Difficulty smoothing stitched surfaces

I’m having difficulty smoothing out stitched surfaces. The object is a component. I select the component and then edit it. Then I use the marquee window to select the object inside the component to apply the smoothing. This worked a few times. But even at a level of 50, I can still see the stitching at the edges. So, I tried to go higher but now I can no longer select the object. When I draw the marquee window, there is no option to smooth. .skp file is attached.

I should note that I have hidden the edges on the ellipse at the top and the ellipse at the bottom, which form the basis for the solid object.
IZ - 45 deg.skp (229.0 KB)


It is smooth. The lines you see are bleeding through but disappear when you zoom in to it.

What you are seeing is a graphical artifact of showing Profile Edges. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had made both of the ellipses so their vertices are aligned. You could also use more segments–48 sides would be enough so that the angle between adjoining faces isn’t so great. If this is something you intend to 3D print, those artifaaaacts won’t matter although the incorrectly oriented face on the bottom will.

Here I’ve redrawn your object near the origin with the connecting edges all vertical. Only 1 profile edges is displayed on each “side”.

Thanks. How do i fix the fact that the ellipse vertices aren’t aligned? The ellipse dimensions need to remain exactly as they currently are for both ellipses.

Start by drawing the circles from which you are making the ellipses so you drag out their radii on axis. You drew the bottom one correctly but not the top one.

Is the minor dimension of the top ellipse supposed to be wider than the minor of the lower one?

So, I have to start all over. No fixing the orientation after the fact. It takes me a long time to produce these drawings. The ellipses have to be exact in measurements and all angles between the two have to be checked for accuracy; these measurements are not at all obvious and I use Geogebra to do the complex calculations. Plus, for me, the stitching typically takes 15 minutes and a lot of clicks. Also, the top ellipse is the hardest to draw and position (for me at least).

No, the minor dimensions should be the same - so this means that I may have in fact made an error. I’ve been measuring the major ellipse length in south plan mode. I just recently noticed that if I measure from the center to one edge I get one number, if I measure to the opposite edge I get another number (which shouldn’t be the case). But if I rotate the image into a 3D view, it usually gives equal measurements.

I think I’m going to give up and go back to Geogebra. What I really wanted from Sketchup was the volume, which I am now consistently getting. Geogebra can do 3D and one is able to easily change the color of circles (per my other post) or hide them. The images are pretty good (although maybe not quite as good as Sketchup). I do have to check if it can do animation though.

OK. I was making a thing to show how to do this in a simple way in SketchUp but I’ll stand down now. Best wishes.

You don’t need Geogebra or any complex way for modelling such a simple object.

Click in sequence on the scenes tabs of this SU file for ideas.

IZ - 45 deg - JL - 2024-07-16.skp (323.6 KB)

Sorry if I used SU Pro for my tutorial but the steps shall be the same with SU Web.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.