In “Terrain and Grading”, the “Hardscape Grading” section, right in the beginning, there are lines drawn that are then connected with the arc tool to create the slope in the walkway… I cannot get the arc tool to snap to the center line. Does that make sense? I start the arc at the corner of the walk, drag to the 6" high line, but it misses the middle line even if I am on it with the cursor.
I understand that there are other ways to accomplish the walk slope, but I am hoping you can help me solve this because I foresee future issues.
Thanks for creating this space for tutorial hang ups, Tyson. I appreciate it.
Ya, I understand the part you are asking about. One thing to clarify, when Eric shows this, he does use the center line to ‘snap’ to, but in my experience, it’s close, but not exactly to the vertical edge.
I’ve found that it works best when you are able to identify the original arcs, and use the endpoints of each arc, and the center of the arc. It still ~sorta works if you aren’t using the ends and center, but the result will be a bit off in alignment.
Ultimately, it’s not a perfect method, but it creates a close approximation that you can select to use in creating a mesh with ‘From Contours’ or ‘Soap Bubble’.
Sorry if this is confusing, but ultimately, I’d suggest if your results are pretty close and useable, that’s what you’d expect using this method.
Thanks @TysonK Tyson for trying to help troubleshoot. @Zagg22 - The idea isn’t to spend a ton of time getting everything to snap perfectly - given that the arc for the slope is longer than the flat arc as it travels ‘uphill’. So that means the center snap point is, as Tyson said, more of a guide rather than exact. Feel free to post that part of your model if you’re still stuck so I can use your linework to show how it will still work to create that sloped face. Thanks for posting the question as we’re always looking for new and better ways to explain these complex tasks.
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I moved through to the next step and everything worked out. I understand that the means justify the end and I’m fine with that. I couldn’t tell from the tutorial whether your lines connected or not, but I wanted to be sure that if it was necessary that I knew the process or setting required. Thank you!
In “Terrain and Grading: 3. Hardscape Grading” at the 1:00m mark, the instructor begins drawing vertical lines at certain lengths on the face of the first sidewalk. What math or trick is he using to know how long those lines should be to make evenly curved and sloped bounds with the arc tool? The instructor asks the leaner to finish the rest of the walks by themselves, save one, and it would be nice to know the nitty-gritty details. I like those…
Hi @LinearGraphs - See the marked up screen shot of the grading plan below for clarification. The goal is to locate the center and end points of each arc (shown in yellow)…and then see where they approximately hit or touch the grading plan so you know how high to draw each line. For this example, there are two arcs making up this sloped curved walkway. The first arc ends roughly halfway between 384 and 385 contour lines, thus 6" for the height at that end and 3" for the center point. The second arc’s midpoint hits about at the 385 countour so that line should be 1’ tall and it’s end point hits just shy of 385.25 so it’s height is 1.25’.
Grading is tricky, whether it’s done in 2D or 3D. I hope this explanation helps.
Please let me know if you have any other questions and if you want to just pop in the finished hardscape grading and go from there, see attached SU model.
Cheers. SU4Landscape_Grading.skp (5.6 MB)
Thanks for the detailed explanation! I was able to finish the hardascape and the the terrain bubbles. I’m not used to seeing or working with grade contours, so I just winged it.
I work in residential, designing and building custom homes, decks, pole barns, remodels and other things. I build it in SketchUp with a brother, then we go out and build it. It’s neat to be a part of building in real life what was built on the computer!
No problem. Glad to hear you were able to continue on with the learning content. Agreed it’s rewarding process to go from: idea to sketch to 3D model to (hopefully) built space you can stand in.
I’m having the same issue with the benches in SketchUp 2022 desktop version. Went to try and reinstall DropGC but it says its incompatible with my version? Anyone have an alternative?
Are you logged in to Campus? And enrolled in the course? Are you getting any error messages. What other information can you provide to help us diagnose the issue? Thanks.
