How Would You...

Way beyond me.

No clue, I will have to wait for directions.

PS It took my a half hour to recreate your router table and 45 deg bit. LOL

Looking forward to learning how to though,
Thanks in advance.

The answer to the question is out there already but I’ll wait to post the link to it.

bentlyj, would you show me your version of the router table drawing? I’d like to see it.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

I am at my shop right now, ( my computer here is Windows ME, if I remember right, I can’t download SU on this version of windows ) but am getting ready to leave, it will take about half an hour to get home, when I do post it, you got to promise not to laugh to hard, mine has a zero insert plate. lol

I won’t laugh. Promise.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

I would ask you to do it for me Dave. LOL

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

OK, here it is.

I spent most time on the router bit. I drew a circle then pulled it up. Didn’t know what to do after that. finally after messing with that for a while I drew a circle and then drew a triangle from the center up and then down to the edge, used the follow me tool and my router bit appeard. I tried to put the carbide cutter on the bit but not so much luck.

It looks good to me. I used Follow Me to make the router bit but mine is spinning so you can’t see the carbide. ;) Keep up the good work.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Zuki, that could work. ;)

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Thanks, I should have shown mine spinning also. :)
I’ll be waiting for that link, whenever you are ready, no rush.

no clue, but interested to see how this works.

-- Respect your shop tools and they will respect you - Ric

OK, that theory doesn’t work ( insert embarrased face here ) LOL

oops i did it backwards

what a pain posting photos

-- Dan, Sterling Alaska, http://sullcon.homestead.com/ Before you criticise some one, walk a mile in their shoes...then you will be a mile away and you have their shoes!

Here is how I did it

Dave..is there a way to array copy and rotate each copy at the same time?

-- Dan, Sterling Alaska, http://sullcon.homestead.com/ Before you criticise some one, walk a mile in their shoes...then you will be a mile away and you have their shoes!

Bentlyj, you’ve come up with modern art!

mics_54, good job. It’s different than the way I did it but it works.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

I’ve tried a lot of things, I think I got close stacking up rectanges above each other and drawing lines down all 4 corners and then trying to rotate the rectangles, but thats as close as I’ve been.

Here's one way. It’s slightly different than mics-54’s method.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

OK Dave, this may take a while, hopefully I will be able to post it correctly tomorrow. Thanks

In my case I use the ”Rotated Rectangle” plugin and do it with just a click and a drag. No offense whatsoever Dave but I find it easier than your method. :^)

PS: Yes, before having that plugin I did use your way, though.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin

Jojo, no offense taken. As I wrote at the beginning of that, there’s more than one way to do it.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hey Jojo, I was wondering if you would demonstrate your method for us.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

I know Dave, as well as I know that my approach is purely functional and yours is way more productive in terms of teaching the techniques. And that is what’s all about in this blog after all.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin

Here it is,

It wasn’t so bad, and for a newbie, Not perfect, I lost the lines curving around the spirals, I think when I softened the edges. Not to sure how that tool (soften edges) was supposed to work. If I had that skin plug in may have been better. I learned some new moves and got a better understanding how a few of the tools work. Thanks again, and look forward to trying new things.
( where do you find these plug in’s for the different techniques? )

I apologize Dave before I had a brain fart. This is what Sunday mornings do to my tired mind. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. :o) Or what happens when you write relying on your memory and not checking the facts.

This is a plugin I played with a longtime ago and I seldom use but when you need it it is very useful. Actually what I meant was to use the technique of drawing a square, pulling it and then turning it. Rinse and repeat. Lastly, select all, and soften coplanar. I’ve found that SU tends to smooth out the lines pretty well. Although this may very well be because I tend to work at high resolutions in my curves.

The hard part with these kind of models is to manage the amazing increase in faces and edges they generate and the consequent drop in performances they drag you with. It’s not always easy to find the balance between realism and file handling when spinning and orbiting. Any techniques to optimize this? I already draw in halves, make components and copies whenever possible and all that but still, when drawing a complex model with some curves, it quickly climbs into the tens of thousands of faces and edges. Apply realistic textures and you are in for a slow rendering.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin

Jojo, no need for apologies.

Push/Pull, turn, repeat is another method that can work, too. I can’t see your results well enough to see the detail so I can’t tell exactly what you got for results.

Softening edges: If you hold Ctrl whille running the Eraser tool over the edges, that will soften them. It’s possible to soften edges you don’t want softened so you have to watch. If you select all of the geometry and then right click on it, you can choose Soften form the context menu. Then you can adjust the slider until only the edges you want softened are.

You’ve already got most of the strategies for keeping file size down. The shape I drew here could have been broken up more. I made 90° of twist into a component and copied that. I could have made as little as 6° of twist into a component which would have greatly reduced the file size. This would create problems with the appearance though. The transistion between softened edges is much nicer than between hidden edges which is what I used at the ends of the twist component to make the twist appear continuous. Another problem you can have if you break things into too small sections is when you apply detailed materials. They don’t tend to looks so good if they repeat too often.

As far as materials are concerned, yes, if you add realistic textures that can result in even larger file sizes. Recently Wood magazine published an article on SketchUp which included a link to some wood grain materials. The images look very nice but at nearly 2Mbs each, they are killers for a SketchUp model. Put two or three of them in a model and some computers would roll over and cry uncle. My suggestion is to reduce the resolution on high res wood grain images you might find before you add them to your library.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hi, Dave.

Yeah, I usually soften either from the floating palette (Mac) or with the Opt+E if I only need to soften a few of them. After all, it’s easy enough to recover an involuntary softened once in a while. Also, if you realize your mistake before releasing the Opt key, you just hit Esc and your Erase/Soften operation gets cancelled before even executing.

I tend to reduce texture file sizes too because otherwise it becomes very hard to orbit or transition between scenes.

Now that you mention the multiple small faces effect on textures, this is something I’ve been playing with and I just can’t find the way to avoid it without repositioning each texture individually on every face. This is unrealistic in the cases you need it most, like upholstered cushions.

I’ve been struggling with that lately with a leather texture in a piano bench I’m finishing to model. I’m not entirely happy with the results but I understand the limitations. After all, SU is a free program when this kind of software tends to run into the hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin

I’ll see if I can make an illustration for you to show a way that might work on your piano bench.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Thank you Dave.

Actually, I’ve got the design nailed down but I can’t find a way to apply the texture so it looks smooth and with continuity throughout all the surfaces of a big radius upholstered curve. I just sent you a screenshot by mail but don’t sweat over it. It’s not that important.

-- Jojo, shopless in Kyoto · http://twitter.com/kagushokunin

Gawd do I need to go through all the SU tutorials and your blogs for a good solid month again. I’m making SU headway but some of this stuff is just slightly less unintelligible to me than Ancient Sanskrit. Keep on posting this stuff. One of these days the big lightbulb will click on.:-)

-- Use the fence Luke

Hi Dave, I got everything done, except for being able to erase the seams. Every time I erase a line a section of the drawing disappears. Can you clarify the procedure? I have tried saving the sections as components and as a group and still can not resolve this. I will have this done if I can get rid of the seams. John

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

Doug, get busy. ;)

John, use component, not groups. When you’re ready to deal with the seam lines between components, open one of them for editing. Then hold Shift while clicking on the seam lines with the Eraser tool. Report back with your results.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave, When I use the shift erase function it says I am erasing extrusion. I have not extruded anything. I have tried components and still get the same results. A section of the drawing just disappears. I will work on it some more this evening.

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

John, try it on a separate bit of geometry. Just make a rectangle and pull it up into a box with Push/Pull. Then try hiding the edges with the Eraser tool. Make sure you are holding the Shift key while clicking with the Eraser.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave, It works great if the box is not a component or group. It disappears if I make it a component and then try to do any erasing. I am using Sketchup 7 free version. I am now also downloading a lot of plugins. So far, I have not experienced any problems with the plugins other than not being able to get Rotated Rectangle tool to work. I may have to re-load it from another site.

I appreciate your help, John

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

John, if the component or group is disappearing when you hit it with the Eraser tool, it must not be open for editing. This is not a version dependent thing and has operated this way since before version 3.

I would caution you against downloading a lot of plugins. There are a lot that will not be all that useful and they increase the time it takes SketchUp to load.

I think you’re expecting a behavior the Rotated Rectangle plugin doesn’t do.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave, I will be careful about the plugins. So far I have not seen any slowdowns. I have a very fast computer. I had it made to handle heavy graphics programs. I can always add more RAM if needed.

I will look into the component edit issue. Thanks for the tips and help.

I recently loaded the Rotate Rectangle plugin and haven’t gotten any info as to how to use it. I guess I am rushing a bit on these tools being that I am new to Sketchup . I have lots of Autocad experience.

John

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

Lots of AutoCAD experience may not be a big help. There are many things, layers are a good example, that are handle quite differently in SketchUp than in AutoCAD.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

You are right about that. Sketchup is fun and enjoyable. Hope to have it under control by the end of next month.

The fact the I made the original part a component is what locked it up. Thanks much for finding that.

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

hmm Dave I have been using ctrl/erase to eliminate lines. What is John trying to do? Sometimes erase deletes the face so I ctrl/z to get it back then hold the ctrl key while using the eraser. Seems to work for me.. is he using shift on a Mac?

-- Dan, Sterling Alaska, http://sullcon.homestead.com/ Before you criticise some one, walk a mile in their shoes...then you will be a mile away and you have their shoes!

mics, he had nested a component inside another component or group. I can’t remember which right now. He wasn’t drilling in deep enough to get to the edges that needed to be hidden.

By the way, if you are holding Ctrl, you are softening the edges not hiding them. Shift plus the Eraser is for Hide on a PC. To see the difference, make two simple boxes. Then go around one with Ctrl+Eraser and the other with Shift+Eraser.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Got this pretty quickly, but the pad foot thing I spent two hours on and couldn’t phathom WTH was going on.
How do you create a ball shape in SU ?

-- JMP

Emeralds, that’s pretty interesting there. Good work.

So, you just want a sphere? Try this.

A circle on the ground plane. Its edge is the path for Follow Me. A circle above the first and on the first’s axis is the Follow Me profile.

Select the edge of the lower circle. get the Follow Me tool. Click on the face of the upper circle.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hi Dave:

I met with partial success as you can see but I can’t figure what I did wrong or differently that caused me to get a different result, i.e. the open end on my sphere?

The eventual aim of course is to be able to create curved surfaces like your pad foot or more specifically a Griffins Claw Foot detail I want to incorporate in a pedestal design.

Thanks for the help. :)

-- JMP

Too small. The holes at the top and bottom are due to SketchUp’s inability to fill tiny faces. Turn on Hidden Geometry and envision where the lines go toward the north pole. The solution is to draw the sphere larger and then scale it down. For what you are trying to draw, you could probably also get away with a lower segment count for both circles. Little of the sphere will show when complete and I doubt the larger faces would be a problem.

By the way, the blue face indicates the sphere is inside out. Don’t forget to correct that before you move on.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Dave:

Again I’ve looked around, searched the help and can’t find any references that refer to inverting a model. So I now have two more questions. First, why is the sphere inside out? Second, how do I go about correcting it?
BTW, TYVM for this blog series and the help you provide. Although learning SU has been a bit tedious the difference it has made in my projects (far fewer mistakes and less trial and error: I just make changes virtually to visualize instead of having to mock-up everything: a lot less wasted MDF too! :) is well worth the effort.

Joe

-- JMP

Joe,

Select the reversed face, right click and choose Reverse Faces. SketchUp is a hollow modler and thus faces have a front and a back face.

The reason back faces are out varies depending upon what was done but in the case of Follow Me, it typically comes from clicking on the back face with the Follow Me tool. It’s not really a big deal because it is easy to correct but you should stay on top of it and correct them as they occur.

Glad you are finding this stuff useful.

Dave

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Ok… I got it… Right clicking on the selected object finally revealed the “REVERSE OBJECT” command and that worked. The “help in SK” (which forgive me for saying so is often less than helpful) gave the “scale tool” solution but when I tried it, selecting all, scaling a bit and then typing in a NEG value, it didn’t work for whatever reason. I’m sure its me but it didn’t produce what I expected which the pull down did accomplish.

Now, you mentioned getting rid of some facets. Smoothing didn’t do much so what do you suggest here?

PS… One more while I’m on a roll …. Would this method be effective at making a COVE ? This has been another problem.. ..

Thanks again.

-- JMP

The thing about Scale and entering -1 has nothing to do with reversing faces. That’s a way to create a mirrored component but doesn’t do anything for face alignment.

I mentioned scaling to bring the sphere down to the desired size. Assuming you started with larger circles to make the sphere, you would scale down after Follow Me. If you wanted the sphere to have a 2” diameter, you could start with a circle for the profile with a 10” radius. the radius of the path circle is unimportant as long as it is centered under the profile circle. After running Follow Me and correcting face orientation if needed, select the sphere and get the Scale tool. Hold Ctrl while hovering over a corner scale handle. Click on that handle and start pushing toward the center of the sphere. Once you start making the sphere smaller, let go of the mouse and then the Ctrl key. Type .1 Enter. the sphere should now be 2” in diameter

When I talked about reducing the segment counts for the the circles, it was to reduce the number of faces used to create the sphere. Up close, the sphere may not look so good but since it is going to be part of a larger piece—a leg—it won’t be noticeable. You can prove this to yourself by drawing a simple leg blank to the final height of the leg. Make the sphere a component first so you don’t end up modifying it. Put the leg blank and the sphere together about like they’d be in the finished leg and zoom back so you can see the whole thing.

I guess the problem with help files for almost anything is you have to know the proper terms to be able to effectively search. It’s a bit like using the dictionary to look up a word you don’t know how to spell. I actually think the SketchUp help files are quite good.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Making a cove? In what?

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

The middle shelf on this piece that will hold the various electronic components, cable box, DVR, stereo tuner etc will actually have a cove which is depicted here as a straight 27º angle.

-- JMP

Ah, I see.Well, it kind of depends upon how you drew that shelf.

Send me your SKP model and I’ll show you more easily.

I’ll pm you my e-mail addy.

-- Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can walk.

Hi Dave:

I got it and thanks to your help with the follow me tool it turned out to be much easier than I was making it.

Cheers
Joe

-- JMP