Sketchup.... Help!!! I'm Lost.....

You need to use the follow me tool.

1. Draw the radius like picture 2.
2. Select the bottom surface of your table using the arrow.
3. Click the follow me tool. It will appear to deselect the table but don’t worry.
4. Click the radius area you drew.

This is a long but good video on the follow me tool at youtube.

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

Thanks John… I’ll try this today.

Any other takers to this question?

-- Chris

Gizmodyne is exactly right. I’ll try to show you a visual example:

Here is your table top. I’ve created the desired radius.

Edit the table and only select the bottom edge. It will be highlighted.

Then, select the Follow-Me tool and click inside the radius you created.

Voila!

You can always do what I did. Quit messing with the &##!&*(!! program, go out to the shop, and build the thing.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Greg – how did you put text into the picture?

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

Betsy, I use Skitch to add text. It lets you take screen shots, add line drawings, arrows, and text. Then you can post to pic page.

Here is the link to skitch

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

You can also use the text tool! its the icon that looks like a little flag with abc in the box. There is also 3D text which is the 3D letter A icon.

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

Now I can’t wait to work on my blog tonight! I’ve learned a new trick!!!!!

Thanks guys!

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

I would have normally used the text tool, but I had already exported them as a 2D graphic (JPG) so I just used Photo Editor to add some quick text.

Just wanted to throw a big thanks out to John & Greg.

What a great bunch of folks around here!!!

-- Chris

I am not sure if you are following the correct procedure. You should not get any leftovers. I would need to see what you are doing.

Good work around.

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

John,

I followed your suggestions step by step…
1. Select the bottom of the component
2. Select the Follow-me tool
3. Select the the Arc I had already drawn

Wait a sec… I wonder if the fact that I had arc on each of the two adjoining faces caused the issue?

-- Chris

Ok… I just tested my theory.

I created another table top from scratch and as you can see I only used one arc:

Selected the bottom of the component:

Selected and used the Follow-me tool on the arc area:

This is the result:

Items of Interest:

1st: Only one arc was drawn this time; this resulted in fewer remnents.

2nd: I am using the tape measure tool to place a marker to guide me in creating the arc. I wonder if this plays into it?

-- Chris

Odd, it looks like you had additional elements in the top that disrupted the follow-me tool. Here’s how I created your arced table:

1. Create a rectangle 24”x46”

2. Use the arc tool at one end of the table and select both corners. Expand arc out and enter “2” in the dimensions box to extend the arc 2” at the center.

3. Repeat on the other side.

4. Erase the straight lines at the bottom of the arcs to make one flat surface.

5. Use push tool to push out 1”.

6. Radius the top and use follow-me tool.

Greg,

It’s funny, I just did it again exactly like you stated above and have the same oddball result as I did earlier. Obviously the tape measure markers are not an issue; I did not use them this time.

You’ve got me… I am just happy I finally got the edge detail I needed. I do have a final question on this subject though…

Does the Follow-Me tool always operate on all the edges at one time?

-- Chris

No, you can click the lines you want it to follow and it will only go that far. That’s how I extrude molding around items. Draw the profile and then highlight the edges for it to follow. Just CTRL+CLICK the lines you want.

Thanks Greg! I’ll have to play around with that function…..

-- Chris

Sometimes the follow me tool wigs out for no reason (or i should say a reason that isn’t obvious). I have had to “do over” some things like round overs and crown molding that just didn’t come out right several times before i get the result i wanted. You can use the tool freehand as well as using CNTRL to select the lines you want it to follow. I seem to have better results moving the tool myself when using it for more complicated follow me’s like built up crown molding. Also if you hold down the ALT key the tool will use the perimeter of a surface for it’s path.

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

I’m beginning to agree with Charlie. I don’t know how many hours I’ve wasted trying to work with 2 different 3D modeling programs, Sketchup and TurboCAD, trying to create a simple coaster model. They’re ok if I just want sharp, square edges but, if I try to soften the edges with a fillet, then neither one does what I need it to do. And, forget about trying to create an asymmetrically contoured surface or an object curved in all 3 planes that isn’t a sphere or otherwise completely symmetrical.

My small shop is occuppied by a larger project at the moment and wanted to learn a modeling program whenever I had a few minutes that wouldn’t otherwise be productive in the shop. But, this is getting to be too frustrating and too much of a waste of time.

-- Jack - Mission Viejo, Calif

Ok. I finally figured out how to create the fillet in Sketchup. I had to create a rabbet around the part where I wanted the fillet. Then create the profile in the rabeted area and use the Follow me tool to wrap it around the stub tenon created by the rabetting.

-- Jack - Mission Viejo, Calif

Anyone reading this forum really should take Gizmodyne’s advice and watch this YouTube video. It explained it perfectly; I just finished watching the it and starting suing it to design some turning projects!

-- Chris

I’m late to the party but what else is new?

There’s a key thing to remember about the Follow Me tool. The profile must be perpendicular to the first segment in the path (the edge of the table top in this case) and it will end perpendicular to the last segment in the path. There are two methods to get the profile that would work in this case. The first is probably the more complex version but it is useful to know for some situations. The second is easier and probably the method I would choose for this.

1. Extend the first segment out beyond the edge of the top. The distance isn’t critical but make it something that gets the profile out away from the edge of the table top. Draw the profile perpendicular to that line segment. You might use some construction geometry to help you get the alignment right or you could draw a vertical a couple of vertical lines off that extension. Connect them with a third line to get a face and then use Push/Pull to create a face perpendicular to the extension. Delete all the rest of the little box. Just leave the face on which you’ll draw the profile and the extension.

Add an extension off the tail end of the path so the profile will run off past the curve. After Follow Me, select all of the geometry and run Intersect with selected. Then delete the waste.

It might be easier to think about how you mould profile the edge of the piece of wood with a router. You’d start the router before the cutter is in contact with the wood and you would run the cutter off the end before shutting it off.

This method is important to know when you want to profile a curved edge—say the curved edge of a top for a demilune table.

2. Delete the top face of the table top temporarily. Draw the profile inside the remaining part of the top placing it perpendicular to one of the straight edges. It’s easy to work perpendicular to one of those edges.

Run Follow Me and then trace one of the top edges to heal the top face. Check around the corners to make sure all of the waste was removed during the Follow Me operation. Once in awhile SketchUp won’t remove all of it. Before you get to worked up about that though, make sure that you drew the profile perfectly square to the edge. In either method, it it isn’t square, you can run into problems.

And one last thing to watch. If the curve of your profile has a lot of segments, you may end up with small openings in the resulting profiled edge. This happens when there are very small faces. The solution to this is to scale the top up prior to running Follow Me. Scale up by a factor of 100. Then scale the top back down.

Better yet, Make the top a component. Make a copy (Ctrl+Move) of it and move it away from the rest of the model. Scale this copy up and run Follow Me. When the edge is profiled and any clean up is done, close the component and then delete the giant version from the drawing. Even if there were faces that would have been too small for SU to fill on the original, they will be filled on it because you were editing the scaled up instance. It’s strange but it works. This method eliminates the scaling back down step.

There. that’s more than you wanted to know. I hope your head doesn’t explode. ;)

Dave

-- "Duck snored."