Anyone Up For a Challenge?

Dave,
I tried it, but I’m missing some step. I wasn’t able to recreate the figure.
D.

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

I’ll try tonight. Looks like you extruded the shape and then scaled the far end, I can’t tell if you followed a curve to start.

Can you tell me how to get text to go around a cylinder?? ( maybe a tutorial down the road sometime if you have time ) I’m trying to draw a soda can, ( just for practice ) but got stumped when I got to the text.

I’ll let folks mull over the challenge and work up something on the text. How are you making the text?

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

I am just selecting the text tool, writing the words, and then moving it into position.

I AM missing something!

d

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

I’m sorry don, I highjacked the thread. I was asking Dave about something else I’m working on.

Maybe we can start a different thread on text,
Sorry

donbee, bentlyj was asking about something completely different. not referring to the photo Dave posted for this post…

why the bold text all the time (just curious)?

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Ah, I see. Well, with the 3D Text tool, that’s probably the best you can do. Of course you need to rotate each letter to align. You might try this:

Create the label separately. Maybe you’ll do it in SketchUp or in some other program. Make a JPG or PNG file of it. If you do this in SketchUp, make the letters without any extrusion and lay everything out flat. Use Parallel Projection and set the view so it is straight on. Then do a 2D export of it.

Next, draw a rectangle that is sized to match the label area on the can. Make it a vertical and place it in front of the can. It’s easiest if you center the rectangle left to right on a line drawn through the can. In the Z direction, place the rectangle so the top and bottom edges line up with top and bottom limits of the label on the can. Import the JPG as a texture and apply it to the rectangle. Then get the eye dropper from the Materials browser. Sample the texture from the rectangle and click on the can to apply it there. If you had everything lined up, you should have a label on a can.

If that doesn’t make sense, I’ll try to get an example banged out this evening.

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

Ahh, I think I understand. I will experiment tonight and let you know how it turned out, thanks.

Purplev,
I guess its just my age. To my old eyes its just easier to read.
d

-- If a man says something in the forest and there's no woman to hear it, is he still wrong?

bentlyj perhaps this might be what you are looking for

http://www.sketchucation.com/creating-3d-text-on-a-cylinder-in-google-sketchup/

-- criticism: the art of analyzing and evaluating the quality of a artistic work...

I think I already mentioned that to Bently before suggesting an alternative option.

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

I think I had everything but the scaliing done within a couple minutes of your posting this earlier. But I think I need to review the online help on the scaling tool. Ever since doing the latest upgrade I now get 3 different scaling boxes surrounding the selected area and I’m, not sure how to work the tool. Is that new behaviour or just something I never ran into on the earlier versions?

-- Use the fence Luke

Doug, could you either post or e-mail a screen shot to me showing what you see with the Scale tool?

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

Maybe we need something a little more woodworking-related as a subject. How about a small drawer pull?

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

Thanks for the link jlsmith.
.
.
.

Almost…..... It looks ok from this angle but look at the back side and there is no face. :>0

I will be following for the detailed explanation. :)
parabolic arc..???? mumble grumble mumble…..........

Here is my try at the pull above.

I know I did something wrong, because I have some areas that don’t have a face. You can see two small spots on the bottom edge. If you zoom in on the spots, you can see the inside of the pull.

I second bentlyj. I will be following the detailed explanation of the first object and pull.

DaveR – Thanks for taking the time to put together these blogs. I have learned a lot from them.

-- - Jim, Vancouver,WA

Took 3 different attempts starting over each time to get this.

Ended up making in 1 half, then copied and turned copy around.

Close guys.

Jim, the little gaps are common when you have lines forming very tiny ‘faces’. Actually when they get very tiny SU doesn’t fill them in. There are two ways to avoid those gaps. One is to reduce the segment counts in curves so that those faces end up being larger. the other is to Scale up so that those area are large enough to fill. Once they are filled in, scale down. They’ll remain filled.

On my version of the pull the ends have a small bevel on them. It’s subtle but notice the points in the top view and the darker lines at the top of the front view. I suppose I should have used a raking sun angle to show that better.

So how did you guys do it?

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

I fumbled with it for an hour last night and gave, I am now just waiting on an answer…

-- //FC - Round Rock, TX - "Experience is what you get just after you need it"

Here’s how I attempted it, ( if I can remember )
I started with a block, (making only 1 half), I drew an arc on the top, used the push pull tool to remove the outside of the arc. Rotated to the bottom and moved the bottom line in to create the angled sides. Rotated the top arc line down to make the top curve down. Panned to the end and drew the top profile then used the follow me to create the top. Drew a rectangle plane, merged the plane into the model to intersect and trim off everything hanging over past the middle of the handle. copied to make the second half. Turned it around and moved to make the handle. I know this doesn’t make much sense, but it’s hard for me to explain it without being able to use my hands to show you. :-)

I thought the ends had a little curve to them, but I couldn’t think of a way to draw them.

Thanks for the tip on the number of segments for the curve.

I used a technique that you described in one of your Design. Click. Build. blogs.

Here is how I did it.
- I started with a box with the profiles drawn on the three sides.
- Copied all three profiles into space outside the box.
- Copied the top curve to the center of the top face, so I could you that curve as the path for the follow me tool using the side profile.
- Used the push/pull to extend the copied front profile though the box. Then I used the interest tool to create the corrected surfaces of the pull. Then I erased all the extra surfaces.
- Then I did the same thing with the top profile as the front profile.

It seemed to work, but I didn’t know how to make the end curved.

I’m still taking to think of a way to make the front object.

-- - Jim, Vancouver,WA

Dave,

Are you going to post a solution to this challenge? Still scratching my head.

-- //FC - Round Rock, TX - "Experience is what you get just after you need it"

i’m getting close to it but not quite excatly there yet.

-- Dominique Barbier - Dallas, TX

Here’s a close up of my ends. I caught the small bevel, just didn’t show very good in my pic. :)
I turned off the texture for this close up.

Good work Bently. Check your e-mail.

We’ll let a few more folks work on it for a bit before I post my method. ;) Dom’s getting close.

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

Thanks,
I can’t wait to see how hard of a job I made it out to be.

i’m pretty sure i know how you did it (scaled before placing then skinning later) but here’s another variation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emP4gsjMWtM

this took around 5 minutes so i’m interested to see the faster version. my sizing is off compared to the challenge guidelines (ended up being 20% instead of 10) and i’m not sure if i’m using the right type of curve (i just guessed one with fredo’s classic bezier curve)..

Hi Jeff, Welcome to Lumberjocks. How’d you find this challenge?

Yes, I did scale before skinning and so was able to skip the placing of the the rectangles and the Intersect operations.

I drew a Bezier curve for the “path” and then placed the profile I drew using Chris’s Perpendicular Face plugin at each node on the curve. I scaled each face individually to 10% smaller than the previous one. Then all of the faces were exploded and skinned with the Skin plugin.

The pull was done in a simliar fashion although I only drew half of the profile of the pull. I also only drew half the length of the pull so I ended up with a component that made up one quarter of the pull. Copy and flip made the rest of the pull. The faces were placed along a Bezier curve drawn on the groound plane. There are two scaling steps. One vertically to the heights of nodes on a Bezier curve drawn on a vertical plane and then a second to get the centerline of each profile face to lie on the centerline of the pull. Then all were exploded and the skinning operation performed. To get the angled ends, I rotated the end face outward 5° before skinning.

Note that before skinning I deleted the faces of the profiles. I only retained the edges. This allowed for a smooth surface rather than a facetted appearance.

What would we do without Fredo and the rest?

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

i was looking for a ruby (at JimF’s blog iirc) and saw a link to your blog so i came to check it out.. you know, typical getting lost on the internet type stuff :)...
i saw this post and it’s hard for me to resist a SU challenge :)

this site looks interesting and i’ve received a lot of welcome messages so far but i’m not quite sure i can fit a new site in my internet rotation (i already have two staple sites i’m involved with and if i add any more, i don’t think i’ll be able to get any actual work done).. i’ll keep it bookmarked though and may try to become active in the future.

Why should you be any different from me? I can’t get any work done either. ;)

I understnad but hope to see you around here anyway.

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