What about a tutorial for the freehand drawing tool

pdonner · 25 Oct 2010, 17:21

SketchUp is a wonderful tool for 3D modeling, but sometimes it would be useful to combine those marvelous models with some freehand drawing. Unfortunately very little has been written about the Freehand drawing tool. Are there ways of editing a Freehand shape? The tutorial video goes as far as encouraging us "to use other tools" "for more accurate work". I would like to know more about the Freehand tool and maybe about ways of interacting with other tools to be more accurate? Is there anything like a proper tutorial with useful advice how to benefit from the Freehand tool?

numbthumb · 25 Oct 2010, 17:55

Some examples:

(www.cgpinoy.org)

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=21801

pdonner · 26 Oct 2010, 08:37

Thanks numbthumb for your hint to the interesting Ruby extension for SU. While searching for tutorials on the topic I also came across some material (such as the waterfall example). But I'm maybe a bit too cautious to install such extensions.

What I was looking for, was a tutorial on basic use of the drawing tool... and perhaps about paste or importation of freehand drawings from external vector drawing programs. What are the available options?

The curve menuitem on the Edit menu also raise a number of questions. What are their purpose? Apparently the curve can be exploded and after that the parts can be moved to improve the quality of the uneven line. What else can I do to improve the quality of the 'curve'?

[While on the topic of rubies, I could envisage a ruby which would convert the line segments of the (so to say) curve into arcs. I've been asking myself: Why doesn't the freehand tool create a series of arcs instead of these line segments?]

numbthumb · 26 Oct 2010, 09:34

If it wasn´t for that "a bit too cautious to install such extensions" part, I´d suggest you to try Fredo6´s BezierSpline plugin - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=13563&hilit=plugin .
There are some opinions that Freehand tool is pretty much useless anyway, because the Cubic Bezier Curve works much better - check this thread http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=13563&hilit=bezier+spline&start=15

Gaieus · 26 Oct 2010, 09:44

When the tutorials say that you should rather use other, more precise tools, they are advising honestly. SU's strength is in its intuitive inferencing and snapping behaviour - something that simply cannot be used with the freehand tool - or even worse; which makes using the freehand tool almost useless as SU will try to snap to anything but where you'd like it.

So it is there, but mainly probably just because if it weren't people would be missing it (thinking how great it would be) and would pester the SU Team to add one all the time.

SU is not a drawing tool but a modelling tool. If you really need freehand drawings, indeed you should be doing it elsewhere and import the result. For more geometrical and mathematical shapes (like curves suggested above), there are additional plugins that work well.

pdonner · 27 Oct 2010, 05:17

Installed the BezierSpline plugin and woops... that was quite a meal for one day. The plugin is more or less a program within the program. It was amazing to see how interpreted ruby scripts can produce so smooth GDI behaviour.

To be honest I only managed to take the first two, three lessons on the BS class. Being full of features this wasn't the newbie tool we were looking for, but in due time it will hopefully be a good asset capable of handling many of the complex challenges that we will meet.

Chris Fullmer · 28 Oct 2010, 02:23

Here's a useless tip for the freehand tool - hold down shift and it will draw a "spline".

It is not a line/edge/curve/arc or anything you've ever seen in SketchUp (unless you've made one with the freehand tool previously). You can't select it with the select tool, or delete it with the Eraser tool. I think you have to hit ctrl-a (select all) to get it selected so you can delete it.

THat is about all you need to know about the freehand tool

pdonner · 28 Oct 2010, 08:37

Excellent, Chris: Yes, that was almost useless.

There are other weird things that I've seen happening while using the Freehand tool, but unfortunately I forgot how to reproduce them. Sometimes while drawing and editing, I've got a dotted line at one end of the curve. It's not a guide since it has beginning and an end. Is there anybody who has seen such a thing? I wasn't able to do anything with the line, but maybe somebody has been more lucky.

Chris Fullmer · 29 Oct 2010, 06:01

Odd, I've not seen that. I did finally figure out that the spline is selectable. You haveto select a certain end of it. Just the endpoiint it selectable. Maybe there is a relationship there with the endpoint business.

I wonder what weird little quirks there are under the Hood of SU that are sort of forgotten or intenionally left out, but still there in code. There also used to be an "Easter Egg". It is no longer accessible, but apparently the code is still in the software.