just one of those guys that want everything handed out, with no constructive, social or creative skills needed.