Working with very small models

rwehrs

I was trying to draw and closely examine the intersections of structural tubing with varying wall thicknesses. The pieces included 1.75" OD tubing at the following wall thicknesses: .120" .095" & .083"

The 1st issue I had was that Sketchup doesn't draw true circles, only x # of sided polygons. Therefore, when trying to measure the tubing at various points, I wasn't getting true readings.

The 2nd issue was that the measuring tool doesn't give exact measurements. It is limited to approximations (ex. ~1/8", etc.)

Is there a way to have Sketchup draw true circles, or at least calculate the objects I draw as true circles if it can't actually render a true circle. Also, is there any way to increase the accuracy of the measure tool to include tighter tolerances, maybe even up to .001"

Thanks,Rob

remus

There isnt a way of making SU draw 'true circles', although you can increase the number of faces in the circle greatly, which will in turn increase its accuracy. To do this you simply select the circle tool and type in the number of sides you want. As a guide, 24 is standard, 48 is pretty good for representational models and 96+ for when you need more accuracy.

For increasing the accuracy in SU (for which ever tool your using) go window->model info->units. You can set the accuracy pretty high from there, up to 0.000000" i think.

rwehrs

I was afraid that would be the case with the circles. 96+ sides should still be good enough tho.

I didn't know I could set the units format to decimal, or change the precision. That tip worked like a charm.

Thank you, that was pretty much exactly what i was looking for. My model came out much better.

remus

Good to hear it

sorgesu

I've been working with a tiny model too. One of the things that I did, aside from changing the precisions, is to work in a factor that is 1000x the real world size.

When I finished all my precise work,I scaled down to the real world size and everything looked just fine. Then I "Saved" and lost a bunch of faces. It appears that SketchUp does a "validity check" on saving and finds all the things that become distorted when you scale down. I just couldn't work as tiny as I needed to no matter what.