SketchUP STEP Importer plugin
SketchUp extension that imports STEP assemblies via FreeCAD
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I just open-sourced a small tool I built for my own work: a SketchUp extension that imports STEP assemblies. SketchUps Ruby API cant read STEP directly, so the extension runs FreeCAD in the background and rebuilds the model inside SketchUp: - assembly hierarchy is preserved as groups - repeated parts (screws, nuts) become components - heavy sub-assemblies, like a populated PCB, are merged into one mesh, so ~1,200 parts import in seconds - native progress window, result saved asskp
PH · launched Oct 23, 2026 · 1 upvote (top 67%) · 0 views
Niche: creative and developer tool plugins · 128 launches, 3 in the last 7 days ▼ -75% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Construction
- Dev tools
- Prosumer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
- Design Tools
- Productivity
- GitHub
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 128 launches in creative and developer tool plugins →
Could you build this?
Partial The SketchUp extension and FreeCAD bridge are feasible, but faithfully converting STEP geometry and assembly hierarchies into SketchUp needs CAD and geometry expertise.
What it would actually take: The architecture is a Ruby SketchUp extension that launches FreeCAD headless, exports the STEP hierarchy, and rebuilds faces and groups in SketchUp. The hard part is accurate geometry and unit conversion, handling tessellation and repeated parts, and dealing with CAD edge cases, which requires CAD kernel knowledge.
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 14 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #11 of 15 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 225 days after the earliest competitor.
- freecad-openskp · github · 2026-09-12 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- freecad_solidworks_plugin · github · 2026-10-20 · 16 upvotes · similarity 0.47
- BlenderSTEP · github · 2026-11-01 · 17 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- SimpleCAD · github · 2026-10-20 · 38 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- Kinetic Sketch · ph · 2026-09-19 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Hocus · ph · 2026-11-10 · 2 upvotes · similarity 0.35
- 3D-Modeling-With-Sketchup · github · 2026-11-13 · 61 upvotes · similarity 0.34
- Sketchup-Pro-For-Windows · github · 2026-11-12 · 52 upvotes · similarity 0.32
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