Beginning with a group that is a 3D rectangle representing, say, a table top, what is the best way to put a bevel on all four edges, as shown below?
I was able to do that by: 1) making a group that is a 3D triangle for the un-beleved part of the top; 2) put a rectagle on top ot it, moved it up the correct height and use the offset tool to make it smaller; 3) ungrouped the group; 4) add four lines to connect respective corners of the two objects; and 5) group everthing. There must be an easier way.
I tried using follow me and scaling, but couldn’t get either to work.
What’s the best way to do this? I am interesting in understanding all “easy” solutions, should there be more than one. (I’m using Sketchup Make.)
You could reduce the thickness of the top to the unbeveled part, use Offset to the width of the bevel and then Move with Autofold to the height of the bevel.
Or you could do Offset on the full thickness top, select the outer edges and use Move with Autofold to the depth of the bevel. Or you could draw the shape of the bevel at one corner and use Follow Me.
Wow! That was fast! I need time to study your solutions. Once I’ve done so I may be back with questions. (For example, I’m not familiar with “autofold”–I’ll need to research that.) OS is OS X; Sketch Make v. 17.3.116. (I thought that was in my profile.)
It’s a function of the Move tool. Hold Command while moving the selection. Note when you get the Move tool it tells you in the message at the lower left corner.
With method #1 if appears that in the last step the move tool can be placed anywhere on the top before clicking, pressing Command for autofold and then moving the move tool to the correct height. Correct?
With method #3 my problem was that I did not select the top before clicking the Follow-me tool in the triangle on the edge. Can you explain in a few words the effect of selecting the top first?
You can place the cursor anywhere since the edges and central face are pre-selected. Once the Move starts in the blue direction, press and Hold Shift or press and release the Up curosr key to lock the move direction to vertical. Best practice for Move, in general, is to click on a corner that has a destination.
Selecting the top or the edge for the Follow Me path before getting the tool means that you can click on the profile and the Follow Me tool with automatically follow the path. If you don’t do that, you click on the profile and drag it around the perimeter of the top. It works and in this case it’s not terribly hard to do. But if you use Follow Me for something more complex such as a crown molding around a room, it is a lot more work to drag the molding around. Much easier to select the path before getting the Follow Me tool
The preselect feature of follow me also means you can use it with a grouped profile. (but not a grouped path) Which allows you to separate complex geometry before it is even created.
Hi, I couldn’t get bevelling working in a way that preserved dimensions. I have a very simple scenario where I want to bevel the ends of a plank of wood. I now want to measure the thickness of my plank. The dimension tool doesn’t snap to the top or bottom edges.
If I add the dimension first (the thickness of edge of plank) and then create the bevel, the dimension disappears. It’s madness!
It snaps to vertices and midpoints, but not to other points along an edge. Could that be your problem? Like @DaveR, I have no difficulty adding a dimension if I click first on the top corner, then on the inner corner, and then drag out the dimension (on SketchUp, not LayOut FWIW).
I can make that work. However, if I go along to the upper edge midpoint, click and then move down, the mouse snaps at 20mm but clicking doesn’t fix the dimension bar. I guess this because the mid-point at the bottom edge as somehow moved along.
The midpoint in the bottom edge is not directly below the one on the upper edge because of the notch near one end. But if you are careful where you click and drag, it works:
