Help creating a pattern around a curved shape

[kellyrose]

I am trying to create a bench with a repeating pattern cut out of the center ring. Here is what I have so far.

You can see the top and bottom turned out pretty good, but it was very time-consuming. I created the flat pattern and pushed/pulled it below and above the bench surface. Then I intersected the faces to get the pattern onto the bench and cut out the excess pieces. Over and over I lost faces and had to keep recreating them.

Now, I want to have the pattern continue completely around the object but using the technique above is not working because of how sharp the curve is. What you see now on the sides is just the 2D line pattern I tried to “bend” around the sides. I had to draw it this way because I had to get the idea across visually at the very least.

I need to send this to the manufacturer, so it has to be built right in SketchUp. There have to be tools out there or a new approach I am not familiar with. Can anyone help me figure out how to build this right? I would like to recreate it from the beginning because the model is already pretty screwed up at this point. I would appreciate any suggestions.

[sdmitch]

I would suggest using chris fullmer’s Shape Bender.
Determine the ‘perimeter’ of the bench you want to create. It should equal an even number of repetitions of the pattern.
Create the pattern, pushpull to desired thickness, group it and rotate it so that it is on the XZ plane.
Draw an edge along the base of the pattern group.
Create a curve of the length and shape of the bench’s perimeter on the XY plane. DO NOT CLOSE THE CURVE. Leave a tiny gap a the ‘bottom’.
Select the pattern group.
Execute Shape Bender.
Pick the edge
Pick the curve.

Be patient! When the ‘green’ representation appears, left click to execute.