What would be the way to draw a fence with a wire mesh with 1/8" diameter wire spaced 2" apart?
The fence is 4’ in height with posts spaced at 6’.
I know that I can draw every wire, but there should be a more efficient way to do it.
Thank you.
Chris
The sensible way would be to use a texture with transparency (a .png image file) so that you don’t bloat the file. Modeling it with edges and faces will add a huge amount of geometry to the model and likely cause your computer to choke.
Here’s a 6 ft by 4 ft fence panel component with the natively supplied chain link fence texture applied to it.
Fence Panel.skp (109.6 KB)
And here’s 100 of those fence panels.
100 Fence Panel.skp (121.2 KB)
Negligble imact on file size.
2 Likes
Thank you Dave!!!
Texture with transparency is what I was trying to remember. I saw a tutorial about it a few years ago.
For instance, the attached jpg is what I will use, but the area is bigger than the jpg and the mesh is 2"x2". What do I do next?
Thank you.
Chris
I would start with one that doesn’t have the text or edit it to remove the text if you have rights to use it. Ideally you would start with one that is a PNG with transparent background. If you must use this image, edit it to remove the white background and make it transparent. You’ll also need to crop it a bit so it ends with a wire, not a space at the right and bottom edges. Save it as a .png file which you can then import into SketchUp as a texture. There’s 19 squares across the width so you would make that texture 38 inches wide.
I guess if I were doing this I would make a simple model in SketchUp, export a parallel projection scene as a .png with a transparent background, crop it as needed, and then import that. Doing it all myself means I don’t need to worry about copyrights and I can make exactly what I need.
This is a quickie and probably not exactly what you want. I made a simple grid of cylinders on 2 inch centers. I cut the outer ones in half length wise so my seam line for the texture runs down the middle of the wire. I exported a PNG file with the Camera set to Parallel Projection and the standard top view. In the image editor I cropped the excess pixels out leaving just the square of my grid lines. This I saved.
In SketchUp I created a 6 in. square and then used File>Import to import the image as a texture and applied it to that square. I’ve enlarged the square to 12 x 12 here.
Hi Dave,
I am halfway down.
I drew in SU the 1/4" diameter wires separated 2" on center.
See the attached png.
- How do I make the background transparent?
- How do I make the space between wires 2"x2"?
- How do I hide or make the joint disappear?
Thank you!!!
Chris
When you export the image you need to export it as a .png file and in the Export Options you need to tick the box for transparen’t background.
Well, as I wrote, I modeled the original wires on 2 inch centers and to cover a 6 inch. square. When I imported the image as a texture, I applied it to a 6 inch square face so it was automatically sized so the “wires” are 2 in. on center.
I exported the image with Edges and Profiles turned off so there are only faces and no edges around the perimeter. This is done by editing the style.
Hi Dave,
I made it. Thanks a lot!!! See the attached drawing.
But I didn’t understand the part for importing the png on a 6" square. I couldn’t make the 2" mesh.
So I imported the png on the actual frame size between the posts and just eyeballed it to make it just about a 2" mesh.
I would like to learn this correctly. If it is ok, could you explain this part to me? I love SketchUp and want to keep learning.
Thank you again Dave!!!
Chris
Since I made my texture to cover a 6in. by 6 in. area, I drew a 6 in. square, then imported the texture image and applied it directly to that face. That results in the texture being correctly sized when used on whatever surface you apply it to.
With the material added In Model it’s a simple matter of applying it to the desired face without any need to adjust the dimensions. Here I’ve drawn a 48 x 36 in. rectangle and applied the texture to it.
I am getting frustrated. What am I doing wrong?
Look what I get when I import the png on a 6x6 rectangle.
I am attaching here the skp and png files.
Thank you Dave!!!
Chris
Dave.skp (4.2 MB)
You neglected to follow all of what I did. In this case:
Your image is still the full exported image size. This is in the image editor.
If you cropped it as I described it would look like this:
Here, after cropping your image and removing your existing attempts at creating the material, I’m importing the square texture image and applying it to a 6 in. square face. Then applying it to the fence panels.
Dave done.skp (4.0 MB)
Here’s the model with the correct material added to it. I moved your model close to the origin just to make showing this process easier so you can repeat it with your model. By the way, I note incorrect tag usage. Untagged should be left active at all times.
You have Roof Right Side active in your model.
I opened the png with Paint 3D and cropped all the excess pixels.
I imported the png on the 6x6 square and I got this crooked grid. Does it have to do with the square’s axes?
Then I rotated the 6x6 square to align it with the 2x2 grid and it worked, even when I applied it to the fence panels using the sample paint.
Thank you Dave!!!
I hope Aaron can make a tutorial about this subject.
Did you make the square a group or component? You do have the axes out of normal alignment in your model. You should reset the axes before you do this.
No, I didn’t make the square a group or component. I guess that was the problem. Wasn’t it?
This is the first time that I have done this task, and I haven’t used SketchUp for a few months. I have been checking Aaron tutorials, but it differs from doing it.
Could you please tell Aaron to make a tutorial about this subject?
Thank you Dave!!!
The square should not be a group or component when you are importing the material. If it was, you would need to open the group/component for editing before importing the material.
I can ask Aaron but so can you.
Thanks a lot for your teaching and patience Dave!!!
I am thrilled, my 78 years old brain has learned something new. Yes, I am still working on my own.
Chris
