Thank you for the heads up.
B.t.w., note to all Blender users: as far as I could check, Blender imports correctly SketchUp DAEs so, even after your trial license has expired, you can use it as a preliminary sketching application in a Blender workflow.
WARNING: 2015 requires Windows 7.
Blender imports correctly SketchUp DAEs
Really?
This is what I’m trying to do these days. All day, damn it.
A project I’m working on, believe me, it isn’t that easy.
You have no idea how “they” are handling sketchup (you maybe do), how much work is needed to clean all this dirt.
Sketchup in the hands of ignorants produces a bizarre topology. And this is all about it. (to deal with a chaos of inverted normals is a part of it)
If you are to just import and render (cycles) sketchup scenes, I suggest the obj (free) exporter by Tig. It triangulates everything, however all parts will be imported with their linked textures assigned. (good luck with inverted normals)
I would think that part of the issue with importing Sketchup models would be that Sketchup supports faces with holes while Blender doesn’t.
I could be wrong though since I never used it (and indeed, architectural modeling has gotten a lot easier in Blender in the releases since Bmesh came in), but it would be interesting to see how Blender handles incoming models that have holes in Ngons.
Directly importing sketchup faces with holes and components that can puncture holes etc might be possible with bmesh but there are a few snags.
First the sketchup fileformat is not open or documented.
Binding the SDK to python yields a path to an addon that is not redistributable together with GPL software.
I created such an addon for importing maxwell render scenes into blender just to work around the problems I encountered in the sketchup -> dae -> blender path.
Trimble released an x64 windows and linux sdk with 2015 and thus I have started wrapping it and stubbing out an importer. Like my Maxwell importer the source is on my github page but I am unsure about distributing it in a ready usable form.
I use SketchUp 8 “free” no trial, and yes, can “import models” to Blender easily, and “import mesh” from Google Earth (interesting part).
But sometimes u need rebuild some meshes, in this version spherical meshes not work well…anyway
LowPoly works fine XD.
I think all Sketchup + Blender users are interested in it! That would be awesome! Could this be distributed as an add-on for now?
@ Michalis - The export with TiG exporter is the best one, but on bigger scenes it’s incredibly slow, like multiple hours sometimes against minutes for the native obj exporter.
If objects are well modeled, there is no problem when importing geometry in blender with sketchup native exporters. However the texture mapping is completely wrong, it’s scaled down by 100 or something.
Tig’s exporter also manage the textures really well, but again, it’s slow… 
So I’m really interested in Juicyfruit’s importer!
Hi guys, sometimes i use sketchup for basic modelling for archviz and similar, but every time i export it to blender the topology is TOTALLY gone, infinite number of triangles and overlapping faces, is there a way to resolve that?
I been importing models into Blender from Sketchup with no problem via obj. Keep in mind that the faces (normals) must be correct in sketchup first to avoid problems.
This is actually why I made an importer for using the Maxwell SDK and sketchup plugin… to be able to import whole scenes with instances in tact and texture coordinates intact. The Sketchup SDK was always 32 bit only, just like Sketchup itself.
In its current form it is not really usable but it is evolving and I estimate it will take 2-3 weeks at current pace to get it so that it imports whole scenes in a usable way.
My Sketchup -> Maxwell -> Blender path does nice things like not overwriting materials by name if they exist in the scenes allowing for very fast import render, reimport render, reimport render workflow where other people are bombarding you with updated models.
I will build the binary bits for this for windows x64 and mac OS X only as there is no sketchup SDK for linux.
The github is at -> https://github.com/martijnberger/pyslapi
Great news!
I been importing models into Blender from Sketchup with no problem via obj. Keep in mind that the faces (normals) must be correct in sketchup first to avoid problems.
Well, this is one of the issues.
In most cases, we have to deal with drawings of other people.
I have to clean up the mess in sketchup before exporting. One of these days, when I hate sketchup.
The user makes the difference, always.
In so many cases, it’s easier to remodel it in blender.
Ok … in SketchUp 8, u get just one option to “export” is .dae format, is the nice one.
Then u “must” remove doubles from the model. And u have a pretty nice model triangulate.
But still is a precise model, with a precise terrain model. Thats fine to me.
Architects can save weeks of work, with this kind of software now.
ps: I no use another versions of SketchUp, i no like it … (not free anymore).
At beginning ok… but after …the rules and publicity are pure “free orange beer piracy” , anyway who cares?
I no like it … (sry about my horrible English).
Have a nice day. 
And u have a pretty nice model triangulate.
You’re talking about .dae export.
After blender supported n gons, there are a few options in dae sketchup exporter. You may try to export n gons now. It works in most cases. (with the exception of holes)
@ Juicyfruit - Nice! I will keep an eye on this! Thank you!
As long blender doesn’t support holes as n gons,
We can’t communicate with sketchup or some other apps well.
Pity, once again, blender is unfinished. Left unfinished. Why not holes on ngons?
For those who are curious:
It seems to import pretty much all files I have tried.
I should support Skethcup 6 - 2015.
It is not GPL complient.
Windows only. Mac builds are possible but linux is not currently.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10491635/sketchup_importer.zip
It’s been said before that it’s quite possible for Bmesh to be extended to support holes, the tricky part is getting all of the tools to work with the concept of holes.
I think I heard before, having the tools take holes into account (in a smart and predictable way) would be more difficult than the step to get them to support Ngons, not much use to have holes if the tools don’t work well with it.
That said, it would be nice if Bmesh eventually allowed holes in faces for the sake of hard surface modeling, but I would still have the system ban the creation of a face where 2 sides share the same edge (examples of that just doesn’t look good from a geometry standpoint).
@Ace
Just tried to work on an architectural visualization project. Blender is for the job, by all means.
I spent lot of hours, mostly in SUp to fix (brake) those holes, so common on archi-vis.
If I import an obj it will be triangulated and not really editable. (doesn’t worth the money of possible payment)
I do understand the reasons of not supporting holes yet.
Blender needs more developers than other apps around. Blender is massive it’s huge.
That said and beyond any expectations, blender goes very well.
@ Juicyfruit -
Hi, thank you for tackling this!
I tried your importer with a simple file and I have some notes :
- If using an external renderer when importing, it returns an error message. (not really important though, switching to cycles for the import worked)
- I got the camera reversed once. And even if they seemed to be in the right position on other imports, it produce a weird behaviour on the viewport, everything seems to be rotated by 90 degrees. (Would it be possible to also export Sketchup scenes into Blender Cameras? (Not the active view only))
-UV mapping isn’t imported
-It would be nice if the addon could automatically operate a “Remove Doubles” on all imported objects.
Hope it helps to refine the addon
Again, thanks