HI,
I’m running 2016 sketchup pro.
I frequently lay out industrial platforms with either expanded metal or bar grating.
recently downloaded some bar grating from warehouse, quite awkward, not to scale, not able to stretch very well
typically use 1-1/4" x 3/16". nothing magic about that, but want something that resembles bar grating.
Are there things like that available via paint bucket or other vendor that one can “color” the surface with grating, or expanded metal, or other?
You might be able to find PNG images of the sort of metal racking you need or you could make them so the background is transparent and use that for a texture to apply to faces in your model. Here’s an expanded metal image I found in a quick image search.
This is definitely the way I’d do it as well, using a PNG Image as a texture rather than a 3D object, especially on large areas.
I’m in the process of doing the same with netting, the kind used for tennis and cricket nets. Just needing to find more netting at the moment, but it definitely works well.
Grates come in standard lengths usually, I think I would just model it since I’d be doing the frame and supports anyway. It takes about a minute to model a grate panel.metal grate.skp (440.1 KB)
Is there a PNG image out there that could be used as a 2d image to “paint the surface? Can I make a 2D image to do that with? I think that would be a time saver when all I’m trying to indicate is a walk surface, not a detailed design.
There are Perforated PNGs out there, and here is a link showing some examples. There are more though.
It is fairly easy to make one, like the one @DaveR showed. In an image editor, such as Photoshop, and using the example above, it is just a case of deleting all the white spaces, and then saving as a PNG format file.
