Creating User Catalog Items - Sketchup?

[Greg_B]

There seems to be very little information on which 3d CAD formats and versions are importable into CA to make your own User Catalog. CA seems to call them Symbols when importing them and then they appear in the User Catalog so I hope I'm using the correct terminology.

 

I'm using Sketchup since this is mostly personal work on my own house and personal offices. It was probably massive overkill to upgrade from HD Pro to CA x5, then x6 during the SSA period.

 

I was using Sketchup v8, then 2013 and don't recall having any problems with my own work. I did have lots of problems using files from the 3d Warehouse with textures that didn't come through, etc.

 

Now I've installed Sketchup 2016. When importing these into my CA x6 v16.3.0.59x64, I get the very poor error message: Couldn't create a symbol. There were no 3D surfaces found in the data file. I assume this is their way of saying CA doesn't recognize the newer filetype.

 

I had success using older symbols created in v8 and v2013 but then started having lots of issues even when using v2016 to save in v2013 format. I think this managed to damage my install of CA as I was getting the same errors even when reinstalling SKP files that hadn't changed for years.

 

I have now finished setting up my new personal workstation and reinstalled CA on that. It seems "happier" but I'm really looking for someone that has figured out the best way to deal with this.

[Dennis_Gavin]

Some "items" in Sketchup are actually a material applied to a surface and not 3D objects.  I don't think there are many but

there are some.  Of course they won;t impot as symbols.  All the others should be OK though.  You may also need to download an

earlier version of SU then the latest to work with X6.  That is easily done in their download process.

[Alaskan_Son]

To modify what Dennis said a little, you can still use the newest version of Sletchup. You just need to save the model as as an older version. When the Save As dialog pops up, choose an older version from the drop down list at the bottom.

[Greg_B]

Thanks to both of you. I was fairly convinced that process was having issues. I was using 2016 and saving in the older formats but it wasn't working properly about half the time. Of course, that old workstation is now at work so I don't get 10 minutes to play with it without interruption.

 

On my new workstation, with a clean install of CA and Sketchup 2016 plus a new drawing, it seems to be working. All the old drawings seem to be having an issue on the old computer, some of them carry the issue to the new one. Bizarre. I can redraw the ones with issues in an hour so I'm not going to chase it too hard.

 

Dave RIchards just convinced me that Sketchup 2016 is significantly better than 2013 and I didn't realize that they killed the access to 3d Warehouse with 2013 so they are motivating people to upgrade.

 

Upgrade to CA x8 is insane for just personal use. I already spent double what is reasonable for that use with the purchase of HDP and then an upgrade to CA x6.