Can blender import collada files with external references? I am trying to import a .dae collada file that contains external references in the form of:

&lt;visual_scene id="Scene" name="Scene"&gt;
        &lt;instance_node url="./trees.dae#appletree-0" /&gt;
&lt;/visual_scene&gt;


The referenced file lives in the same directory as the referring file.
When I import the .dae I see no errors on the console.
Yet, no new geometry shows up in blender.

Are external references broken for Blender as they seem to be for many Collada readers?

I tried with Blender version 2.76b
Yes, Blender can indeed load geometry from external references.

I had bungled the test, because my referenced file was missing the tag:


&lt;library_nodes&gt;
   ...
&lt;/library_nodes&gt;


Once I put those in, Blender did a great job of loading external references from Collada. Sorry for the confusion.