COLLADA Files Viewer

UPDATE: looks like it's my own fault for not studying enough SketchUp's GUI. See my own answer.

Hi,

I'm planning to implement an "export to COLLADA" functionality in my mapping software, but I'm hampered by a lack of a good COLLADA files viewer. I've tried several applications:

1. Google SketchUp provides the best viewing experience I've come across so far, but importing COLLADA files is very slow. I tried this sample I found, but it takes 2-3 minutes to load it into SketchUp, and I'm running this on a decent machine. Since developing an export code involves a lot of trials and errors, SketchUp is just too slow for experimental work.
2. I've tried Blender, but the user interface is pretty alien for someone not doing day-to-day 3D games development. But I have to praise it for being able to load the sample file almost instantly, which makes me think SketchUp guys either do some deliberate slowing down of the import in the free version or they need to freshen up on their programming skills. (UPDATE: it turns out you can load it fast, see my answer, Sorry guys.)
3. I also tried some other free viewers, but they are either not showing the sample properly or they have very limited viewing capabilities (no panning or orbiting, for example).

I'd be grateful for any hints, but I'm looking for first-hand experience, not just googling (I've tried that myself). I realize this is not a typical programming question, but I see no better place on StackExchange to ask this.

I've been working on a program called meshtool. You can load and view a collada file like this:

meshtool --load_collada file.dae --viewer

The pycollada library has gotten pretty good. Almost all collada files I've come across in the wild are supported properly.

Admittedly, the meshtool program is in its infancy, so I haven't written good installation instructions yet. You will need to have python 2.5+, numpy, panda3d, PIL, and lxml installed. If you let me know your platform, I can give some more detailed instructions.