Showing the Normals of a curved Surface

SketchUp Pro
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Ball normals 2.skp (398.2 KB)

Hi Guys & Gals,

Am I destined to do this individually by hand??? :sob: :sob:

Lines in black show the Normal at that point (90deg to the tangent)

Lines in red are the cosine of the Normal to the z-axis (what I actually need).

Could anybody fill the whole ball in under an hour?

Good luck!!

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I’m a little confused on the goal. A vertical (z-axis) line centered on each sphere facet?

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2 Likes
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Fantastic solution for a ball but the true question is how to get the cosine of the Normals (vertical lines in z-axis) in the first place, especially if the shape is irregular, eg
Irregular Normals.skp (308.4 KB)

As shown from the ball, I’ve had to create the triangles individually in order to get the true length (the cosine) which varies depending on the position.

Thanks for your input. Always appreciated

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FredoTools::ConstructFaceNormals will create the normals to all selected faces, as small guide lines.

image
image279×702 54.8 KB

The extension is part of FredoTools.

4 Likes
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This is real time. Under a minute and a half

3 Likes
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Test the Skatter extension, you can probably mimic those lines, by setting:

  • Distribution Type: Faces center
  • at min 8:46 - Altitude Range
    Falloff: Scale
1 Like
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What can I say? You guys are awesome!! Thx a lot