Drawing a pipe with flattened ends?

I’m attempting to find a way to draw a pipe with flattened ends as shown in the below photo:

The object representing the pipe just needs to look like one from the outside, so I’m cheating a bit by omitting the interior face. This is as far as I’ve gotten:

FLATTENED END PIPE.skp (705.9 KB)

I’ve got a flattened end and a “pipe”, but am really struggling with the transition from one to another. I’m also really doubting that my approach is the smart way to go. So far I’ve reviewed the tutorials for the tools I think would enable me to do this, but I’m feeling truly stuck. Would anyone have suggestions or guidance for making this shape? Thanks in advance.

How ‘flat’ does the end have to be?

You could draw the cylinder, then push-pull the top again with the Ctrl or Option key tapped, to generate a second section of pipe. Then scale the top about centre along one axis. Then push pull that to get this shape:


Hide the joins for this:

Or better, remember to scale the ‘flattened’ top to widen it as the flattening would do before the final push pull?

Or maybe use Curviloft plugin to join the shapes you drew?

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I like @john_mcclenahan’s approach … except widen and flatten the pipe at the top.

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Another option is to use a rectangle and the cardinal point to make the transition.

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This is a sort of amalgamation of all the above methods using Fredo’s Curviloft plugin….https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pauthor=fredo6 and also Bolt Maker XII by sdmich
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40172

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I used Spirix to morph these sections using a sinusoidal transition:

The model is in the Warehouse:

[added]

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Never seen this before. Excellent work @Box.

I like the simplicity of your method, Box, and your use just of native tools. And more accurate a representation of reality than my over-simple method. I would not have thought of it - v elegant.

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We all have different ways of looking at things, no one way is correct.
The whole point of sketchup is you can ‘sketch’ ‘fiddle’ ‘play’ and ‘adjust’ to your hearts content and you’ll still never be fully “right”.

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Thanks all for the multiple approaches! I tried @john_mcclenahan’s method with @jimhami42’s suggestion of widening, and that’s what ended up in my model for now. For good measure I also practiced @Box’s method and had a time saving revelation regarding how I’ve been going about a few unrelated SU tasks the hard way.

I haven’t yet achieved a level of proficiency with native tools where I feel justified in using plugins yet, but becoming familiar with Fredo’s Curviloft, Bolt Maker and Spirix is now in my longer term SU goals.

@jimhami42, your model is a thing of beauty – thanks for sharing it in the warehouse.

@Box
How do you move the arcs? When I try, both the arc and the rectangle side move. I’ve tried using alt and shift, but neither of them helps.

you need to ‘find’ the ‘cardinal point’…

in the gif you can see the arc deselects when he finds the point…

john

Where can I find Spirix? I’ve looked in the SketchUcation Store, Extension Warehouse and Internet.

@john_drivenupthewall
I’ve tried selecting every endpoint on the are and none of them cause the arc to disappear. So how do I find the ‘cardinal point’.?

How do you select? With the select tool? Try activating the move tool and hover over some points of the arc ( move-select with nothing selected)
A green point indicates a cardinal point.

In this Gif, I first created an arc with 27 segments and dragged in out while not using axes. This makes it hard to look for the cardinal points. When you hover over the circle in the Move tool, you will notice when you are at a cardinal point, the circle no longer is highlighted.
The second circle is drawn with a number of segments which is dividable by 4,and drawn by dragging on an axe. This makes it much easier to recognize the cardinal points.

Cardinal points lay on the circle/arc axis, even when it’s a midpoint falls on an segment ‘edge’…

so if the circle is a multiple of 4 segments, and is always drawn ‘on axis’ i.e either red,blue or green…

the carinal post will coincide with an end point of a segment…

when drawn off axis or have non-divisible by 4 number of segments, they are harder to find…

john

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Mike, thank you for going to all that effort to explain this. Seems like there should be some easier way to find the cardinal points. :slight_smile:
And thank you for your help, John.

jimhami42
Thank you for showing me how/where to find Spirix.

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