What Tools (.rb) needed for bicycle building

steveandbelinda

Not sure where to even begin trying to build a recumbent bicycle in SketchUp. Have been looking at all the plugins, but don't really see much to do with pipe or tubing that would benefit me. I am very new to this and have looked at 3DWarehouse at some of the bikes, and don't know where to even start. Don't know how to make curves or corners or anything. Just straight lines. Have fooled with all week and like the program. Where do I begin. Help appreciated.

numbthumb

As for building the frame, if you haven´t tried it already, there are plugins like PipeAlongPath http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=1709 or lines2tubes http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=12354&p=88592#p88592 that can help.
Or you could do the same with the FollowMe tool.
And if I remember correctly, there used to be a free version of this one: http://www.3skeng.com/en/products.htm

TIG

I addition ExtrusionTools or CurviLoft for shapes like seats, handlebars-grips and uneven cross-sections...
FredoScale and other Fredo tools like RoundCorners... JointPushPull etc...
FollwMeAndKeep [FAK] might also be useful as it overcomes some of the limitations of the native FollowMe for non-circular extrusions...

CAntonis

I would suggest you to try with one piece at a time!As you said you just foolled around with SU so it might have been a good idea if you sketched on a piece of paper the parts (don't think dimensions mater... for the paper part) and begin from there! Difficulty is up to the designer.
TIG mentioned some great plugins that will surelly be very handy to help you model a bike and many other stuff you might want, but what you need to do first is learn as much as you can the basic tools.
Extra tip: Almost every plugin in SU is free and very powerfull too. This mean that there is a great number of different uses for every plugin so what you must do, in my humble opinion of course, is: learn every capability of any plugin you download!
One piece at a time mate...
Sketchucation is a great forum with even greater support!

steveandbelinda

Ok, the ones that I have installed are PipeAlongPath, TubeAlongPath, something that shows up in the plugins dropdown menu "convert arcs,circles,curves,lines to cylinders".
There are some that I downloaded to the plugins folder that are not showing up anywhere, not even the tools menu.
First of all, when I start SU, I get an error on the screen that states "Error loading file: cfl_shape_bender_loader.rb, No such file to load progressbar.rb

Also in my SU plugins file I downloaded the following plugins that showup nowhere, why?
angle_between.rb
plane_angle.rb
df_shape_bender_loader.rd and it's program.

TIG

@steveandbelinda said:

Ok, the ones that I have installed are PipeAlongPath, TubeAlongPath, something that shows up in the plugins dropdown menu "convert arcs,circles,curves,lines to cylinders".
There are some that I downloaded to the plugins folder that are not showing up anywhere, not even the tools menu.
First of all, when I start SU, I get an error on the screen that states "Error loading file: cfl_shape_bender_loader.rb, No such file to load progressbar.rb
Also in my SU plugins file I downloaded the following plugins that show up nowhere, why?
angle_between.rb
plane_angle.rb
df_shape_bender_loader.rd and it's program.

The progressbar.rb script adds a 'progress-bar' method to the tool [and some other tools too] it's free to download from Smustard.com [it does say with the tools download link you also need that file installed ]
Some Rubies - like angle_between.rb - do nothing noticeable by themselves, but they add extra methods to one or more other scripts needed for calculations etc... The clf_shape_bender_loader.rb is ashort script that loads its main .rb file found in its subfolder [that you should have in the Plugins folder] - that's currently failing to complete its loading because there's no progressbar.rb file to load [yet] - get that and put it into Plugins and the errors should cease.......

Bep

Hallo,

Besides Sketchup ,this could come in handy http://www.bikeforest.com/CAD/bcad.php

Greetings,

Bep