Hi! I clicked on a shape and exported it in Adobe Illustrator as a dxf, maximum editability, and export selected art only. Imported it into Sketchup 2017, and tried to use it with the Follow Me option on a arc I drew in Sketchup. When holding the Follow Me icon over the imported dxf shape, I get the red circle with a diagonal line (the This is not going to work icon) hovering over the imported dwg.
Could someone please tell me what I did wrong? Thank you.
Post the .skp file in a reply window so the problem can get diagnosed, otherwise it just guessing at your description.
Is the DWG imported line in a group or component?
Have you tired preselecting the line (path) in question then invoking the follow me tool and then clicking on the shape you want to extrude?
Thank you for the response, the imported line is not in a group. I did try preselecting the path then clicked on the shape I wanted to extrude. Much appreciation for the help!
Imported dwg not applying with Follow Me.skp (138.9 KB)
You need a face for FollowMe, not a line.
How do I make it a face? Sorry, I am a newbie here.
I opened the imported profile group for editing and redrew an edge. That made a face to form, Then I cut the face, closed the group and pasted it in place. I then could use FollowMe on it.
The relative placement of the path and profile affect the result.
Drawing the profile in SketchUp would have been quite easy.
You should go through the appropriate resources at learn.sketchup.com
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I think you are saying you “Control-X’d” the face. Not actually cut like make it in 2?
Yes. That is What I meant.
Thank you so much for your help. I really appreciate it. I promise to read through the resources at Sketchup. One last question, How do I cap the end, so it is solid and you can’t see into the shape?
You are kind of jumping in the deep end here with this project, learning the basics will really support your understanding of what’s going on. But here goes… Normally when performing a follow me operation the end caps, or profile faces would form automatically as a part of the operation. In this case the line set you imported has some very tiny edges. These edges are below the SketchUp tolerance for forming faces so when you perform the follow me operation the resulting geometry is missing faces and cannot form faces on the ends.
There are two solutions for this: One is to redraw the profile without the tiny edges. lt’s not particularly well modeled already, it’s asymmetric and with different curves on either side and would be relatively simple to model in SketchUp
Two is to temporarily scale up the parts of the geometry that you want to work with, perform the operation at a larger scale to avoid the tiny face problem, then scale back down. There are various ways of doing this but many of them require a working understanding of SketchUp to do reliably so let’s focus on the simplest method for now.
Select both objects, click the scale tool,drag one corner type in 10 to scale x10, perform the follow me operation, select the element again, scale tool, type in .1 for x.1 scale or 1/10th. Done.
There are some other problems with this model but it’s not worth correcting until you have a better understanding of SketchUp. The Campus posted earlier is a great place to start.
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Thank you so much for this, endlessfix. I really am in the deep end. I will work from your video. So appreciated! Thank you!
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Your profile says you are using SketchUp 2017 Make. How are you importing the .dxf file into it?
Hi, I am using Google Sketchup 7. Not sure how to change that text in the profile. Preferences doesn’t show a place (to me).
Your profile says you are using SketchUp 2017 Make and you titled this thread “Importing DWG into SketchUp 2017 trouble.” Please fix your profile to reflect the version you are actually using.