I just came across somethings that got my attention in a couple of ways. First is/are those mysterious Errors that appear when you know you did everything EXACTLY right. That SU is out to destroy your sanity and torment you to the ends of time. Stay calm and get in the habit of using the Undo option and Start saving copies of your work as you model it, or build scenes .
This will allow you to trace your steps back and you will then see EXACTLY where you screwed up. Speaking for myself I was so worked up on getting it right I had no clue I went out of sequence or just missed a step. Also you are blind to catching these errors from lack of experience. If it is not right you are off on a point and SU added a edge or complete face because of this. Learning to catch your mistakes is part of your growing.
I have this one for an example, and 6 months ago would have been running to the forums for answers or a technical issue. As to why it wont work… I have to flip it in the green direction in order for it to be flipped in the red???
I should be able to move/copy it 28" on the red axes, while it is highlighted. R-click and select Flip Along ~ Groups red. It wont and until you (I) went back and realized why SU was doing this, because of what I had done. Being it is a intersected rotated copy of itself. I traced it in Front View so the first copy was push/pulled along the green axes and its saved part copied/pasted in place with the second half. The rotated copy that is running on the red axes. SU is “holding” its green axes position and I am assuming it to be red. It would be IF I started it out that way. So this is an example of how your inexperience frustrates the hell out of you and one good thing about it is. It shows your progressing. If you need help ask but dont limit yourself by not taking sometime and find out on your own. It is the best thing you can learn…for yourself. I threw in the file if you want to try it for yourselves…Peace…
When i started with SU also had many problems but with the time i’ve been learning how SU works.
In this case, the flip function is based on internal axes and don’t on global axis. That is why the flip was not as you expected.
There is an option under Model Info that is great to discover how the axis is positioned. But it is only cool if the axes are close to the component.
I’m happy to see new people learning to use SketchUp and discover i am not alone.
I always got confused about the “Filp on XXX axis” options from the r-click menu; I have given up on them and use the scale tool when I want to flip things - it’s much more intuitive (to me anyway):
With the scale tool, select/drag the middle dot of the plane you want to flip in, type in “-1” and hit [return].
This has the advantage that I can draw a line to represent the mirror plane, use [shift-click] to include it in the selection, copy all this [ctrl+c], use [edit | paste in place]*, then use the scale tool to flip the newly pasted objects; it I don’t need to re-position them.
(^ this is really handy for components like the chair leg above)
The attached example.skp (189.8 KB) has 1 “corner” component, flipped to duplicate it in all 8 directions.
(* note that if you paste a line in place over the top of an existing (identical) line, then it will be removed from the pasted selection - you may need to add it to the selection again before flipping)
[edit] - PS if you want to correct the component’s axis before flipping it with the RGB options, you can either select the component and “change axis” from the r-click menu, or (if you haven’t already made duplicates) explode it, then immediately re-create the component while all the geometry is still selected. - This will set the axis to the global axis and is often quicker.
COOL and Thanks for the input. This is one of those that had me scratching my head, and again it is just your limited knowledge of something. New ground to stand and being raw, your taken by how simple it SHOULD be to just flip a copy. Only to be lost with what is going on.
I had ASSUMED that the saved copied/past in place portion was the cause of it, being I extruded and grouped it from along the green axes. Thus it carried it over when I did the rotate/copy. With this option to check its position it show exactly where you are from the start. …Peace…
I am becoming familiar with this option also, as I found the flip option is not always available. Unless there are bounding edges and a face to select, so you have to go this route for a single line or a arch. To use a copy of to make an ellipse. Thanks for the model to reference to. …Peace…
(Cotty beat me to it, I was preparing a model with some info about Flip Along and Scale regarding the used direction. Things seem to be quite simple. See attached model: flip and scale.skp (155.6 KB)
This looks like a topic I should visit often during my first weeks learning 3D CAD. I’m trying to 3D print something very simple. It’s a 5/8in die, with rounded edges-corners, radius =5/8/16. Why that particular radius? My employer has a contract to route road signs for National Barricade. The standard corner radius on a rectangular sign is 1/16 of the lesser dimension.
I attempted to model my cube by adding arcs to the corners of a square and PushPulling. I got stumped by PushPulling an arc into an existing arc.
My new plan is to treat it like the way I learned old fashioned ink-on-paper drafting, but in 3D. I’ll mark the guide points. I’ll make a quarter circle and follow it on a perpendicular quarter circle. That defines a rounded corner. From there I can follow the 3 quarter circles on lines to the start of the radii on the 3 adjacent corners. Then define those 3 corners, etc.
It’s been a looooong time since I’ve last posted, and let me tell you how I’ve been learning. I attended the 3D printing workshop in December. My model was a far distance from printability, even with help from the instructor and volunteer tutors. The instructor gave some helpful basics, which I didn’t see in the SketchUp tutorials. Then he let us work on our models on the computers in the class room. I got to see the machine print a model. It’s like the reverse of my CNC router carving a slab of wood. The router has 1/2, 3/8, & 1/4 inch cutting tools. The printer’s model, scaled to the router, would be 24x32xN inches, being cut with a 1/16 cutter 1/16 deep.
My 2016 Make is set for American dimensions, with 1/16inch resolution. The workshop’s SU is set for metric. 5/8inch translates to 16mm. Because the workshop is sponsored by an aircraft builder, material optimization is emphasized. A solid die would consume a reasonable amount of material but consume irreasonable machine time. A half/16 shell is reasonably thick, and the workshop computers have algoritha to generate a web inside that shell.
I started a new model, scaled up 8 inches per millimeter. I set guide points for the corners of the whole cube, centers of the corner radii, and tangents. I drew a cross section of half a 128in square with radius 8in corners, 6&1/4 thick, following the suggestions posted here. I made a few stumbles with the Follow Me command, which is a very useful feature. It reminds me of the Continuous workset feature on the CNC router’s CAD. I now see that my initial modelling was based on the tutorial, which used push-pull. Follow is much better suited to my modelling. Now I’m fixing all the misalignments in my model.
My break time’s coming to an end, so I’ll sign off now and come back later.
