What method did you use to locate a basepoint on the circles I drew? Knowing just that I could redraw all of them.
Inferencing finds the centers of circles, but the wise thing to do would be to select them all and change their segment count in Entity Info. I recommend even more strongly that you spend a little time to learn the basics.
If I select one circle I can see where you can change the segment count. If I select two circles the box to change the segment count disappears.
Inferencing can only find the endpoints of these circles. It cannot find the center. Perhaps they are too small for it to work. Can you see why it is so hard to learn this stuff when it doesn’t work?
This is has a guidepoint at the center of every circle.
It’s up to you what you do with them.
You can remove all the circles and replace them manually with less segmented circles. You could use arrays and the guidepoints to do it faster. You could use a component to make it more efficient. So many options.
You could also remove all the circles, construct the rest of the geometry, then use the guides to place the rivets as the last thing.
A tip, the View menu allows you to turn the guides on and off and the Edit menu allows you to delete all the guides in one click.
I have also removed any grouping from the model as you seem to want.
Carriage Guidepoints.skp (12.9 MB)
I wish we could use x56 as well as 56x here. That way I don’t have to remember stuff like that if I type in the wrong one lol. This is for post 22 of 66 here.
You can!
There was something strange happening in SketchUp but a reinstall fixed the problem. The x works on either side of numbers now.
@Chris333 just out of interest, what 3D printer are you using? Love your work. In AutoCad you can also set the number of lines for circles. I used to crank mine up to about 1,000 there though lol.
Using a Phrozen Sonic Mini 4K. I had to stiffen up the deck and brace the Z rail to keep it from flexing. I also replaced the lead screw because I was getting stepping on vertical surfaces. So while it prints well I’m not sure I would recommend. They have done a few upgrades to it before I bought mine so may be better now.
How do you change the number of line in AutoCAD? I can change a bunch of stuff, but it doesn’t list segments. AutoCAD doesn’t seem to mind how many there are and doesn’t ever slow down or glitch.
The VIEWRES variable in Autocad only controls the number of circle and arc segments on screen. It is not saved in the DWG file. The number of segments SketchUp puts in an imported circle is hardwired in the importer settings that cannot be changed by the user.
I’m not sure it was mentioned, but sometimes (often) a circle will be exploded to edges and then it will not be possible to inference the center. It still looks like all the other circles but is just edges or line segments. The imported AutoCAD “circles” may be like this already.
So I watched a few videos and they must just be the basics because it was nothing new to me. None of them mentioned using rectangles. They did say to use groups. I have never used group at all. If I need to copy a “group” of stuff I will just pull it off to the side and select it to copy paste when needed. Same idea I guess.
Anyways where can I learn the stuff I need to know here? I mean I can’t search for it if I don’t know what it’s called. How do I select all the circles and change their segment amounts all at once? What is that called?
These circles must be connected because Sketchup shows them as 96 segments.
Here is another example of why learning and understanding the software would help you immeasurably.
I gave you the guidepoints in the earlier model and this is how you could use them with a single component to easily replace all your circles.
Understanding groups and components are fundamental to being able to work efficiently in SU.
You can see in this short gif that by using groups and components and making them solids you can easily combine them to make a single printable solid.
You can see by creating the circle component with the axis in the middle I can easily place them or array them.
Incidentally most printer software can work with multiple solids these days too.
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Well Even with that it would have been a lot to erase all my circles. What I did was change my AutoCAD drawing by making 2 layers and tracing a diamond over all the circles. This worked great in Sketchup and I got a bunch done. Later I used a rounding plug in and that slowed it down a hair. Guess that was a few more circles I should have changed. This is where it is at right now.Long Island Boxcab x48 2.skp (8.3 MB)
I did learn a bit though. But I doubt I could have made the base drawing with Sketchup. It was traced from a photograph.
At least I’m making progress.
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I have a question about the erase tool. When I run the tool over a bunch of lines to erase it doesn’t select them all unless I move the cursor very slow. Is this something I’m doing wrong or is it the program?
Many times I can’t make a box to select for erasing.
This is where grouping really helps utilizing hide rest of model.
What are the specs on your computer? Have you said before?
