First of all, I am new to this forum, so hello to all. I do have a question straight-off. I am trying to create a Fokker EIII model for 3-D printing in 1:144 scale (if you guess is for wargaming - you’ve hit the bulls-eye - this model is for aerial wargaming for WWI)
I am completely new to Google SketchUp, but have however used Inventor and Creo before, so have some experience with 3D modelling. I have the following geometry of the problem:
I have an issue of creating this “side manifold”. The Google SketchUp doesn’t seem to pick up this curved geomtery. The blob above the fuselage was my attempt at cutting away from an existing extracted body (using the usual way of creating another solid, then making it one group, moving it into the object I wish to cut, explode the solid and intersect with selection). But, I have ended up with a very ugly result of faces partially missing, edge of the resultant solid becoming wobbly (physically I mean). Is there a way of somehow filling these contours to make it a solid?
As the dimensions are so small, you might be running into the face size limitations of SketchUp. I would recommend that you create your model to full scale, and scale a copy of it down when finished, or specify the scale it will print to in your slicer application.
Cheers for the reply. So would it be just a simple case of increasing the size of the whole model (instead of me re-doing it again) and then doing the manifold and then after finishing the model scale it down again?
That is correct, but group it first (or make a component) before scaling it down, otherwise Sketchup will destroy/merge fine detail. And don’t explode the group after it has been scaled down, otherwise the same thing will occur again.
A better way would be to make a component, copy the component, then scale up the copy. Work on the copy, then delete the copy when you are finished. The original component will be updated correctly and you don’t need to scale down again.
