I built a SketchUp extension that renders your viewport without a render engine (dev here, honest post)
Full disclosure: I made this, so take it with the appropriate salt.
It's an extension that takes the view you're looking at and sends back a lit image of it, in the panel, without an export step or a render engine installed. No prompt box — you set light, time of day, whether people are in the scene, and you can name individual materials ("floor: ceramic").
Anything you don't touch stays as you modelled it.
Attached is a SketchUp export and what came back, same camera.
Things I'd want to know if I were you:
- It is not 'photorealistic-perfect' and it does not replace V-Ray or Enscape. It's
for concepts and client conversations, not final imagery.
- It works off your geometry, so your design stays recognisable. It isn't
generating a building from a description.
- The extension is free. Renders cost credits; you get 5 free, no card.
- It also installs a view straightener (verticals, squaring to the model)
that costs no credits and works without an account. That one's genuinely
useful on its own.
- Your images aren't used to train anything, and they're deleted after 30
days.
Happy to answer anything, including the sceptical stuff. If it does
something stupid on your model I'd like to see it.