This may be an extremely easy task for experienced users but my use has been intense at times but sporadic. I need to join 2 rings to make a figure 8 where their intersection is an “over/under” arrangement.
Share the .skp file as you have it already setup. If I was going to model something like what I picture from your description I would model the centerline of the 8 with one side of the cross over under the other and use Follow Me with a circular profile to make the final shape.
Thanks so much DaveR! Here is a link to the file. You will see that I am trying to create an unsymmetrical figure 8.
All you’ve given is a viewer link. Download the folder to your computer and upload it here so we can actually open it in SketchUp.
Is this the sort of thing you are hoping for?
Exactly! Did you just draw the circle combination and then did a follow and a push? How do you keep the circle overlap from intersecting?
Dan
In my model the rings do intersect but the crossover could have a gap. TBH it’s kind of challenging in the web based version with a square profile. Round would be much easier. A simple Follow Me would work well with a circle as the profile.
Follow Me around the figure-eight path with the square profile would result in twisting of the extrusion so you have to do some gymnastics to make it work. How much experience do you have with SketchUp?
FWIW, it’s much simpler in SketchUp for desktop with the addition of the Upright Extruder extension.
I have had some times of intense use of SketchUp for very specific things, like building design (completing the building a 6 car garage shop I designed right now) but it has been very sporadic! I am doing such a huge variety of things in my life I never seem to find the time to do some real training in SketchUp.
I tried a Follow Me with a circular cross section at first with this design a long time ago but had major problems with that. The rectangular cross section is better for functionality of the final product, plus for 3D printing of prototypes, plus milling of injection molds for quantity production. There are a lot more twists and turns to be added to this design once I know better how to do all of that.
Is there a specific training video that you know of that would cover this area well?
Thanks so much for your guidance,
Dan
It sounds like this is not a hobby thing and you really should be using SketchUp for Desktop (Pro or Studio) and that would make modeling this a walk in the park.
Definitely not a hobby. As soon as my company get this garage/shop built I should be able to afford the Pro version. I turned 78 in September (“never too old”) and have had lots of medical expenses that have strapped me financially, even just co-pays.
I am looking at designing an over 1000 square foot addition to a clients house. They couldn’t locate any drawings for the current structure so I am planning on using the online app “Hover” to create a 3D model, from specific pictures, to start from for the visualization drawings. That should become a design/build project, if we can generate competitive workable construction quotes.
I also have several more inventions that we put workable prototypes together for with stock components that I will need to make drawings for in our effort to license them. And hundreds more in patent notebooks. God is going to have to give me many more years to accomplish all I feel He has called me to do!
Dan
Well, commercial use of SketchUp Free violates the End User License Agreenment.
In that version, though, one way to model your figure 8 would be to break it down into a segment for the large ring and one for the small.
Here is just the large ring.
You could use Outer Shell to combine the segments into one group but there’s no real need as long as all of the segments are solid objects. Probably needs a bit more pitch.
This is what it looks like in the slicer.
Again, in the desktop version this would be extremely fast with a path, profile, and Upright extruder. This is just a quickie for illustration. The path could use a little refinement of course.
I know I need to get to Pro as soon as possible.
Thanks for all the detail! You mentioned the potential need for more pitch in the big ring. I will need to adjust that to some starting point and then tune it, for best functionality, from testing the 3D printed prototypes.
Dan
Maybe start with about 1.5 of the thickness of the ring and work from there. It’ll depend on how much clearance you need at the crossover.
Another thing to consider if modeling with the units set to meters and work as if millimeters are meters. That will help to avoid issues with tiny faces. Here’s an example.
Here’s the 3D printed object installed on the window.
Looks good. Thanks for the pointers and the obviously extrudable part as an example.
Dan
I had thought about trying to slice each of the rings I already designed, skew the ends up and down, and then merge them together. I reasoned that would keep the two circular shapes perfect. I didn’t now how to cleanly slice them, though, and not have the ends still bonded together, or to the object I sliced them with. This approach came from me trying to do the same thing with physical components. The dimensions being so small made faces hard to bond securely.
I start going through that effort because of a conflict I ran into with a couple nephews. They are deeply into CAD and were working on refining the design for this family of products for me but after they 3D printed the first prototype I ran into a major conflict with one of them I was doing a big construction project for and after that they refused to work on it anymore.
Not really sure that your story about the issues with you nephews is going to inspire people to leap to helping you out.
DaveR has already provided a lot of great help and I was just trying to let him know how I got to this point.