Hollowing an object?

Schorhr

Hello,
maybee I was just unable to find something, but I would like to know if there is a tool to make objects "hollow" with a certain wall strength, in order to print them cheaper at Shapeways.
While for simple forms intersecting them with a smaller version might be sufficient, this will not work with more complex shapes, as the thickness then is not constant or even holes are created...

Thanks for any help

-Marcus

d12dozr

Hi Marcus, welcome!

Maybe the Joint Push Pull plugin by Fredo6 will help you if your faces are curved, otherwise you may be in for a lot of manual work

-Marcus
P.S. I thought I was the only one with that name around here

watkins

If I understand your requirements correctly then what is needed is a 'shell' plugin, but something can still be done with the scale tool. Try something like this

select the object (the part you want to shell)
copy
de-select the object (click outside)
use paste in place
select the scale tool and use global scale (about the centre) to reduce/increase the size of the copy
use other geometry (like cutting planes) to achieve the required geometry

Some trial and error will be needed to achieve the required wall thickness. For regular shapes, you can input the final dimensions of the bounding box in X, Y and Z in the value control box (eg. 100mm,100mm,100mm)

Frodo's scale tool might be better as it has more options.

Perhaps you could post an image of what you are trying to do.

Regards,
Bob

driven

hi Schorhr,

there are quite a few useful plugins for SU for Shapeways models
it can be a minefield going through them all
post your AE .skp and I'll see which I would suggest

alumide makes great objects doesn't it

john

Schorhr

Thanks for the offer, driven!
I think I discovered the errors, but I will just remodel it.
Also, I was not aware of the follow-me tool back then

I have tried a few free plugins such as for rounding edges, and there really is a lot of usefull stuff out there.

Alumide is great, though it looked differently then I expected. Too bad Shapeways discontinued it for now, but it may be back...

Schorhr

Thank you for your quick replies

@Watkins
Yes, a Shelling plugin would be great
Skaling will work for cubes for example, but notas soon as there are shapes with curves or such. The walls get different strenghts, and the smaller object might penetrate the walls from the larger object ( http://www.nottoxic.com/wapcc/ae/aqua/curvedresizedsketch.png as a simple sample, but in this particular sample I could just draw a smaller tube).
I do not have a specific sample as I mostly try to hollow the seperate segments now before 3D printing, but especially when working with existing models it would be neat to have a shelling tool in sketchup.

A tool like in photo editors such as erode & dilate etc. would be neat.

@d12dozr
Hi Marcus, thank you for the welcome.
I'll look into the push/pull tool, looks like it at least makes the manual process a lot easier

Ah well, if it all was so easy that no work was involved, there would be no challange
Fixing "Han Solo in Carbonite" with Sketchup which I found at Thingiverse was a challange though and pure madness.

There I really just copied and scaled a copy, but had to model and cut a lot manually... As there was a deadline for printing with alumide, I had to rush it a bit.
http://www.nottoxic.com/wapcc/3dd/alumide/med_P1070974.html

Similar here;

Only the flat version printed, I tried to simply scale a copy to make it hollow, but a few parts turned out to be too thin to be printable.
The initial version should have looked like

to replace the stolen car emblem of my GF's car

For square shapes, Sketchup & Shapeways rock my socks though...

http://www.nottoxic.com/wapcc/3dd/med_IMG_3611.html
This little thing will hopefully fly next week, as soon as the TT Copter Control arives