I created the following shape by importing a photo of a paper tracing. I used the pencil tool to draw on the line in the imported photo to make the shape. It’s the shape of a chair rail for a chair I’m building. Now that I have the shape of the object, I want to push/pull it to it’s proper 3d dimension of 1.5". The problem is that the shape will not push/pull. It is exploded, so it’s not part of a group. Does anyone know why it won’t work?
Here is the Sketchup file:
You need to attach your model so we can see exactly what you are working with.
Sketchup native push pull tool can’t extrude curved faces you need a plugin like JointPushPull from Fredo6 or do it manually showing the hidden geometry extrude de desire distance on every face and join them somehow, either by moving vertices or drawing new faces, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone to do that unless you want to practice, Fredo’s plug-ins aren’t free anymore but you get a trial period when you install his plug-ins, if you do this kind of models regularly you should buy them, the license is perpetual you have 3 seats and the prices are pretty fair in exchange of a lot of time saving while modeling, there’s a pack with eight of his most useful extensions for 40 dollars.
As you were told, if you share your model we could check if there’s another solution that maybe won’t require the use of an extension.
I believe there’s no curved face here, and there might be no face at all.
My guess is that while using the freehand tool, some points have been set at different height, or it failed to create a face.
Again, we can only guess without the model. Eric, please drag and drop your model here
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Unless the style used has the default face colour matching exactly the view background, there is no face to pull in the shape. Either the shape is not closed or it is not on the same 3D plane, or both.
or, since you’re talking style, it could be a line only style ? I often do that when I’m tracing over an image, si SU won’t create face on top of the picture and I can still see what I’m doing.
if so, no face either 
yeah, the file will reveal its secrets.
Dining Chair.skp (1.3 MB)
Here’s the file. Thanks!
Dining Chair.skp (1.3 MB)
Dining Chair.skp (1.3 MB)
Here is the model
You don’t have to attach it mutiple times, everyone can see it.
There is no face, so use the pencil to draw along one segment to make the face fill in.
Thanks for the info. I am brand new to the forum.
When I created the shape of the chair rail, I used the pencil as you are suggesting. So, why didn’t the face fill in? I think what you are saying is that I need to RE-trace with the pencil until the face fills in?
I expect it’s due to the order of the way you drew the edges.
That’s what he was saying. Just trace one edge segment.
What did you start with when you drew the shape? It seems very rough.
BTW, it would make sense to use a component for the seat half, Create a flipped copy to make the opposing half.
Are the notches in the seat supposed to fit the joinery on the upright? They currently don’t.
Generally I find it easiest to model the parts for something like this chair in place where they will live. That makes the modeling process simpler because you don’t need to know every dimension of every part to model it and you don’t wind up with the parts scattered around the county.
David,
I started with a photo of the tracing paper that I traced the part on. I just went over half of the tracing using the pencil, then I flipped the half that I traced so that the other half is the mirror image of the other side. Currently, the joints do not fit but I plan to make them fit.
How would you suggest reproducing the chair rail part in Sketchup?
Eric.
This is why the face didn’t form and why you have to trace a segment with the Line tool to get it.
I guess I would have used Bezier or Global Fit Splines from FredoSpline to draw the curves. They’d be smoother and the segments more evenly sized. I would also place the image of the crest rail in place at the top of the chair posts so it could be sized accordingly. Then after tracing the image and deleting it, extruding the crest rail to 3D would have it in place on the chair. That’s the process I used to model the back on this chair designed by Michael Fortune. I used a cutter shaped to the front elevation of the back to cut it in that direction.
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