Tapering a Complex Object

Jim57 · 2 Dec 2008, 14:23

I've been working on an ornamental turned leg. The problem is it tapers too much at the bottom. How do I adjust the taper? If it was a simple cylinder, I'd select the bottom, scale it, and the sides would follow. This shape is complex and I would only stretch the bottom row of polygons.

Next question: Is there a way to make the surface read like a curved shape, when it now looks like a polygon mesh?

The spiraling shell-like design is based on Klaudius Krusch's k-tools (thank you for the Ruby!), specifically Spiral Line Around Blue Axis. It took a lot of tweaking from there, adjusting diameter, scale, and angle of the individual vanes, for which I have not yet figured out a shortcut.

Thanks,
Jim

Ornamental Leg.skp

Jean Lemire · 2 Dec 2008, 14:46

Hi Jim, hi folks.

Answer to first question:

I think you will need to redo the spiralling, using a different coefficient to reduce the taper.

Answer to second question:

You need to soften the edges. Since you have a few groups, the common edges wont smooth. You will need to explode the groups first and then soften. Hiding the edges is not enough since there will be to softening effect between edges that are in different groups.

Just ideas.

Jim57 · 2 Dec 2008, 19:26

Is soften something that happens line by line? When I select a number of lines and right-click to get soften, nothing happens.

Jim

Jim57 · 2 Dec 2008, 19:50

That wasn't quite clear. I meant to say that I see two ways to soften, both with a right-click (Command-Click on my Mac): when I right-click to select a line, Soften is a choice and I can soften the line. But if a group is being edited and all lines are selected, Soften/Smooth Edges is a choice, but it does not seem to work. Perhaps there are too many lines in one of these spirals?

If I try to use the first option on a selection of several lines, when I right-click the selection changes to only one line.

Is there another way, a Ruby perhaps? This is a lot of lines to soften one by one.

Thanks,

Jim

Gaieus · 3 Dec 2008, 08:22

Jim,

When selecting multiple entities (or a group for instance) and choosing "Soften" from the context menu, a popup should appear with a slider where you can set the angle of softening.

On PC you can also open it from the Window menu - I assume it is in the SketchUp menu on the Mac but not sure (anyway, where all your other dialogs are).

Jim57 · 3 Dec 2008, 17:21

Gotcha. It's in the Windows menu on a Mac as well.

I did not see it because it was stuck to the layers window in the corner of the screen.

Thanks!

Jim