I’m trying to model entities that will be very difficult without gathering experience from SU users that have created parabolic curves. These curves might be categorized as “splines”. I’d like input from you creators of splines, if the Fredo6: Bezier Spline v2.2a Sketchup Plugins of Fredo6 is the way to go. My task is greater than creating 2D geometry. The final splines will need 3D volume, because the actual end product will need to have a triangular cross section. Will other SU Plugins be necessary ? - Stephen Skinner
My computer is a Cybertron CLX laptop ANUBIS model w/ NVIDA Geoforce GTX graphics card. This a custom built Gaming Computer.
What are you trying to model exactly, do you have images or something to have an idea? There are usually more than one ways to model something on sketchup. For organic shapes I prefer to model creating low poly versions of the object using quads, then use subdivision surface to make it more organic.
No plugins needed.
You can use a cone and intersect that with a face at a specific angle, parallel to a side edge of that cone. See attatched image, the most right intersection.
intersection parallel to ground plane, base of the cone creates a circle (left object)
intersection at a small angle, less than a side edge, creates an ellips (object in the middle)
intersection parallel to a side edge (purple) and through the cone creates a parabolic curve
(intersection at an angle greater than the side edge results in a hyperbolic curve, not shown here)
You can model parabolic curves with extensions like Bezier Spline and FredoSpline or with Curve Maker. First two from Sketchucation. Last one from the Extension Warehouse.
It actually is important to know, as I said above, there are multiple ways of modeling anything on SketchUp, for example I would model the two arcs with the method of low poly quad modeling, the center can be modeled with native SketchUp tools.
I believe a parabola is scalable, so once you have the correct form, you can use the scale tool to attain the dimensions you want. @Wo3Dan beat me to it, but that’s the method I’ve used before, and then scaled the results to fit.
Off topic, but that’s the LAX Theme Building with the parabolic arches - the tall structure (in your attached image) behind it is the “new” air traffic control tower (old one is still there to the east).
If its for cost estimation or basic visualization and a simple model would do, you could look on the 3D warehouse. Of course its much better to model yourself, you’ll learn a lot along the way and end up with the exact product you need, and there is plenty of help here if you get stuck. As long as the effort fits the end result.
huh, having trouble with forum links today, standby…
