Are there any special tools or plugins that would help me generate this sort of thing more easily? I will need to 3D print it so presumably it will need to be ‘Solid’ when I finish.
Background
First I tried using extrusions of circle down paths…
Then I tried using the Follow Me tool to remove volume off a square cross section (see below). But both methods are extremely painful, because Sketchup it keeps going wrong in many different ways…
various error message about the path - (yes, even when the path it’s following is derived from a very simple circle).
What I am trying to do is conceptually quite simple!
a) most of the thing needs to be rounded (to the same radius)
b) I need corners in the overall Silhouette/outline of to match given radiuses (radii).
In particular, was there something clever about the way you created the initial 2D shape? (Which I assume you then extruded using the Push-Pull tool, and then did the follow me tool on, like Cotty says, yes) Do all the rounded corners have the EXACT same radius - if so how does one do that? Do you use the Tape Measure tool each time and then the “2 point arc” tool, and then double-clicking when you get the magenta “Tangent to Edge”?
Yes, I can of course build all that stuff but, when I do it I definitely get errors downstream when I use the follow me tool round on an extrusion. Or are you using the Offset tool in some way? Maybe the fact that I increased the number of sides of the original 2 circles (from 24 to 48) is getting me into trouble.
Likewise, are you drawing all the lines or using shapes (circles + rectangles) which you then join up?
Cotty did you find no errors too? And where you able to create as solid at the first attempt?
Or maybe I’ve been generating my shape to cut with using the Follow Me tool incorrectly in some way?? (For one thing I was only doing one quarter at a time, which now seems like a mistake…). Fwiw, I have been trying to work at large scale in whole meters (EDIT: actually I have some 0.5 meters - could that be source of errors??), - with a plan to shrink by x1000 before export for 3D printing - could that have been a mistake??
I must have been doing something badly wrong… [sigh!]
P.S. In particular how do I get my correct standard radius into a shallow corner - e.g. onto a circle:
Instead of the subtraction method you can create the round parts too and
combine them afterwards with some lines…
Yes, my main problem with adding rather than subtracting is that the rectangular bit in the middle was hard to fill in exactly right. Either way I also got lots of errors! I think I am doing something wrong when build the initial outline… (see above)
Btw, is there any quick way to move things around by standard distances without typing the distance in each time.
(e.g. in my 2D illustration software - Xara - I can move by hitting select then using an arrow key - optionally with control or shift or Alt - each of which have different sizes of effect. I find it incredibly useful to move something off say five units to the left and then five units back again later and it will be exactly where I had it before. It’s quicker than Sketchup where it seem you need to select with mouse, hit m for move, then using mouse to find the correct direction and then typing in the amount and then doing the same thing in reverse. Fwiw, In Xara the movement distance depends on either grid size or how zoomed in you are depending what other modifier keys are being held down. )
OK thanks I can now get the array paste work (although it sometimes likes to paste in dotted lines instead of real lines).
However I am now seriously starting to lose patience with Sketchup:
A) I still cant get the “2 Point Arc” tool to go magenta and snap to say “Tangent To Edge”
B) Even if I could, it seems fiddly and still feels like a LOT of steps. Isn’t there a better plugin tool out there somewhere?
C) Or can’t one just do it with circles (with a very high number of sides) in some way?
The problem with using circle is that it seems to be impossible to get them to snap into position correctly.
you should see how we used to have to do this sort of thing…
I’m NOT doing a demo for that as it’s way to complex…
are you using the inference repeat function?
THO, I’m not sure what that is nor how I would use it.
But don’t worrym I am resigned to just guessing / ‘bodging’ the outline radii. If I can get a “Tangent to Edge” all is good and the Follow Me tools will work.
