Hi All,
Would someone be kind enough to have a look at my file please. I have done this file and am wanting to get it laser cut in steel soon. It looks ok to me but if anyone has any suggestions, please tell me?
I suspect there are not enough segments in it to make it cut with smooth edges but I am a newbie with this and dont use the software enough to be proficient with it.torso resized.dwg (26.7 KB)
How about uploading the .skp file instead?
Thanks Dave, Here it is.forum file.skp (115.7 KB)
I think your suspicion about the number of segments is correct. There’s also a goofy spot where two curves pass each other below that label leader on the upper right.
Since I don’t know exactly what curves you want, I won’t try to fix it but most of those could be repaired by making sure that the curves you are drawing are tangent to each other. Some places like on the upper left, you could stand to use more segments. You might also find it useful to use an extension like BZ_Spline to draw the curves.
Hi Dave,
Thanks so much. I have only just now seen your response. Can I still change the number of segments? I just tried by typing a new number in the entity info box but it wont change the number. Am I doing something wrong?
Where do I get BZ-Spline?
If a curve is identified as an arc or circle and the number of sides is shown in a white field, you could change the number but in your model there is only one arc that I could see. Curves are fixed in number.
The Bezier Spline extension comes from Sketchucation here: SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation
Thanks Dave, appreciated.
Hi Dave,
I have finished my drawing but wonder if you could give me some advice please? I got a friend to tidy up my drawing and I was wondering if it were possible to in some way take measurements from it?
The drawing is a panel that will be laser cut in steel. I will be welding some stainless steel around the edges of it. It would be enormously helpful to be able to measure these edges so i can have the stainless steel cut to the correct length. Is it possible to measure off the drawing in some way?
My suspicion is that it is not unfortunately.
Kind Regards,
Simon.Bella6 mark.dxf (322.7 KB)
Did your friend supply the dxf file? Apparently he left some dimensions in the file. If you import it into LayOut you can see them. (The dimension arrows look odd but the text is there.) You’d need to know what units he did the drawing in, though. Or you could import it into SketchUp and LayOut and use the Dimension tool to get dimensions off it.
This is what I see when I import it into LO using inches and increase the text size.
Dave, thanks for that… I tried layout but it isn’t giving me the dimensions I am after. I have attached a jpeg which shows the dimensions I am after. I have done this before a long time ago but have forgotten how I did it. I need to have some steel cut to the exact length of these dimensions but still trying to work it out.
It appears to me that the drawing is made up of so many segments that i can only measure one tiny segment at a time. Is there any way of joining these segments with a tool or do I have to redo the drawing using bezier curves?
There’s no facility in LayOut to measure a curve. You can select the edges in SketchUp and see their total length in Entity Info, though.
Thanks Dave but the edges are made up of lots of tiny segments and it would take forever to select each one and add them up. I really need a way to be able to select them all on any given side.
In SketchUp, if you select multiple edges Entity Info will show you the total length of all the edges. If you use one of the weld extensions to connect all the edges of one side of your shape, you can select them with one click too. When I did this, I had to clean up some stray edges that were parallel to your outline and almost overlapping. Those branches in the path stopped the weld operation but helped to find the faults too.
Separate edges with area select:
Welded edges selected with one click:
