I did this model with Flowify. When I explode the groups, the surface becomes wrinkled. Is there a way to prevent this?
Untitled.skp (369.0 KB)
Untitled.skp (369.0 KB)
make the âdigitsâ ring 0.001 bigger radius than the barrels, and donât explode that groupâŚ
the only other option is hand stitching or a triangulation plugin and manual smoothingâŚ
john
What about turning this into quad geometry and then using SubD?
The numbers donât look like quad geometry yet - likely need to simplify the number of facets too.
I would view ThomThomâs intro video and a YouTube video as well to get you started.
OK! I watched the videos. But I didnât understand how to make the numbers quad. 
You can improve the shading by offsetting edges to even out the shading.
Before:
After:
P.S. Iâd recommend the offsetting the face in the numbers.
How I do the offsetting the face in the numbers? Can you show it, please?
wrinkled2.skp (132.3 KB)
easier to scale before âFlowifyâ, but I donât have itâŚ
same principle, scale 1.001 biggerâŚ
john
TT quad face tools - live mesh analysis example - it is lookling like a slow process so far.
To make this practical, SU may need a new tool called quad text.
@john_drivenupthewall Yes, I know this method. However, this is an illegal method.
I agree with @GSTUDIOS. âNeed a new tool called quad textâ. Or another tool to do it.
I used TruBend recently to create curved, engraved text (starting work on a flat surface) - I didnât see any surface issues, except when the geometry broke and I had to manually edit after. I recommend working at least 10x scale - some of your geometry was very small, which could be the reason SU created geometry without even hidden lines.
Is this some kind of micrometer model you are working on - will the text have 3 dimensions?
You can also use VisuHole to carve or emboss any shape (stencil) over a surface.
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Excellent.
Any restrictions or recommendations on how small the model can be?
Itâs always better to use of reasonably large scale, and then scale it down if you need something small.
You can also use the famous Daveâs method to work on a scaled version, and have the small version automatically updated.
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In the OPâs example, new geometry (without edges) - wrinkles, are created by SU, I am assuming because the model is too small for SU to create edges. Is this also because the text faces may not be exactly on the curved surface (because they are too small) which then has to be adjusted by SU?
Here is an illustration with Daveâs method. Note that, with VisuHole, you can also assign a material to the extruded shapes.
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explain illegal???
john
Google Translate. I wanted to say that. âHowever, this is a method other than what it should be.â In my opinion, Sketchup and its plug-ins should be able to create this model as needed.
The Dave method of scaling up a component to work on is used to avoid the issue where your model is creating vertices shorter than 1/1000th of an inch which is the same level of accuracy as AutoCAD, etc. I am not sure what AutoCAD does when it runs into these issues, but it only has the same/similar level of accuracy as SketchUp.
It might be interesting if SU could build in the Dave method as an auto process.