I have a pretty simple curve that is a 41mm half-circle, extruded so it has 3x3mm sides. I want to move the one face up so it’s the start of a ramp (essentially) but every time I move the face up, the half circle bulges out instead of staying at the 41mm that it started out. I am moving the face directly on the Y axis (up arrow on the keyboard). The screenshot shows that the Radius of the circle expands to 55.6mm instead of staying at 41mm. How can I contrain the half-circle so it keeps the dimensions?
I also tried doing a “line version” put when using the “follow me” tool the end-point face is skewed and tilted compared to the face I originally start the follow me tool with.
I hope this makes sens but I can clarify if needed. Thanks for nay help.
It’s not unusual to wind up with distorted geometry when you do something like that. I would use Upright Extruder with the profile and a rising curve for the path. You can get Upright Extruder from the Extension Warehouse.
Sigh I so hate this forum software…Meant to reply to DaveR but it won’t let me re-port as a reply…
I installed the plugin but it doesn’t work the way I would have expected well, or hoped.
If I make a flat path and make a 3x3 square face for it to follow the plugin works as intended. However, If I try to take the single face and move it up, it gets distorted because a bunch of faces “stick” to the ground. No idea idea how to solve that.
If I make a path that is already curved like the one shown below:
It makes the shape but has a bunch of faces missing (which is fixable) and it’s still bowed out (because the curve path is bowed out once I move it up.
So, I am stuck again trying to get rid of this bowing effect.
1st shows that I am starting with a standard circle, second shows just simply moving the one edge up and the 3x3 face I used for the upright extruder plugin. 4th shows why I am saying it’s “bowing” I want this to hug the half-cylinder.
The end result I am trying to go for is to carve that 3x3 piece out of the cylinder and I suspect I am going at in a completely un-sketchup-like way. I have also tried using the “tools on surface” plugin which feels more intuitive but also has it’s own issues.
I used the Helix tool in the Curve Maker extension to create a half turn helix with a pitch of 100. (50 for the half turn) and then I used Upright Extruder to extrude the square.