Volumes of revolution

I am a high school calculus teacher. For years I’ve done a project with my students where, in Sketchup Make 2017, they create a closed region using mathematical functions and then rotate the region around the x-axis to form a solid. Then I’d print it out and hand it to them. To input mathematical functions I had them use UV Polygen, a Ruby plugin. The rotation was achieved using the Follow-me tool.

I now see that Sketchup Make 2017 is dead and that Sketchup for Schools cannot use plugins. I have not experimented much with the new Web-based environment but cannot figure out how to plot functions. I have tracked down Follow-me.

Is there any way to plot 2D or 3D functions in browser-based SketchUp?

There isn’t a direct way to do what you are after in the web-based SketchUp versions. I believe SketchUp for Schools can import .dxf files. I would expect there’s some application that could generate the shape from your functions and create a .dxf file. You might look at Desmos for that.

If you still have SU Make 2017 installed in a system that can run it, you can still use it, but they no longer provide installers for 2017 if you need to install it again. I had a similar issue using Make 2017 to teach Match Photo because SU for Schools doesn’t do that either. You can use a trial copy of the current SU Pro, but that only gives you, what 30 days before it expires?

Thank you Dave and RT.
I got the install file off of another computer and just installed SU Make on a new school machine. So, I’m back in business for a few more years.

Will pursue Dave’s suggestion since they design their region in Desmos already. Might be perfect.

I did find a way to do the project in Geogebra but it’s pretty clumsy.

Again, Thank you for your responses.

Zach

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