Is there any way to use VR Sketch without SketchUp Pro?

#1

I’m using SketchUp for Web (free) for personal use and I’d like to view my models on my Quest 2. I found VR Sketch which seems amazing and it has been working perfectly with a SketchUp Pro trial, which has now expired.

As this is only for personal use, I cannot afford a $299/yr SketchUp Pro subscription just to allow the VR Sketch extension to upload my model. I also don’t need to edit in VR (although, that is very cool with VR Sketch).

Is there any other way to use the free/hobbyist VR Sketch to view a SketchUp for Web model? I can download/export SKP, STL, 3DS, Collada, DWG, DXF, FBX, KMZ, OBJ, VRML or XSI file from SketchUp for Web.

#2

We have plans for some ways to upload and/or open locally files in some of the formats that you give, but they are part of a larger work-in-progress. It could be a few months before it is ready.

Otherwise, the current and best supported solution is to use Sketchup Make 2017 on Windows (we don’t have a solution for Mac at this point, sorry). This version is free and appears to be still provided by third-party professional web sites like CNET: download SketchUp 2017 Make.

If you want to double-check what you downloaded, use these checksums:

MD5 5c98d5afc594cdac0bcc0e5bf8c37f73
SHA1 c077886fd56b0aa30f81502af1f753f107be8448
SHA256 9841792f170d803ae95a2741c44cce38e618660f98a1a3816335e9bf1b45a337

#3

Hi @arigo, do you know if any more progress was made on this topic?

Now that the free SketchUp Viewer for Quest app has been discontinued I imagine quite a few hobbyists like myself are looking for a way to view the models we created in SketchUp for Web (free) in VR without having to pay for a SketchUp Pro license. At 9 Euro’s a month you product is much more reasonably priced so looks like a good option.

Downloading a file from SketchUp for Web and opening in SketchUp Make 2017, so that I can then use the VR Sketch Upload to Cloud command, doesn’t work as the model was created using a much later version of SketchUp and therefore can’t be opened by SketchUp Make 2017.

If you had a utility that could load SKP files into the VR Sketch Cloud without having to open them in SketchUp Make 2017 that would be amazing. Apologies if this feature is available somewhere and I missed it, I did try searching before writing this post.

#4

Hi!

No apologies needed. It’s a reasonable use case, but for now we don’t support it because we have never tried to load .skp files ourselves (which is not obvious to do on Quest or on Linux for instance). We always rely on an existing Sketchup (Make or Pro) to open the .skp file.

Did you try https://extensions.sketchup.com/extension/39811dd4-8f44-4aed-bd20-c83f196c55b1/eneroth-open-newer-version ? I never tried it myself, but it is supposed to be able to convert newer .skp files when installed in Sketchup 2017. Opening files from Sketchup for Web is even mentioned as a use case in the description. I know that it would still be more cumbersome than ideal, but if it works, it may be a workaround for now.

Also, Google’s AI search results seem to think that you can directly ask Sketchup for Web to export in the Sketchup 2017 format. I don’t know if that’s still (or again) possible or it’s a past feature.

We’re still thinking about whether and how we could support more directly your use case…

#5

Thanks @arigo!

Using the Eneroth Open Newer Version extension from the link you provided (https://extensions.sketchup.com/extension/39811dd4-8f44-4aed-bd20-c83f196c55b1/eneroth-open-newer-version) worked like a charm and was able to convert my file into SketchUp 2017 format, and I was then able to send the model to my Quest using VR Sketch extension.

For completeness I had a look and SketchUp for Web does not allow you to save as an old SketchUp format, and currently asks you to upgrade to SketchUp Go to export as a Collada file (another suggestion on the web).

Thanks for the quick reply. I look forward to trying out your software and seeing what it can do!