My first question and apologies if you’ve seen it 1000 times already.
I’ve developed a plywood based item with many layers and over 90 separate parts. Many of these have half depth cutouts on faces and edges and several have half depth cutouts on both front and back faces of the particular element. Some also have angled cuts around the edges. So it’s not a straight forward 2D project.
I’ve created several “ply sheets” which I’ve then arranged the various pieces on for nesting and cutting and I’ve grouped those that have cuts on both sides for clarity. In all I’ve got 16 8 x 4 sheets of ply to have cut.
What I’d like to do is to is amend the above to be ready to export to DXF. No problems going to parallel projection or “top” view etc. I can amend to 2D without much trouble but need to then add notes or similar where cuts are on the back or the edges are angled. I would also like to label each piece with a part number but SU is clunky to do this with.
If you could recommend a way to amend to 2D and add notes I’d appreciate it. Note I have Layout but have no experience with it. Also at 1:1 we are talking a very large piece of paper. I’ve got AutoCad but again not a lot of experience. I do have pretty good experience with Revit.
I’ve probably forgotten something here but hopefully that is enough to get a solution. Thanks.
Hi Dan, thanks for the reply. I will attempt to explain myself better. Note I have previously tried both 3D and 2D exports and had issues with line alignment. Even though things were exported as 2D I had lines that were directly in line but behind others (in the 3D model) not lining up properly once exported. These things need to be absolutely spot on with accuracy. So, questions;
Am I better off reducing everything to 2D, that is bringing it all into the same plane and then noting on the part instructions for the CNC guys? That brings me to my next question.
How can I get text on the faces of the various pieces after exporting to DXF? Text in SketchUp “floats in space” rather than being attached to the surface. Is the best way to make a 3D text for EVERY piece? This would be time consuming and I would need to reduce to 2D.
Is there an intermediate step that would solve these things better such as exporting to Layout or other program?
You could try one of the FlatText plugins (there are Free, Lite and Pro versions on the Extension Warehouse), which simplifies the creation, application and editing of 3D un-extruded text.
John, in all the time I’ve been using SU I did not know there was an Extension Warehouse. I’ve downloaded the FlatText Lite plugin. Thanks for letting me know about that one. One problem down.
So I’ve been numbering the parts and up to part number 57. For some reason the 5’s are now not showing in the model at all. I’ve reloaded it a few times and no good. Seems it didn’t crash so there’s no autosave.
EDIT; I discovered that the “5” was attached to a specific layer and when it was turned off ALL of the 5’s disappeared! Fixed by making it all on Layer 0.
I’ve got AutoCad but again not a lot of experience. I do have pretty good experience with Revit.
Thanks for letting me know about that one. One problem down.