How do I add another circle around a cylinder

If you delete those edges going to the peak you’ll lose the faces. Soften those edges. Then TIG Weld and the other weld plugins will weld the base edges.

Does your time have any value?

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Or just switch to Front view, then window select only the bottom edge before applying Weld, or Lines to Arc.

Note that there is a subtle difference between the various weld options. Most of them assemble the edges into a SketchUp curve. That is what some drawing apps call a “polyline”, a sequence of edges recognized as a single entity. A few options create a circle or circular arc, which in SketchUp is a collection of equal-length edges with some non-geometry metadata providing the mathematical parameters of the circle, such as center point, radius, normal vector. etc. Which to use depends on what you want to do with the result.

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I did exactly that and it doesn’t join… I tried with just the line highligted and the entire face… But TigWeld did nothing

I give up.

Try Lines to Arc instead, unless you have some reason for preferring a Curve to a Circle.

Have I done something to offend? I havnt’ got around to your suggestion yet… I Working up the replies.

What do you mean by “soften” edges? I am sure I have seen a ‘soften’ option, but my brain is fried and I can’t think…

As for the paying for the AutoWeld too… If its something I will use lots, I have no problem paying… But I am a casual user and can’t imagine I am going to get much use out of it… But when I get a min, I will look at the trial version and see what it does.

My post was immediately after yours and it looked like you ignored it.

Select the edges and use Soften Edges to soften them.

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Not at all… I am on a conf call with work… And a load of messages flashed up and I just started to try them from the bottom up… I only reacted to Johns suggestion as I had tried that and I thougth I overlooked something…

I didn’t think your suggestion worked at first as I was only ‘softening’ the edge that I am trying to weld… But then I realised I had to soften the whole thing. And that worked… Is that the only way? I don’t think its a problem softening the model… But I worry that there is going to be a time (when i am editing an STL) where this might not be ideal.

Edit: I guess I could CTL+SHIFT+ERASE after to unsoften the edges again.

The forum link you gave to Line to Arc is 11 years old and there is a plugin file there, but it has an RB extension and SU looks for an RBZ, so I am not 100% sure how to install it.

My only reservation about using this over TigWeld is that its not an ‘official’ plugin, so will be hard to track/remember if I have to reinstall or upgrade.

How would softening the edges be a problem?

It won’t matter if the edges are softened. If you draw a circle and extrude it into a cylinder or use Follow Me to create a sphere, those edges between faces will be softened.

True… To be honest, I am not that familiar between Soft and Unsoftened edges. So I am assuming there are problems, when there certainly arn’t…

Thanks again as always… You are a star…

Get the .rbz file here: SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation

Probably best not to assume things are going to be a problem until they are.

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Good question. There’s nothing wrong with the file, and it still works fine in SU2017 and 2020 (and most other versions too AFAIK).

SketchUcation plugins are no less ‘official’ than Extension Warehouse ones, and some very popular ones are only hosted there - like most of Fredo’s.

Two ways to go: easiest is just to copy the .rb file to your Plugins folder for your version(s) of SU.

Or (more complicated) ZIP the file, rename it to .rbz, then install from the Window/Extension Manager using the Install button.

No problem with using plugins from SketchUcation. 80% of the ones I use are from there… Problem is its not shown in the “store”… its only a link from the forum… But I will try it…

I didn’t know that an RBZ was just an RB inside a ZIP… I have just used the RBZ/ZIP method and it looks good, so I will test it later.

Cheers

Jon

Yes it is. I posted a link to it.

It’s more than that, but for a plugin that is just a single .rb file, it works that way.

An Extension vs a Plugin is more than a single file, but all wrapped up in the RBZ. One loader.rb file which should use the author’s initials or company name and a short name for the extension, and a folder of the same name, without the .rb file extension, containing one or more files and/or folders with the guts of the extension in it.

As Plugins became more numerous, ways needed to be found to prevent one interfering with another, and this method was developed to avoid clashes, by requiring authors to keep their code in their own unique namespaces. That needs other things too in their coding, as well as the convention on file and folder naming.

Found it now on the store… Sorry… Missed your post (Again)… Its the same as the one I installed directly from the RB file and it does exactly the same as TigWeld and only welds the circle when the model has been softened…

So I may as well stick with TigWeld whihc has served me well so far…