The truth is that I do use SU a lot and perhaps more detailed than some. The end result often looks simple but it doesn’t show what has been done to achieve it. I’m changing the same thing many, many times to get what I need. Yes when area is filled I do have to remove all triangles but I never fully understood why I had to create them when it appears that the shape is all complainer or (I assumed) it would not allow a profile to be filled regardless of the number of triangles.
It is a shame that most commentator’s first assumption is that the user does not know what he is doing. But if you can take the humiliation then their comments are very useful.
If someone presses the “FIX”- button in this case, the model would be destroyed. My tip how to find such little edges with the smustard-welding-plugin is usable without any danger.
I don’t know how you can get to that conclusion from what was said? It’s nothing to do with appreciation. He is talking about the WAY that help is offered not it’s value.
I have not researched that but, do you have any idea what that does when it does its thing.?
Most of the clean up plugins are not with their down side also and nothing is usually free. I have used Fredo’s tool and IMHO you cannot not make blanket assertion it will destroy model. When I use I start with large check value and the slowly decrease to small ones the very small problem one’s you can just grab vertex and move to close.
Your screenshot shows 24 tiny edges which will be deleted by pressing the “FIX”-button, but only 2 have to be deleted.
I have shown how to find these 2 edges (16mm) in my comment #27.
My video shows how tiny an edge can be to stop the smustard-welding-plugin ! http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/weld
p.s.: It´s no “blanket assertion” and everybody can find it out.
This is comment #70 and my impression is, that the questioner Derek gave up.
BTW: I did not need any tool. My first look on Daves first screenshot showed me where de failure is to find:
At least one possibility how to create such unwanted issues (look at questioner Dereks question #1) :
It´s a screenshot at sec 0:45 from Daves video. If one crosses a closed circle like in this case or any other line with the line-tool (pencil), the crossed line will be divided. How long such a cutted line will be nobody obeyes.
So always use guidelines instead of the line-tool !
- YouTube would be my suggestion. What is Your suggestion mac7595 ? Hundreds of views suggest, that this is an interesting issue.
Sorry for the german language in my video. Who really wants to understand will understand (I hope better than my “english” ;-))
Do you know, a simple solution to all this would be if SketchUp changed the colour of a none coplanar or unconnected line. The system clearly knows that the line is either short or none coplanar so why not show it?
I write databases for end users. If I produced a program with this many shortcomings I would consider it a failure. Nobody should expect software to be perfect. But there are some glaring errors in this program.
My 2C
the Inference-system of Sketchup does this exactly ! You just have to ‘hoover’ over the entity a few seconds and it will pick the desired start-point/midpoint/endpoint/edge/on_face and hold shift to lock that.
It does not, however, know the intention of the user , so SketchUp ‘asks’ what inference you would like to be active instead of forcing you to use one of many automatically.
Changing default “snap” or “grid” options and having multiple viewports for front/top/side like some other CAD-applications have , also involves human interacting.
In addition to what @MikeWayzovski Pointed out, you can also go into Styles/Edges and set Color to By Axis. This will color all lines at are on axis.
Additionally, as you draw, SketchUp will tell you if you are clicking on a plane. This means, if you start with a rectangle from the start, your cursor will let you know if you are “in plane” before you click.
Thank you. I did not know about the Shift key option. I do understand that SU does not know what the user intends. I have to cope with this in the database software that my company writes all the time. At some point you have to ask a question before you can decide what the user actually wants. Which I would not expect SU to have to do. But my point here is that when the gaps are so small that they cannot be seen even when zooming right in, it would be, at that point, common sense to “assume” that the user wants to join any line at any angle to the end of the other line. Or if you look at the 1st post above from DaveR showing my original attachment, my points were not planar by 5 millionths of a meter, who in their right mind would “assume” that these are the correct co-ordinates. I do not know any way to deliberately force points out of co-planar by that tiny amount. I’m sure that there is a way but cannot imagine why I would want 5 millionths of a meter difference and if there were then I would expect to have to type it in numerically not by a slip of the mouse
sheesh, that got kinda ugly. Derek, understand you are voicing some criticism of a program that it is clear you do not fully understand. Sketchup has native tools to do every request you are making. Clearly you are frustrated, but the frustrations you are experiencing are not caused by shortcomings in the program, rather by a lack of understanding of how to use it. I can certainly relate, I spent many nights pulling my hair out learning how to think in sketchup when coming over from vectorworks. But realize, if the program really had all the problems you perceive then those many of us who use it daily and depend on it professionally would have long ago abandoned it. Like you, I do not have time for a tool that does not work, I find that sketchup works very well once it is understood. There are simple fluid ways of modeling the things you are modeling without errors the first time.
It’s hard to teach anything to anyone anywhere, and especially difficult in this disjointed forum format and without really knowing anything about where the student is starting out from knowledge wise, we try to look at your model, and a the things you are saying and make a guess about what you know and don’t know. This can lead to some misunderstandings about how to best be helpfull. I tend to agree with the “teach a man to fish” or learn the basics first method, otherwise you will continue to experience these problems. I am sorry you did not feel helped here, everyone is trying in their own way. Perhaps picking up a good book on sketchup could help you grasp some very useful basics, like the shift key modifier, and could turn using sketchup into a much more pleasurable experience.
I have used SU 2 to 3 days per week for 2 years. Maybe I am a slow learner. And I certainly do feel helped as I have indicated in numerous responses.
I am not sure that that is correct. How is the truth ugly. I just keep coming back to how my company writes software programs for end users. Yes we could write software the easy way where the user needs a degree in nuclear physics before he can enter information. But the real quality of a software program comes from relative ease of use. I am aware that there are answers to many points but the question still remains why some obvious things do not happen. I have a CNC machine program that just joins lines that are very very close. This software is far more advanced than SU in this and many other respects when it comes to ease of use. But it is not a design program. It’s a program that you use when you already know what you want. So the issues I am having can obviously be overcome or the other program would have the same issues. I think what some respondents have not yet appreciated is that I am not making a shape and extruding it. I am designing it and other components that have to work together. So I have to go back repeatedly and make sometimes minute changes. This is not my biggest issue as I have said at least three times. The ridiculous extent that you have to go to to find tiny errors in the first place and if you ever have to subtract a multi curved solid from another, well heaven help you.
