It was a gif, perhaps refresh the webpage.
I’m not sure what you mean by cross section. I stayed in perspective view, and to get the circle to draw around the blue axis I tapped the up arrow key. After orbiting a bit, I tapped the left arrow key to make the rotate tool pivot around the green axis.
The other trick I did that may not be obvious is that I tapped the K key, to show back edges. That is how I was able to snap the circle to the edge it was obscuring. Same when rotating the circles, I could snap to the edges of your original edges, even with them being behind the circle I was rotating.
My second drawing was almost completed. I didn’t realize until too late that the bottom ellipse wasn’t closed. Now, the ellipse is sectioned off and I’m having trouble selecting each of the 24 sections to group them. I’ve tried 4 times now and there’s always a mistake (maybe my mouse isn’t calibrated correctly). I need to close off the ellipse in order to get the volume. I’ve attached the file. Is there a way to globally select these ellipse sections to group them and only them (i.e. none of the triangular lines).
TransitionZone - 60 deg - Alt.skp (257.1 KB)
It is not necessary to stitch together the top or bottom plane. SketchUp automatically forms surfaces on any coplanar set of edges. Your work would be easier if you erased the unnecessary edges in the top plane. Turn on hidden geometry to see them and then simply erase them. The surface remains because the perimeter is a set of coplanar edges. Similarly on the bottom edge to heal or repalce a missing surface simply trace over any existing edge in a set of coplanar edges.
You might avoid some frustration and accelerate your advancement by taking some time to learn some of the basic concepts of how SketchUp works at the SketchUp Campus.
Thanks, but to be fair I’ve probably looked at 30 videos since I first started using Sketchup yesterday. However, I keep forgetting that if I want to edit something that is part of a component, I have to put the component in edit mode. Thanks for your patience.
I am trying to get the volume of the shape in the attached .skp file. SU will not provide the volume. I have carefully checked each stitched panel and can see no problems. Also, the face of the ellipse and circle appear to close the top and bottom. With my current knowledge I am out of options as everything looks fine relative to the earlier shapes that I created, stitched and then was able to get a volume.
I should mention that I did encounter one problem where somehow a small section of the ellipse was missing. I drew a line from one endpoint to the adjacent one on the ellipse and then was successfully able to stitch that portion. To me at least, everything looks good.
Something else I tried was to delete the face of the ellipse and then recreate it. SU still won’t provide volume. I also looked around inside the shape and didn’t see anything unusual.
I also tried exploding the component, which was created before the stitching, and then recreating it. Still no volume measurement.
TransitionZone - 75 deg.skp (229.3 KB)
I just used the inspector tool in SU Go to correct stray edges and reversed faces. It became solid and shows the area in entity information.
Thanks, Royce. The free version doesn’t seem to include the inspector tool. Where do I find “correct stray edges and reversed faces”?
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Select the Component, go into edit mode, turn on x-ray, and search for stray lines and reversed faces. Exposed faces should be white instead of blue. Inside faces should be blue.
I did fail to mention that as I was stitching the first time, I noticed that the faces alternated from white to blue, so I just painted over them. I just redid the entire stitching and reversed faces for any blue ones and SU still won’t give me a volume. I’ll try what you suggested.
Again, you do not need to stitch the top surface, just trace over one perimeter edge.
When you are in edit mode, select the face that you want to reverse, right click and choose reverse faces from the menu. That is the way to change the color of the face not with textures.
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Yes, as I typed above, I redid the stitching for the entire conical surface and I did reverse those panels that were blue. I am now in xray mode and although it is kind of difficult to see the color difference, there are no reversed panels.
I did not stitch the top or bottom surfaces. In fact, I have never purposefully done that. In xray mode the top and bottom are removed.
Yeah, you probably got all the reversed faces. X-ray mode can help you find stray edges that do not connect with some other endpoint in the model.
Well, I don’t see any stray edges. I’ll bet this might have happened because of the small section of the ellipse that somehow was missing. Of course I don’t know where that was now. I guess I’ll just have to scrap this file and start over. Thanks for your help, Royce.
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@Royce: I’m wondering if I can ask a favor. A new file below will not show volume. I’ve gone through all the surfaces several times and cannot find the problem. It seems like paid versions of Sketchup might have additional tools to help fix the problem. Although one can argue that I should pay for Sketchup, I might counter with had I known that Sketchup has this problem with reversing faces when stitching that cannot be easily fixed in the Free version, I would never have tried it. If possible, if you are able to fix the file is there someway you can get the fixed file to me. I understand if you are not able or do not wish to assist me with this matter (perhaps it is against some protocol). One thing I should mention is that in the attached, it looked to me like the ellipse face was reversed. When I reversed it, it now has a lighter color, but the volume still won’t show.
Thanks.
TransitionZone - 15 deg.skp (225.9 KB)
All of the difficulties you are experiencing are products of your workflow and not fully understanding how to use SketchUp. Here is a fixed version as far as it can be fixed. I have erased the stray geometry that makes it not solid and also erased the extra lines you had across the face that are unnecessary. The smaller face is not however a single plane, near the bottom there are a few faces that are separate, this will affect your volume calcs but only by a little so perhaps it’s good enough. The 24 facet circles you are using are much more likely to give you a volume error if you are trying to calculate for a true cylindrical object.
TransitionZone - 15 deg FIXED.skp (234.3 KB)
Thank you. However, if the stray geometry you are talking about is the diagonal lines across the face of the circle and/or ellipse, as I said I never added those. If they are there, then SU added them. I’ll look at what you did and try to learn from it. Just out of curiousity did you used tools that are not available in the free version of Sketchup?
Those are not stray edges. Stray edges are only connected to your model by 1 endpoint or not connected at all.
What do you mean with this?
SketchUp Free is not to be used for commercial purposes. You need SketchUp Pro, Studio or Go for that.