What’s the smart way to do this?
I need the upper surface on this model.
Curviloft will make quick work of that. You can get it from Sketchucation. Alternatively, Extrude Edges by Rails in TIG’s Extrude Tools, also from Sketchucation.
Thanks Dave.
I’m trying to learn SKP and probably should be trying to do things natively, but plugins (like the Fredo Corner you suggested) make things so darn easy…
I agree that you should learn to use the native tools well but for some things, extensions are the way to go. For a surface like the one you wind up with here. you would have to figure out where all the vertices need to be, construct them and then connect them with edges to create all those triangles.
You could copy an end curve 12 times and scale each curve in the blue direction followed by stitching the vertices together to create the triangles but even figuring out how much to scale the curves would be a challenge.
I guess if you know the curved surface is part of a sphere or other shape you could model that shape and then cut out part of that surface.
Don’t stop learning how to use the native tools, though.
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While you’re here, I notice you have a bunch of extensions in your SKP. Care to list your favorites / ones you use the most?
I made this while you were typing. Sphere and box are solid object. Subtract the sphere from the box.
Most used extensions I use in order of the ones on my toolbars.
FredoCorner, Round Corner, FredoSpline, Bezier Spline, Curviloft, Solid Inspector2, Eneorth Upright Extruder, Eneroth Auto Weld (this one gets used a lot) Eneroth Solid Tools, Bool Tools 2. There are more but those come to mind. They have their place for the kinds of things I model but may not all be tools you need. Think of them all as tools like you might have in your shop. If you are a metal worker a tablesaw might not be all that useful. My advice is don’t clutter your shop with tools you don’t need. Add them when you find a need for them. Also don’t be one of those guys who fills his shop with all the shiny tools he sees but never does any work in there. 
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Done with the Sandbox from Contours tool. Works, although the surface is not as beautiful as with Curviloft.
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Fantastic analogy when it comes to software.
I’m pretty sure the 5x12, 24 hp, 5-axis CNC (thus the reason for learning SKP) that gets delivered in a couple weeks counts as a shiny tool, but we’d better be using the ^^^^ out of it to pay for it!
…and also, is it your job to teach skp? Where did the elite skills come from?
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Thank you.
A 5-axis CNC? I’m envious.What’re you going to make with it?
I’ve been teaching SketchUp for 15 years or more although I’ve never really considered it a job. As for the skills (thank you!), they’ve come by doing. Lots of models done over the years both commercially and for my own projects. If you’re bored and want to see examples of some of the models I’ve made, there’s a link in my profile.
Fantastic work Dave.
Perhaps in the future we could work together.
Our stuff is much simpler than your models on flickr.
We will be using the CNC for nesting cabinets (relatively simple, common stuff done on 3-axis), but the reason for the 5-axis is because we are trying to get to the point where we can have the machine help us create sloped and curved sink basins, shower pans, and other solid surface (think Corian) pieces as well as create the molds for thermo-forming (heating for pliability) solid surface.
Most solid surface constructions we currently see have square interior corners (that are difficult to clean because they shed water poorly), but we want to be able to offer pieces that have fully coved (radiused/chamfered) interior edges.
Coving and applying radii on exterior edges is easy enough, but doing the same thing on complex interior corners is pretty difficult to achieve.
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Sounds like cool stuff. Drop me a PM sometime if you think there’s something I could help with.
Once this curved surface is completed, is there no way to do further operations on it? For example, solid element operations generate an error and attempting to push/pull a rectangle through from the bottom will not generate delete-able geometry. Additionally, it’s not possible to chamfer the edges of the curve (with FredoCorner, for example).
Is this a limitation due to the way in which the geometry is generated?
Very likely you are running into limitations due to tiny faces/short edges. SketchUp, being primarily an architectural modeling application doesn’t handle very short edges. An option for dealing with it is to work at a larger scale–maybe 100x or 1000x. I usually use 1000x when I need to model small detail. One option is to make a component of the object and then copy the component, scale the copy up and add the detail. Then exit the component edit mode and delete the giant copy. If you search the forum for “The Dave Method” you’ll find a tutorial by Box that shows the process.
By the way, Curviloft and Extrude Tools create a group of the crved surface. Before you can use the Solid Tools you need to explode the group and combine that geometry with the rest of the box into a component so that it’ll be considered a solid.
Here’s a quick video using the Dave Method and Round Corner to add a chamfer to your shape.
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BTW, I would suggest that you you set the units to something appropriate for the work you are doing. Likely you’ll want Decimal Inches or Millimeters. Set Display Precision higher than you really need so you can see small excursion in dimensions. 1/16 in. is great if you’re working with a chainsaw. With a CNC machine, probably not appropriate. Also turn off Length Snapping. That tends to get in the way of precise modeling.
Here’s how your model is set up.
Set as I suggest.
Note, you don’t have to display dimensions to six places. Every place to the right of the decimal adds dollar signs. But for modeling I think it’s better to be able to see “errors” so you can deal with them early on. If you need to make dimensioned shop drawings you’ll do that in LayOut and set the display precision for dimensions there as is suitable for the work.
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