Add surfaces to wire frame?

Oscar v034.skp (248.2 KB)
Is there a simple way of adding surfaces to my wire frame?

Sorry! This is my first question and I needed to figure out how to attach the file, then it was too big, so I removed my reference drawings. Here it is, just the wire frame. Thank you in advance for your selfless help!

fredo’s curviloft - skin contours?

Is that the name of an extension I need to install?

yes, along with the fredo library.

you can just use ‘PushPull Tool’ and ‘Scale Tool’ for such a simple shape…

the wire frame needs a lot of fixing before any extension would work…

john

Thank you all for your quick responses! I see I still have a lot of learning to do.
First, I could not even create a face that I could push or pull;
second, the scale tool would not do what I was hoping it would.
I’ll try reading a bit more. Thanks again!

here’s a quick, clumsy demo…

it will take less time to master than learning how to set up for more advanced extensions…

john

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here’s the principle John refers to, but I see he is doing it better !!

Your original wireframe could be much cleaner.

You guys are SOO nice to help me! This screen animation is particularly helpful so I can follow which tools you are selecting. Thanks!

This is working much better now, thanks to you and your nifty animations! :smiley:

SketchUp is full of wonderful ways to complete almost anything …

Now I have this messy fuselage. Is there a way to turn the solid lines into dotted lines?
It appears that there are open surfaces or unjoined vertices (or whatever the Sketchup terms are).
I’m used to Metasequoia, so I’m trying to learn the Way of Sketchup.Oscar v034.skp (353.6 KB) The Curviloft extension looks like a powerful tool. I suspect Sketchup has some tools built in that might help me clean up the mess I made.

You can “shift+erase” the lines. which will “hide” them - not delete them. If you subsequently want to see them you can turn on “hidden geometry”.

Thank you for the reply! I am assuming, then, that what appear to be the loose ends of those lines will not cause problems when I attach the wings? Being accustomed to the programs Metasequoia and Pepakura, I had thought that those lines would cause a lot of trouble when merging shapes later.

you do have hidden and stray lines that will cause future issues…

clean up as you go…

john

They will not cause problems based on being visible vs hidden, but they could cause problems if very short edges are created as the wings are added. SketchUp has a minimum tolerance of about 0.001 inch below which it will delete short edges and may create holes in surfaces. The workaround is to enlarge the model to a bigger scale while doing the edits and scale it back down afterward (or use “the Dave method”, which you can read a lot about if you search the forum).

Edit: To @john_drivenupthewall’s point, hidden, soft, and smooth have no impact on whether edges interact with (stick to or intersect with) each other.

I really hate to ask such basic questions, but is there any simple and easy way to clean as I go? I have been zooming in to what must be microscopic distances on a number of what look like suspicious places, but I haven’t always been able to detect double lines or adjacent vertices. In Metasequoia, there is a nifty command called “join closed vertices” (one selects the whole object and selects the command, and voila). Does SU have such a command?

There is no built-in command, but there are various extensions such as Cleanup 3 and Edge Tools that can help.

Thanks! I’ll check them out tomorrow. It’s getting time in Germany to turn off the computer.