Woodworking tools in SketchUp

Dave R

There's already a cutlist plugin for SketchUp that works quite well.

akigrimm

Hi
I am working on a complete furniture development system myself . I dont have really so much time for that, but I have thought of quite a bit of details and also searched existing programs for what they can do.
After my opinion there are three major goals to achief:

Create a cutlist fast and easy and use this data for all your following work.
Connect a faktura or database programm to your drawing so you can generate easily an offer for your client.
Make a nice and professional presentation.

What I want is a easy way to get a cutlist, since that is the base for everything else in the workshop and for my offer and a good looking presentation. May be with doord that open and all that. But dont go into details that you dont need for your work, since you know your business.
Nice would be to work in projects with all the data that dont refer to the drawing but to the project with all that a crm prog does (letters, bills, offers, adresses, deliveries, invoice, calendar) and also a calculation modul. If these all work together my work gets a lot easier.

With dynamic components I think that we will reach there a lot faster than in the past. But I need to explain maybe a bit more detailed:
We're using a machine program on our CNC that lets you design standart cabinets only by parameters. That is good. But to get the cutlist we still have to write it by hand, and before that make a drawing and all the shit. And before we even start we need to write an offer for the customer and to do that we have to more or less guess or do the same work in advance. So start with parametric designing of furniture. From these dynamic drawings get the cutlist and import it in a spreadsheet or database. There you have defined times for your production(which by experience you correct) and you have easily the price of your product. If you start you printout the cutlist. Better not ones but for everymachine that you are using. For example: One list for the raw cutting of boards before planing them or as we do: we cut our boards (strandboards etc.) 10 mm bigger before formatting on the CNC. so you could have one list with final measurements and one with the raw measures.

Export the rawcutlist to a optimizer for cutting boards and you willl have the exact amount of materials you have to buy. If these can be stored in a database with their price, youre there. You need to calculate the amounts of edging material and the amount of veneer and lack that youll need. To obtain that, you need to be able to tell su not only how a material should look like, but also what it really is. For example would it make no difference for SU if your cabinet is made of oak massive wood or laminated boardss with oak dekor. But you could guve that information when constructing the cabinet.
If this information can be stored it doesnt at first affect the drawing but can be very useful to have later, and when you start your cbainet entering "Material: Oak, massive" You have it in all following steps. Plus if your customer asks "How much is it in laminated boards, you change only one detail (Hopefully) and get the alternative price.

So you should have quite comfortable dialogs since you have to enter a lot of data for eache piece.
Dimensions, core material, overlay material, edging material, which edges are laminated, how are the surfaces treated. And to generate a whole cabinet like that, you need even more. One thing that helps us:
Less is more
Dont create a system for every exotic kind of furniture that you will ever build but one for the 85 % average ones. You dont need to draw the joinery (my opinion) even when I deliver my furniture it doesnt seem to make a lot of difference to my customers, if the drawers have dovetails or no, as far as the price is correct.

When you want to create a strechable cabinet you just use components and change these. So if you want a drawer stretched you build it in components and stretch them in their proper way. There should be no prob but dont try from the start to calculate every thinkable construction of a cabinet or table, but stick to one and then expand.
Sorry I guess this gets rather long so I better stop now.

Dave R

There's already a good cutlist plugin though.

brandy20

@dave r said:

@jim57 said:

I have a lot of trouble designing furniture in Sketchup because there is so little control of curves. How about the SU equivalent of Beziers?

Already exists in several plugins.

I downloaded arcs.rb, do you mean this one or maybe another better one?

Dave R

@brandy20 said:

@dave r said:

@jim57 said:

I have a lot of trouble designing furniture in Sketchup because there is so little control of curves. How about the SU equivalent of Beziers?

Already exists in several plugins.

I downloaded arcs.rb, do you mean this one or maybe another better one?

No, I mean Bezier.rb for one. There's also BezierSpline.

brandy20

I installed it and read the tutorial. That's what I was looking for

jhoutman

Attached are some simple woodworking tools that I use all the time.
They are simple, Create a board - (actually a named component with all three dimensions and oriented in space.
Resize a board.
Drill tool - drills any component
Dado tool - creates a dado easily in any component.
Bring component to front. Handy to create cutting list of components.
Set component Relative. This moves a component relative to another.
Handy for arranging boards in space.

I have started on a component or group stretcher that allows one to resize
say, a drawer, one direction at a time without screwing up the parts that
shouldn't change.

Thanks,

Jim

Hi guys. I split the attachments and discussion of jhoutman's woodworking tools here:

http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=17076

I like the idea that woodworking plugins are posted in the woodworking forum, but I need to consider the overall organization of the forum first and see if there are any technical issues that arise. Any thoughts?

IdahoJ

@basic.woodworks said:

A router_selected_edges.rb tool. This tool would allow the user to sect a group or face, and automatically "router" the edge(s) with a choice of a multitude of existing (common) profiles of router bits.

What a time saver this would be! +1

dedmin

@jhoutman said:

Attached are some simple woodworking tools that I use all the time.
They are simple, Create a board - (actually a named component with all three dimensions and oriented in space.
Resize a board.
Drill tool - drills any component
Dado tool - creates a dado easily in any component.
Bring component to front. Handy to create cutting list of components.
Set component Relative. This moves a component relative to another.
Handy for arranging boards in space.

I have started on a component or group stretcher that allows one to resize
say, a drawer, one direction at a time without screwing up the parts that
shouldn't change.

Thanks,

Hi, jhoutman.

I find your plugin very useful and using it all the time. Is there a way to set default thickness and to use simple expressions in the dialog boxes?

DamaTheCat

"Board Stretcher.rb"

Now you are talking,,,,, Must have..... How many times have you work your buns off on a drawing only to have the "client" ask for it to be "just a tiny bit longer or wider"???

Gotta be easy for us low level drawers to use.... I use SU to do production drawings which gets me in the shop cutting wood. I do not do many "cosmetic" drawings.....

Board Streacher.rb.... Please

Thanks

Dave R

Mike, you can stretch a board in SketchUp natively or you could use FredoScale to do it.