So I am brand new to Sketchup, and I have been working on a relatively intricate design that was originally designed in Illustrator.
I exported the file to a .DWG format and imported into SU. Since retracing in SU will probably take a week at my level and won’t be as good as the Illustrator trace, I added a plugin “Make Faces” to convert the lines into flat faces.
Although the Make Face tool worked for the most part, there were several outlines that didn’t subtract from the shapes they are inset it. I uploaded a file so that it is clearer what I am talking about. I am trying to subtract the inside from the outside shape. Any help is greatly appreciated.Sketchup_forum.skp (277.4 KB)
I used TIG-Weld from Sketchucation to weld the phenomenal number of segments in each loop. After the inner loop was welded, I was able to select the inside face and delete it.
Thank you so much DaveR. After installing the extension I selected the whole shape then clicked TIG-weld, but I still couldn’t delete the inside outline. Am I missing something?
Also, yes, there are a lot of segments because I added path points in Illustrator to keep the curves smooth (they are very angled and choppy if I don’t).
Thanks again!
Weld may help but isn’t necessary.
The problem with not splitting the inner and outer face area is due to a small error with some edges in the marked area, see image, marked red.
Seeing that you are new to SketchUp, to move a vertex use the ‘Move’ tool.
With nothing selected hover over a vertex with the ‘Move’ tool. Once you see the inference “Endpoint” at the cursor press and hold down LeftMouse button and drag the selected vertex to another to let both merge into one. Let go of the LMouse button.
Contrary to Illustrator, I found out that I wasn’t able to select vertices in SU, only sides. I also noticed that if I am retracing on top of a .dwg import and was toggling between the pencil tool and the arc tool, I would lose track of where I was in terms of tracing since SU doesn’t highlight the end vertex (or maybe I am missing something).
On another note, is there a way to reduce the number of path points in SU without impacting the shape of the curves?
Don’t try to select the vertices. Just hover over them with the Move tool.
No. It doesn’t. When I’m tracing an imported image, I temporarily change the edge color to red and set Profiles to 2 or 3 to make the edges easier to see.
SketchUp approximates curves with short straight line segments. Reducing the number of points (vertices) means the edge segments must be longer and the curve will appear less smooth. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, that may not be an issue. New users often think they need huge numbers of edge segments for curves but in reality, they can usually get by with many fewer.
As an example, this ring was drawn in SketchUp.
I think it looks plenty smooth.
As you can see in the next image, I didn’t use an obscene number of segments.
