Creating an even grid of perforations on a curved object

[kylebc86]

Hi guys,

I am just wondering if anyone could help me. I am trying to create an even grid of perforations/openings on a organic curved object in Sketchup. Heres is an example of how i want it to look like. I want the openings to be of similar size all the way round the object. I have tried to drape the shape of the opening on the object, however when it comes to the curved corners, the shape of the opening becomes distorted and nothing like the original shape I am trying to achieve. Thanks in advance for your help.

Kyle

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[jeff hammond]

here's the first idea that popped in my head and i'm sure there are other ways..

this technique revolves around chris fullmer's plugin- component onto faces:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=17306

(it's actually similar to your drape idea except this will make your shape more perpendicular to the surface that you're trying to project to..)

i just rushed through the video without paying much attention to anything but hopefully the idea comes through and you'll be able to adapt it to your needs.

[flash=660,405:346nxcow]http://www.youtube.com/v/mqBHiakyrEQ?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&border=1[/flash:346nxcow]

also, maybe look into tools on surface by fredo:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=11212

it might be a bit difficult getting the rounded edges in the cutouts with that one though.
if you have a lot of stuff like this to do, maybe a little bribe to fredo could get him to add rounded rectangles/parallelograms to TOS

[kylebc86]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you very much for the reply and the useful information. I will look into this, seems like a better way to achieve what i want than what i was attempting to do. I will have a play about with the ideas you have on how i could achieve this. Thanks again

By the way, do you know what the plugin called that is used to create the wiggly line in the video??

[jeff hammond]

@kylebc86 said:

By the way, do you know what the plugin called that is used to create the wiggly line in the video??

of course.. it's called Draw_Wiggly_Line.rb

ok, sorry
that's part of fredo's BezierSpline plugin found here:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=13563

i was using Uniform B-splines in the video

[joebamber]

I have been trying to think how you could do this one... only way i could see it happening is by unfolding the surface, applying the regular component spray/shape and then re-folding the surface back up, if it were possible; you could then make any number of patterns across a 2D mesh or component spray across a 3D mesh - once it had been refolded, which would be a very nice ruby for mesh designs to be cut at certain points - and designing buildings like *the eden project's geodesic domes would become easy.

[kylebc86]

Thanks for that Jeff.

Joebamber, I was thinking that unfolding the surface would be a way of achieveing this. Is there a plugin that will allow the surface to be unfolded, even on curved and organic shaped objects?

Thanks for your help

Kyle