Does anyone have a suggestion on how I can illustrate a weld joint like the one shown in the attached image in a simple way in SketchUp and/or in Layout?
For SketchUp, you could do it this way. For LayOut, a texture would probably be better.
someone asked this a while back, I gave my “clean” solution, but there is also a video in the answers
I have created a variety of weld bead effects over the past few years for a complex model I am working on. Below are some example images. Hidden edges are made visible in the first image to better show the actual geometry. I general use the following technique for linear welds. It is logically straight forward, but rather tedious. The goal is to create a solid (in SketchUp terms) weld bead component. (I always use the “Dave” method to work on a 100x scaled-up version of the geometry.)
- Create a single 3D blob (as a Component). I usually start with a flat regular polygon (say 10 or 12 sides) as a floor. Add a dome on top via Follow-me of an arc or similar shape around the perimeter of the floor. Sometimes I use the Scale tool to squash the shape, and the Move tool to adjust some points and/or edges to deform it. The result is a sort of a cookie shape - flat bottom with roughly rounded top. Perhaps give the top middle of the blob a slight concave-up shape (easy to do as part of the initial Follow-me if the cross-section shape you draw has that kind of curve).
- Position an instance of the blob component along the joint to be welded. Tilt it up 15-20 degrees (rough guess) to mimic the typical effect where adjacent weld blobs are kind of dished against each other, like overlapping scales.
- Use the Move tool to make copies of the blob component along the joint. I usually use the array form of Move to make many copies at once, evenly spaced. Then I tweak the positions of most of the blob components to reduce the regularity. Move some blobs forward or backward, or slightly to the side, or rotate them by say 10 to 30 degrees, etc.
- Make sure that the blobs fill the intended volume as seen from the outside. There can be concealed hollows underneath or between blobs. Special care may be needed at corners. A few blob component instances might need to be scaled thicker or longer to help wrap around a corner.
- When you are happy with the shape of the blob component and how they all overlap, make a new component for the overall weld bead that contains all the individual blob components. This weld bead component will be the final object of this exercise.
- Open the weld bead component for editing, and explode all the individual blob components. Select and Intersect all the faces with each other within the weld bead component. Eliminate all the interior edges and faces. The Solid Inspector 2 extension can be fantastic to help with this. Repair any holes in the final outer surface. An alternative is to use SketchUp’s Outer Shell tool (instead of Explode and Intersect etc.) on all the individual blob components, but it has never worked very well for me.
- Close the weld bead component, returning to the next outer context. Copy onto the clipboard each of the adjoining faces of the parts that are being welded together. Those adjoining faces will form the inside faces of the finished weld bead.
- Open the weld bead component again, and Paste-in-place copies of those faces of the adjoining parts. Then intersect those adjoining faces with the geometry of the overall weld bead. Delete the parts of the weld bead that are within the walls of those adjoining parts, and delete the excess portions of the adjoining faces. Repair any tinly holes that appear; Solid Inspector 2 can find them for you.
- With luck, the result is a solid weld bead component that fits perfectly against the parts that are welded.
