Finial.skp (114.4 KB)
I have reversed the faces as you said and think I see the issue now, but it appears that the interior is still white; should I select the interior faces only and reverse them?
I only see the bottom face reversed. All the rest have the proper orientation.
Here I’ve edited the back face color to green in the Styles edit tab. I’ve found that some displays seem to show the shaded front face color as a blue that can be difficult to separate from reversed faces. I prefer to use green for my back face color so I’ve edited the style for my default template.
Finial.skp (118.8 KB)
I’ve reversed the face of the bottom plane here, so I think that it should be correct now; I’ll have to change my default colors in the future. Thanks a lot for your help!
I see the large segmentation on it; it doesn’t seem like I can change it now (presumably because I have grouped it), so I imagine that I would have to re-draw it from scratch in order to smooth out the curved walls. I think I should be able to do that with some sandpaper after printing, unless you know of a way to fix it? Thanks, though, for pointing that out; it is certainly something I’ll keep in mind in the future.
You can only change an arc’s segmentation in its 2d form.
Once it has become part of a 3d form, then it’s frozen, and not easily changed using native tools.
It’d be pretty easy to redo the path and facet-profile to correct the 2d parts, before doing a FollowMe into 3d.
Then the form’s smoothness will be what you want.
A balance between sanding the final product and quickly remaking it in SketchUp !
I think I’m going to go with sanding since I’m already well out of my depth so far; I am having another issue as I presumed that printers wouldn’t fill in the volumes and would instead simply produce walls. I’ve changed the drawing to two pieces that are simply made up of flat sections; one is intended to insert into the other to create the void spaces. I’ve tried to upload it as an STL to Shapeways for pricing, but it makes the shapes into a solid volume and I am unsure how to fix it.
Finial Parts.skp (114.9 KB)
What is it you are going to use the 3D print from Shapeways for? Is it for a mold for the casting? Are you going to sand cast the bronze? Do you need to use one for the cope and the other for the drag?
Maybe it isn’t clear to you that SketchUp is a surface modeler. The faces you draw have no thickness. There needs to be a space between the faces as in your earlier version. The two shapes you now have cannot be solids as they sit. Knowing how you’ll use the printed pieces will help tell you what you need to do next.
I want to use the 3D print as the pattern for my mold; I will be using plaster molds rather than sand casting, mostly due to some other limiting factors.
I suppose that I presumed that the surface plans, if not enclosed in a solid shape, would default to a minimal thickness. I suppose the best solution would be to go into my model and push/pull all of the faces by a minimal thickness. I presume that something like 1mm is the minimal thickness for most printers?
No! The best solution would be to draw the model the way you did in your slightly earlier method and the way I suggested six hours ago. That method will create the required solid once you make the shape a component or group.
If you really feel like you’re in over your head, maybe it would help to have a live demo. I could do that in about 3 hours when I get home from work.
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I think I understand what you are saying; I am simply reluctant to trash work already down and start over.
So go back to the file called Finial.skp in your post immediately below my post with the green face in the screen shot and you’re done.
A printer offered to do the original, solid piece for $40 in PLA with 300 micron layers, so I went ahead with that since it should meet my current needs, but I am going to continue working with this to learn more about SketchUp. Is there a list of practice models to build somewhere that are good for learning? I think that part of my problem is that I’ve been trained in MicroStation (a CADD-like program for civil engineering), so everything in SketchUp is familiar but at the same time significantly different enough to trip me up a lot.
There are a few old tutorials by the SketchUp team that you could get from the 3D Warehouse. They let you sort of follow along to create simple things. Another option that might be better is to pick some simple things around you and draw them. Your finial wasn’t too bad but you might want to start even more simply so that you can get the basics down firmly before you move on. If you choose things you have at hand, you can measure them so you can learn to work with precision in SketchUp and look at them from different angles to see how surfaces intersect. You’ll be able to develop understanding how to think through the process in Sketchup and how to utilize the tools. The native tools are very powerful despite their apparent simplicity. concentrate on them before you worry about adding extensions and plugins. It will come together.