Hello, I recently purchased an Airwolf 3D HDX printer for the purpose of creating to-scale models of buildings our contracting company tries to pitch to clients. I've had the printer for a little over a week and it's been a learning process, but I am making steady progress. Although I'm not to the point of creating scale models at this point, we are working our way there. I have a few questions I'm hoping you all can help me with.

Our modeling program we use for all our architectural mockups is Sketchup, and for more detailed drawings we use AutoCAD. I understand Sketchup is only a surface modeler, making it not the best for 3D printing, but that's where the majority of our models are already located and in the interest of saving time and by extension, money, I really don't want to have to recreate every single model in a solid modeler, so my first question is: Is there any way to convert an SKP file to something solid? Would simply importing the SKP file to AutoCAD do the trick?

We're currently using MatterControl as our G-code generator and experimenting with slic3r, Cura, and Matterslice as our slicing engines. Which would you think is best for what I'm trying to do? It seems like Slic3r is the most detailed of the 3, but only being a beginner in the 3D printing world, I'm not sure going that in depth with the slicing would be best.

Is there any specific software that you would recommend in regards to splitting up larger STL files? I'd really prefer having the option of inserting our own male/female connectors into the model, but I've been having trouble with the only software I know of capable of doing this (a program from 3Dprinttech).

Lastly, any tips/tricks you would recommend for printing out very large, detailed objects? I realize the printers best suited for this are the Stratasys brand but those were far out of our price range. I'm planning on printing the buildings in multiple pieces and bonding them together. Anything you find works best for ABS prints?

Thanks in advanced for the help,
Mitchell