At the Usergroup meeting in January we talked about working between SketchUp and ArchiCAD. You can read the recap here. Scott Newland of Newland Architecture (digress for a moment and check out his website) wasn’t able to attend the meeting, but  he did some exploration after reading the recap. Here’s his experience with modeling a light fixture in SketchUp and then bringing it over to ArchiCAD:

What was used: ArchiCAD 14 (build 3477) and SketchUp Pro 8 on an iMac, OS X 10.6.6.  I built the SketchUp model as a simple, 2-material test, based on sconces in our home bathroom.
Add-On Tool:  3D Studio In (from ArchiCAD Downloads); 3D Studio is an Autodesk file type.  Install after ensuring that the latest hotfix has been installed, then restart computer.
SketchUp side:  Created model with components used for like materials.  Exported 3D Model with the options set: “By Material” (export two-sided faces as Geometry, export texture maps, favor welding vertices, scale in feet).  File created in embedded library.

ArchiCAD side: Start with Design > Design Extras > Import 3D Studio file > Options.  Use defaults except set scale at 304.8 (mm in a foot). Import 3D Studio file > Convert 3ds to gsm.  Hotspot creation: Bounding box, gravity point only.  Set separate materials in object dialog box, set line type.
The SketchUp image has glass cylinders but I didn’t pay attention to the resolution, same thing with ArchiCAD so I’m guessing the faceting can be smoothed out. I also tried opening a Kohler pedestal sink from the Google 3D Warehouse, then imported it to ArchiCAD like above.  It worked fine, but it has no listing and labeling parameters so I’m not sure how it can be included on any schedule.  I know nothing about GDL, so this is something that may or may not be a real limitation.

Thank you Scott for the nice explanation and the willingness to let me share with everyone.  I’m not positive but adding parameters to an object imported from SketchUp should be pretty simple. One should be able to just copy and paste the information from another object. Open both objects, find the parameters in the ArchiCAD native object, etc. And if you figure out how to link parameters to the imported object like this article discusses, then it should be insanely easy. And more importantly, one properties object could be reused in many projects/objects. It’s probably a little more complicated than that, but not by much. I’ll do some exploration. I’m learning that GDL is not as scary as it seems. There might also be a way to resave the object once it’s in ArchiCAD with a second invisible dummy object that handles all the listing and labeling. But that’s just wild conjecture now. Anyone have any experience with this?