I found the website of the company that manufactures the concrete block for my retaining wall. Unlike other companies, it doesn’t have this block available for Sketchup download, nor does 3D Warehouse have it (although the company is there).
The website has a pretty decent photo. I added the .jpg image to my materials library and added it to my image knowing it wouldn’t be that simple.
the blocks aren’t to scale. Each block (two different colours) is supposed to be 8" wide and 4" high. My model is 13" high, so there should only be 3 full courses of blocks.
The pattern is odd. That partial block need not be in there.
Is it possible to accomplish what I’m wanting to do? Is it something I can do in SU? Or do I have to do some photo manipulation in a photo editor? Is anyone aware of any good tutorials for doing what I wish to do?
You need to first edit the image so you get a proper repeating pattern. Instead of importing an image as a texture through the Materials window, I would draw a rectangle to the dimensions that the image is supposed to cover and use File>Import to import the image as a texture. Apply it to the rectangle using the edges of the rectangle as a guide. This will automatically set the size of the texture. See this for example.
Hi Dave. Thanks for the support. I’ve kinda done that. In a photo editor, I have isolated one block saving it as a .jpg. I then imported it to my project and used the scale option to reduce it to 8"x4". (I know this won’t give me a pattern, I’ll have to do some more photo editing)
Now, how do I apply that to my face? Is there a way I can add that scaled image as a material? Or is it more complicated?
Sure! I kinda got it to work. I imported the .jpg image to the face I wanted it to cover and adjsuted the width to 16" (actual product width of two blocks) and it painted to the face. The only thing is it didn’t apply to the curved surfaces.
When you insert a texture, you can only apply it to a single face. You would need to continue applying it to the rest of the faces in the model. It should look like this once you’re done.
Ah … OK. I think I was hoping it was all one face but now I see the arc is composed of several.
I’ve attached a video. Unless I’m misunderstanding how you’re doing it, the lower tier I can get to work just fine. I have to adjust the width for each individual face.
But when I try to do the upper tier, I seem to be unable to get the width to maintain 16".
So you want different bricks going around the curve? Probably best to make a different texture that reflects the different dimensions of the blocks.
I think you need to spend some time with the basics. You saw this earlier with softening the edges that the curved surface is made of a number of faces.
In the video, I was resizing the image on the face by trying to type 16" into the width box which, unlike the lower tier, didn’t work. Now i’m just placing the imported image at the corner of the face and dragging it until it lines up.??
Hi Dave, still plugging away. I don’t seem to have that same context menu as you do for Texture>Position so I’m not able to experiment with that. (Sketchup 2017)
Toolbar redundancy? I just haven’t cleaned things up, remnents for playing. I have a lot of individual toolbars active and many appear to have the same functions.
What I don’t understand - aren’t block straight not curved? Wouldn’t you have a polyhedron instead of a curve? In the past I needed to make slumpstone block to match a discontinued size. I drew up the mold size, had a sheet metal shop make the molds. We made a mix that matched the original color, poured it into the mold, let it set up some, then pulled the mold, the mix slumped a bit and we left it to cure. It matched really well.
Perhaps the company you found is making custom curved block, but if not, it’s not that hard to make your own.
