Tracing movement of dynamic components

SketchUp Dynamic Components
1

Is it possible to trace movement of a dynamic component? I’ve drawn a telescope and mount that move with 2 degrees of motion and I’d like to trace the movement as the dynamic components rotate (I have the rotation working). I’d like to model the full range of motion for each of the degrees of freedom to work out the minimum size of building required to facilitate both rotation motions.

Thanks in advance

Matt

2

You could draw two arcs, make a face on one and use the follow me tool to make a 3d solid that would contain the movements of the telescope.

telescope
telescope800×600 353 KB

I know this is simplified, but you could maybe do it two or three times choosing different extremities of the telescope and do an outer shell of them all to find the building size.

3

Thanks for the suggestion. Pretty new to sketchup so good to learn these tips! I’ll have a play. The challenge I haev is visualising what the answer might look like! second rotation is around the first so I dont know what the output should look like (might just be a dome!).

Here’s my model Animated NEQ6 and Orion Optic CT10 | 3D Warehouse

4

Thanks for your sugestion, I’ll have a play. The telescope’s motion rotates one around the other which means it’s hard to visualise the output (and hence difficult to sense check).

My model is here if anyone wants to look. The dynamic components should alow rotation of the scope about two axis

5

Another way would be to make radial copies. I gave the scope a range of movement of 360° and made radial copies every 30°.

scope-rotate
scope-rotate668×898 121 KB

Then I copied all of those in the movement of the mount from -90° to +90°, also in 30° increments to get this shape.

mount-rotate
mount-rotate607×857 145 KB

Your axes should be set so that the mounting pole attached to the ground has the z-axis (blue) running up through it.

neq6-gmskp.skp (1.8 MB)

6

Awesome this is exactly what I was thinking! Some of the orientations pointing to the ground won’t be used so I might try to get my head around the combinations I do need.

Regards the blue axis it’s 42degrees (my latitude) from the other axis which are physical constraints of the system so I don’t think I can align with vertical.

Thanks so much

Matt