I have curved surfaces I want to make 3D. Sometimes vertical lines appear, other times they don’t. How do I make it so they always don’t please?
The curves in SU are segmented and those vertical lines indicate the segments. Select them the right click and hide them. You might want to smooth the selection first. there are no true circles or arcs in SU they are always segmented, you can select the number of segment. The higher the number the smoother the curve.
But what causes them? They don’t happen every time. I have them sporadically all over my project. I would rather prevent them rather than having to manually hide them - that would catastrophically prevent me from unhiding important things. Here’s an example of such lines in non-circles.
Most of your questions can be answered if you spend some time searching the
SketchUp - YouTube channel will be very worthwhile. On the YouTube channel, pay attention to the Square One Series and Level UP series. They cover the basics for each tool.
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I’m sure if I read through the thousands of pages I will find my answer. Thank you SO much.
The YouTube channel is videos and is very searchable!
Can you give me a clue as to the terms I should use in my search to narrow it down to under 100 hours?
Go to the Youtube channel and search for “Push Pull tool”
This one?
when you select the circle or arc tool in the lower right hand corner it will say sides. That is where you select the number of segments the arc or circle will draw.
on your image you can see the lines at each vertex and I assume those are very large arcs with a low number of segments or vertices. Go watch the videos it will be a huge help for you. while you are there take a look at all the other topics discussed, it is a great learning platform.
The link in my post that you ignored SketchUp
The Website you found is also an excellent place for information.
Yes, but if you unhighlight both of your cylinders you will see there are no vertical lines, indicated but the dotted guidelines in your example. You have created them nicely - no permanent vertical lines. I want to be able to achieve this whenever I want.
go watch the video my image is based on my display style (another topic to learn about). Those are circles that have been pushed pulled.
Had you chosen to take a brief minute to check the link, you would have found the answer to your question, instead of insisting on getting the “easy answer” by having others do your work.
You are now on IGNORE, I am done with you!
How do I find that?
Here is the best solution I found. I don’t know if you can do this on the Free version.
- Window>Default Tray>Soften Edges
- Now that Soften Edges is a drawer in your default tray, you simply highlight your object and drag the soften edges slider to the right. The unwanted lines are now hidden.
NOTE: This is non-destructive - the lines can be seen again if you need them by selecting View>Hidden Geometry.
Here is a video of how to add the soften edges tool and apply it:
When the face being pushed/pulled has an arc forming part of its perimeter, or if the entire perimeter is a circle (both conditions according to SketchUp’s Entity Info dialog, rather that what geometric appearances might indicate) then the edges forming the boundaries between the adjacent faces in the pushed 3D object will be automatically smoothed and softened. Smoothed means that the 3D rendered shading between faces will be blended such that the brightness continually varies across the simulated curved surface, and softened means that the edges themselves are invisible (unless Show Hidden is enabled). The set of new adjacent faces will be considered by SketchUp as a single surface that encompasses all the individual faces that comprise the surface.
Any edges that form the perimeter of the face being pushed that are simple edges (according to SketchUp’s Entity Info dialog) will be neither softened nor smoothed by the Push Pull function. Thus they will appear as visible edges and the 3D rendered shading of such new faces will be flat rather than blended from face to face. It is possible to select the new edges of the newly pushed object and manually soften and smooth them, if desired.
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I understand that Sketchup chooses to soften some edges and sometimes not. I still don’t understand what makes Sketchup decide whether to automatically soften edges or not…
Before you push a surface, you can select the edges of the surface you are pushing, right click and select “Weld Edges”. This will prevent the vertical lines when you push.
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I tried to explain that. 
When a portion of the staring face’s perimiter is an arc or the complete perimeter is a circle, SketchUp will perform the automatic softening and smoothing of the new edges created by the Push Pull function to form faces derived from the starting face perimeter’s arc or circle. Any edges of the starting face’s perimeter that are simple edges will not have the automatic softening/smoothing.
@nmason made a good observation that I forgot about: welding a series of consecutive edges will also make the faces derived from the welded edge be automatically softened and smoothed (the same as if the starting edges were part of an arc or circle).