I read a page or two in a book about google sketchup. It said you can import paths made in photoshop and extrude them in google sketchup. Anyone know how to import Photoshop paths into Google sketchup? Or do you have to buy the pro edition to use this feature?

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I smell dead people.

I can't say with any authority but having just tried to import paths (PS and Illustrator - saving as .DWG, etc.) without success, it looks like it might only be available to Pro owners. It would be nice though.

I was able to get this to work after exporting my photoshop paths to illustrator and  then from illustrator as a .dwg and from there a free exporter i found on the internet to a cad file .dxf and then the file finally opened in Sketchup then I had to use a free plug in that filled in the path faces before I could extrude. The file has tons of points in it and runs quite slow but I also see there are more free plugins to clean up the cad files so may need to download those and give them a try. http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2007/09/plugin-index-page.html

here is link to a bunch of plugins I found the sphere plugin is really useful.

http://www.smustard.com/script/ProgressBar

This is the link for the fill faces plug-in/ you also have to download and install the progress bar plug-in for it to work both found on this site along with lots of others.

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I smell dead people.

I thought this was really cool I had been reading The DC comics guide to digitally Drawing comics by comic book artist Freddie E. Williams and that's where I got the info about the photoshop paths in google sketchup anyway I dropped him a line via email and thought I'd never here anything. Well he's really awesome he got right back to me and gave me a link to how to do it and stuff. I just thought that was really cool for him to take the time here's the email he sent me:

Freddie Williams Updates to me
show details 7:33 PM (3 hours ago)

Hello William!

Thanks for the kudos on the book!

This is how to bring paths into Sketchup (no plugin required):
http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=38575

Mainly it's just an import / export dance with illustrator and Sketchup.

Hope that helps - good luck, and take care!

Freddie E Williams II
http://www.freddieart.com
http://www.dccomics.com/comics

 

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I smell dead people.

Yes, I'd seen that link before. There must be something I'm doing wrong. I can export from Illustrator as a .DWG or a .dxf file but there are no options for importing those formats into Sketchup. I'm happy to use a plug-in but I'm puzzled why I can't do it without one when it says I can.

Open sketchup go to file/ import/Auto CAD file

 

After it's done you may have to zoom out quite a bit because the file imports quite large. Then I select the whole image and use the fill faces plugin or you can trace with the pencil tool. Once you face the paths off you can extrude.

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I smell dead people.

Here is a test I did to make sure it worked. It seems to work OK but curved lines end up with tons of edges when they get imported so I just hid the edges in the styles panel.

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I smell dead people.

Evil Robot:

Open sketchup go to file/ import/Auto CAD file

Thanks for posting the images. For some reason I don't have AutoCad file in my import menu. Mine is the very latest Sketchup 7.1.

Well, well, well! It seems that the AutoCad import has been removed from the latest version of Sketchup - 7.1 - hence my problem. It is now only available to Pro users. There is, however, a plugin that can be used but even that will be stopped in the next major release.

Look to the bottom of this Sketchup Blog entry. Glad I'm not doing something wrong. I've installed the plugin and can now import .dwg/.dxf.

Don't upgrade EvilRobot.

LOL! That explains a lot. I was wondering how the heck you were missing that. Yep, guess I'll stick to the older version for now. Wow, no more plugins? I don't know if the program works well enough to spend the $500.00 for the pro verson the only thing I like about the program is its ease of use but I think I'd just put in some extra time in Blender rather than dish out the money for the little I would use the program for. Now if they would add ability to export the current render into a workable AI file and some better tools for making organic figures they might get me.

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I smell dead people.