In the attached photo I have drawn to scale and free handed the outline of the item I’m going to make. I want to be able to draw this in SU. full size. What do you do to get the curves as per the drawing?
Sorry about the quality of the shot.
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Hi Mihai,
Thanks for your reply. I noticed that you have entered my sketch in SU, How did you do that! Please explain.
Regards,
TropicalGuyCns.
Hi again Mihai.
When I tried to download Bezier Spline, a message appears , Abode Acrobat Reader can not open Bezier Spline- V2 1a (1) rbz not a supported file type or damaged when sent. This file has not been sent.
Regards,
TropicalGuyCns.
Your ‘sketch’ is a JPG file. Go to File > Import > Image
Save the RBZ file on your computer, don’t try to open with Adobe Reader. Then in SketchUp go to Window > Extension Manager > Install extension and select that rbz file.
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One other thing to make this more accurate would be to unskew the photo in photoshop first…or bring your image into sketchhup as a texture and use the “position” texture handles to make it unskewed so that your grid on the paper is a grid in sketchup and not trapezoid.
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Hi Steve,
Thanks for the reply, I have imported my design into SU, I don’t have Photoshop, so could you explain this procedure to me with texture to move and make adjustments to same. Each time I try to do anything with the design it disappears. Thanks in advance.
Regards,
TropicalGuyCns.
PS. Mihai,
I have done all you suggested and it worked out fine. Thanks again.
It’s not so easy to explain, but see the attached gif. maybe it will help.
Bring your image file in as an image and drag it out to an arbitrary size.
Right click on it and “explode” it, it then becomes a “texture” you can edit.
The image should be exploded and selected so you can then right click and go to “texture” position.
Now there will be 4 handles (pins) on the image. You can use these to distort the image, and in this case unskew it.
I dragged out 4 guidelines using the edges of the image box/container as starting points.
click the yellow pin and then move it to an intersecting x/y line on your image then drag it to the intersection of the guides. Click and move the pin away from there and put one of the other pins in its place to keep that position locked. Then continue this until you have “squared up” the image. It will now at least be rectilinear. the last thing to do is to scale it in one direction to make your grid squares square.
You could do this with the blue pin, or close the texture editor and scale with the scale too.
or, if you can, take another photo square on with a longer lens to avoid too much distortion.
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I find the non-fixed pins to be a lot easier to use for this.
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You have all the measurements, draw it in sketchup and you’ll have an accurate model to work with.
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Box.
I’m afraid my skill set is not that advanced. I have set up a .5 grid and worked from the center line but I can;t seem to get the shape right. I would appreciate any assistance that you have to offer.
regards,
TropicalGuyCns.
Steve,
I will give that a go, let you know what happens.
TropicalGuyCns.
old habits die hard !
Not sure exactly what you are trying to do, but if you can open the skp file attached it has your original drawing mapped onto a grid (NTS) ( which is on a layer so you can turn it on and off). You can “join the dots” so to speak if you want to try and trace the curve using the grid with straight lines, but you will get a better curve using a " bezier curve plugin"
f-spline bezier
curve.skp (4.8 MB)
If you took the photo on your phone, another way of straightening the drawing is to use an app on your phone like Genius Scan for iOS. You just drag a box to the four corners of the drawing and it stretches and crops it to a flat rectangle for you.
In this case though, I agree with Box that you should redraw it in SketchUp.
Steve,
I have now completed the outline to my satisfaction by following the above suggestions. I have just downloaded the new 2020 SU Pro and the lines on the drawing have gone strange. see attached file. also the drawing scale has changed. Can some one please explain.
Regards,
TropicalGuyCns.Exp 1 Euro Decanter.skp (6.1 MB)
Can I ask what the end product is that you are after?
I mean are you wanting to model a 3d decanter or are you looking for the 2d linework for a full size template?
Or is it something else?
I only ask because depending on the result needed you could go several ways with this.
I can repair it and give you a 3d decanter in about 3 minutes, but showing you how and where you have gone wrong would take some time.
On the other hand if you are after exportable curves then that’s a whole different ballgame.
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the grid and the unskewed drawing were arbitrary in scale. If you use your tape measure you can click from known point A to a point B and type the measurement it needs to be, there will be a pop up asking if you wish to scale the model, answer yes.
I now gather from the naming of the new file that this is a decanter, so it makes a little more sense what you are doing.
I dont know how you got all those other lines, but you can erase them.
Hi Box,
2d linework for full size template is what I’m after. The original drawing that I posted was drawn free hand,kind of defeats the purpose of having SU. (Sometimes the frustration wins out.) I’m retired and my hobby is all types of woodworking. All self taught.
The decanter is one that I saw on youtube and decided I would make it. As you may have gathered the piece is made with segments of various sizes and designs.
Thanks again,
TropicalGuyCns.
Steve,
I hope my post to Box has explained a few things, the original drawing was freehand and I used this to work out the various sizes of the segments that will be used in making the piece. That what all the lined are about.
Thanks again,
TropicalGuyCns.