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Thread: SketchUp to CNC

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
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    Ivanhoe, Vic
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    Default SketchUp to CNC

    I had a project that I was undertaking for a matter where I was going to of use a CNC shop to do the cutting for me. They needed the drawings presented as a .DWG file.

    I had several attempts at doing this from my SketchUp drawings but I ended up having to redraw all the components each time in a different manner to achieve the format the CNC guys wanted.

    Does anyone have any experience producing drawings for CNC from SketchUp?

    I'm using the free version of SketchUp 2017 installed locally so it doesn't have all the features available of the fully licensed version.

    Thanks. Ian

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  3. #2
    Join Date
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    Default

    Quite a few few years ago I was exporting SketchUp Free models to Blender, which should be able to export a format suitable for CNC. I think you can still do that:

    SketchUp to Blender: How to Import SketchUp Files in Blender | All3DP
    There is another workaround to get your models from the free version of SketchUp to Blender. There is an add-on for Blender that allows native SketchUp files to be imported directly. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, this add-on hasn’t been updated for Blender 2.8 yet.

    As such, to take this approach, you’ll need the older 2.79 release of Blender. Luckily, all Blender versions are still available for download. Note that you can have two or more versions of the software installed in your machine at the same time. With the add-on, you can import SketchUp files directly at “File”, “Import”. Note that the add-on only works for the 2017 SketchUp files

  4. #3
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ibecs View Post
    I had a project that I was undertaking for a matter where I was going to of use a CNC shop to do the cutting for me. They needed the drawings presented as a .DWG file.

    I had several attempts at doing this from my SketchUp drawings but I ended up having to redraw all the components each time in a different manner to achieve the format the CNC guys wanted.

    Does anyone have any experience producing drawings for CNC from SketchUp?

    I'm using the free version of SketchUp 2017 installed locally so it doesn't have all the features available of the fully licensed version.
    Ian
    A google search suggests that you need the Pro version of Sketchup to convert a .SKP file to a .DRW one.

    I believe that AutoCAD can do the conversion via its inbuilt extensions, but I'm guessing that the CNC guys aren't familiar with the process. And you don't want to outlay the cost of an AutoCAD licence.
    Even after importing, you'd have to check the imported file for errors.


    good luck with the process
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

  5. #4
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    Mar 2014
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    Quote Originally Posted by PFH View Post
    Quite a few few years ago I was exporting SketchUp Free models to Blender, which should be able to export a format suitable for CNC. I think you can still do that:


    Thanks for that info. I've not come across blender before so I will look into it.

    Ian

  6. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    Ian
    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    A google search suggests that you need the Pro version of Sketchup to convert a .SKP file to a .DRW one.

    I believe that AutoCAD can do the conversion via its inbuilt extensions, but I'm guessing that the CNC guys aren't familiar with the process. And you don't want to outlay the cost of an AutoCAD licence.
    Even after importing, you'd have to check the imported file for errors.


    good luck with the process


    Thanks. I'll be doing it so infrequently that I don't want to spend any $'s if I can avoid it.

    It does seem to be quite torturous to do if you don't pay for the full Sketchup version though.

    I thought about learning a new product that can do it directly but again the time required to learn it probably isn't worth it for how infrequently I'll do this.

    Ian

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