Best way to array small hemispheres around a circle?

SketchUp
1

I want to try adding “milgrain” on the edge of a circle/cylinder. Milgrain is the term for small hemispheres or similar textures around the edges of jewelry like rings. Each tiny bead or hemisphere is touching the next one.

I’m thinking the only way to evenly array a bunch of small hemispheres around a circle in Sketchup is to use the segments of your circle you are placing them on and some math/division.

With the fancy, smancy jewelry programs, they have a tool where you can pick the edge you want to place them on, and just input the width of each “bead” and it will automatically space them out evenly, and you can change the size and thus the number as it arrays.

Does anyone please have any suggestions or methods of workflow that would work for Sketchup?
I’m tempted to use a large number of segments to create the main circle, but Sketchup has no multi-threading for video graphics so if I try to use 100 segment circles, Sketchup is way too slow.

2

If you know how many hemispheres you want, you can easily construct their diameters to fit around a circle with the same number of segments. I made the following using 100 inches as the base radius with 48 hemispheres. Once done, it can be scaled to any size and the hemispheres will still be tangent. As you’ve already figured out, there is a precise ration between the major diameter of the circle and the diameters of the hemispheres.

3

Thank you very much. Very much appreciated.