Better way of rounding edges

SketchUp
1

I really do enjoy the follow me tool, but I often find it very inefficient to use. It is the most time consuming part for me when I draw something in SketchUp. And sadly often I can’t even get to where I want. And almost always if i’m working with curved path and slightly weird angles, as supposed to straight edges and corners.

Let me illustrate with an exemple. I’ve just finished making and “drawing” an bench plane (yes I use SketchUp for woodworking). But I couldn’t complete my SketchUp drawing, because I couldn’t round the front and backside of the handle.

2

Take a look at Fredo’s RoundCorner extension (download from the Sketchucation site, requires free registration). If the rounding radius is not constant (as it might be in your plane handle) you might have to construct the shape differently By stitching between cross section shapes - there the CurviLoft plugin by the same author might come to help.

Anssi

3

Try any of these extensions?

Profile Builder (Free Edition)

LibFredo6 and several of his extensions that use it:
These are available at SketchUcation:

  • RoundCorner
  • FredoTools
  • CurviLoft
    etc.
4

I’ve tried RoundCorner, doesn’t do the job. Only with a very small radius. And as much as I respect and appreciate Fredo6’s plugin and efforts i’m not a fan. That’s why I would much rather have a native inbuilt solutions, i’m weird that why. But thanks.

5

It can be done easily with Follow Me. I did that on the legs of this table as well as the pie crust edge.
Pie Crust Table

I’m not in a position at the moment to provide a tutorial but I can do it later.

Or, if you want to create changing radii, you could use Curviloft or Extrude Edges by Rails.

3 Likes
6

Some of the common techniques for using followme succesfully:

  • select the path, activate the tool, then click the profile. Don’t attempt to drag the profile along the path; that is a sure route to frustration!
  • scale up the relevant part of the model first so that small edges aren’t lost
  • make sure the profile is oriented perpendicular to the start of the path (sometimes it helps to clip out a small section in the middle of the path, followme around the remainder, and then fill the gap with pushpull)
  • add straight extensions to the start and end of the path and clip off extra after the operation so that you don’t get beveled ends (a SketchUp curve ends at the last edge in the path, which might not be tangent to the theoretical arc)
  • don’t try to extrude a profile that is much larger than the segments in the path, e.g. follow around tight curves (it will often create glitches that are nearly impossible to clean up).
3 Likes
7

Dave Richards uses it very effectively for wood working and applies your mentioned tips also, as needed requirements. Check out his blog: Design.Click.Build. at Fine Wood Working.com. Very knowledgeable and great insight as well as fabrication with SketchUp as the design base. He was a 3D Basecamp Presenter.

8

Try extruding the shape beyond what you need.
Then intersect with a cutting plane, enabling you to erase what you don’t want.
See the attached model file, modeled entirely with SketchUp’s native tools.

Plane Handle.skp (1.1 MB)

726×851 60.3 KB

9

Wow thank you Geo! Sorry for the late reply… I had a few busy days.

This is really awesome. I really learned someting new, I can see from the file you so kindly attached, that you had a more clever approach. I just drew it as a flat 2D sketch and tried to push pull it to depth, and then round the edges. But I like you method way better. I will tried it at once.

Again thank you very much, I really appreciate all the time and effort you and others spend on trying to help me out. Really awesome.

2 Likes