Hi, I was told as a Newbe to start creating my 3D project in 2D camera view and then pull the features up into 3D as necessary. I have several shapes created (think concentric polygons created from separate lines and arcs), but only the inner most shape will allow it to be selected and pulled into a 3D object. The next larger shapes and up to the outer perimeter I can’t select the surfaces, just the lines that make them up. I know I’m missing something silly? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Bill.
Hood 1.skp (1.2 MB)
That’s not a work flow I would recommend.
How about uploading you SketchUp file so we can see what you are working with?
Edit: I see you add the file to your original post.
Added link to the file. Thanks.
Yes I did.
OK. So you just needed to trace some edges with the Line tool to get faces to complete.
What is your plan for this model? Keep in mind that faces in SketchUp have no thickness. Very likely a better approach to modeling your hood would be to create the outside perimeter and extrude that face to 3D before adding the inner details.
What does the region shown selected here, do? Does it slope up between the outer and inner perimeters?
Yes, that’s what I’m trying to achieve in the end. Why do I need to trace? Are my lines not completed?
Normally I would expect that faces would have closed when completing the loop but since I wasn’t watching you draw the lines, I don’t know why they didn’t form. Tracing an edge with the Line tool is the normal way to create a face if one doesn’t form or accidentally gets erased.
Ok, let me try that. It was a bit of a challenge to get my shapes created in the 1st place. And yes, I would like the raised area to be curved along the complete perimeter down to the full hood surface.
It appears that tracing a straight line is very easy, but not so much for curved ones. Any idea if there is a way to force my curved line segments to connect without tracing? I got the perimeter into 3D, but don’t really want to re-draw all inner curves if possible.
So instead of starting out with a 2D mindset and then trying to switch to 3D, I think you’d find it easier and less work to start thinking in 3D from the beginning. Draw the preimeter of the hood and extrude it to make it 3D before you add the other edges and details. I used Curviloft by Fredo6. It’s available from Sketchucation.
One thing you might consider since the model is symmetrical is modeling only half of it. You can then copy and flip the copy to make the opposite half.
1 Like
How did you get the section in between the lines to be selectable as in your last image?
Curved lines are made up of short straight line segments. You can trace one of the short line segments. No need to trace the whole curve.
There’s a face there between the inner and outer curves after I traced an edge on each one. I double clicked on it which selected the face and its bounding edges.
I guess I’m completely confused as to how the lines work in some ways. Why are they sometimes thin, and other times thick. And why does just selecting a few small line segments allow one to selct complete planes? I would think you would have to select an entire polygon 1st before you could manipulate much of anything? I think I understand what you’re saying about creating the hood base 1st and then adding the raised details next. Is there any way I can save my raised section shapes to copy into a new project?
On my phone at the moment so not as complete an answer as I would like to give.
Heavy black edges are Profile Edges. When displayed on a surface, it indicates that the edges don’t divide the surface. When the edges go to normal, non profile edges, the surface they are on is divided into regions on either side of the edges…
More later.
1 Like
In hindsight, I probably should be starting out with an easier project. But jumping in head first is my usual MO. 
1 Like
The screen shots you sent were exactly where I want to get to, plus adding some contour to the hood surface itself. Thanks for your help and hope to get close to your level of expertise some day! Should have started with a tire, that would have been soooo… much easier
You’re not alone. A lot of people do that.
A slick would be a good beginning and then move up toward a studded snow tire. 
In all honesty, I would suggest that you start with something simpler than the hood of a car and get reasonably comfortable with the native tools before adding any extensions and getting into the complex geometry. There is a ton you can do with the native tools and it’s worth learning to use them before you start adding more tools. Don’t be that guy who has a shop full of all the fancy brand new tools but doesn’t know how to use them. Instead, be the guy who has the basic tools who cranks out amazing work. I’m sure you know at least one of each of those guys.
This topic was automatically closed 183 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.