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From SketchUp to Second Life

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the easy-shapes-made-easier dept.

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."

1 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Of Course it Sucks and is Incomplete by A*OnYourA** · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.