3D text with more sides - PLEASE HELP - urgent!

Alan Fraser

If you have a vector drawing program like Corel or Illustrator...or even a CAD program that uses bezier fonts, you can simply export as an early version DWG file (R11 for instance) and import into SU. It will give you more segments than even you probably need.

smicha

Alan,
This is a perfect solution!

Thank you very much.

smicha

jeff hammond

I have a plugin which puts a 'smooth...' item in the context menu..
right click a curve, choose desired iterations, then the curve smooths out.

I'm pretty sure it's this one:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=22947

(but I'm on a phone right now.. can't doublcheck til later )

edit.. yeah, that's it. apparently, I have an outdated version because krill changed the menu item to 'geom interpolation' as to avoid confusion with other smooth plugins.

smicha

Alan,

What tool did you use to connect edges after importing .dwg file? Weld tool? I'm asking because I have to connect edges to every single letter in my text and this is time consuming. If there is a faster solution it would be nice.

Your help is invaluable!

smicha

TIG

Import the dwg 'text' as a set of edges.
Over draw a few edges until it gets faces as expected.
Erase unwanted internal hole-faces.
PushPull the face[s] up to make it 3d.
At this point all 'vertical' edges in the extrusion[s] will be non-smooth types.
Select all of the geometry and use the context-menu 'Smooth' tool.
In its dialog adjust the settings/slider until the edges in the curved faces are smoothed - keep it below ~90 degrees so that the main 'square' edges don't go smoothed.
Toggle View > Hidden Geometry on/off to see the results.
To smooth individual edges you can use Erase+Ctrl.
To un-smooth individual edges use use Erase+Ctrl+Shift [with Hidden Geom 'on' so you can see what you are doing].

jeff hammond

@smicha said:

Alan,

What tool did you use to connect edges after importing .dwg file? Weld tool? I'm asking because I have to connect edges to every single letter in my text and this is time consuming. If there is a faster solution it would be nice.

Your help is invaluable!

smicha

fwiw, i use rhino for doing this then bring it in to sketchup via .3ds with faces in tact.. for joining, i use the recurve.rb plugin:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=36822

with that, you can select one segment of the desired curve then choose recurve->select curve & recurve.. it will then select all the connected edge and weld them together..

the difference with weld.rb being that weld will join the lines into a curve no matter what the angle.. recurve has a 1 radian tolerance (around 50º or so).. if you use it on a square for instance, recurve will leave the corners 'broken' where as weld won't..

i brought this super weird text into sketchup once and recurve was great there.. notice the hard edge are left alone while the curvier bits have been joined..

click pic -> bigger

Alan Fraser

I didn't need to connect the faces; the whole thing came in as an outline. All I needed to do was select it and apply the Makefaces ruby script to get it to fill in, then extrude.
The advantage of Todd's script over tracing over the outline to get the face to fill-in is that the counters (the holes in the letters) are immediately selectable and deletable, rather than having to trace part of their outline also in order to separate them from the rest of the letter.

smicha

Alan,
Thanks. Now your solution is complete and the best.

Short summary:

Create text in Corel
Export it as DWG-AutoCAD, R11
Import .dwg in Sketchup
Select all (Ctrl+A) -> Tools -> Make faces (install Make faces plugin first)
Delete internal faces from a,b,d,e,o,q,p
Use Push/Pull

Than you for your time and help,

smicha

oganocali

If you already have 3d text at low-fi you can also use Tgi3D amorph upsample utility.
(unlimited trial is free for 30 days)
You need to set the curve-crease angle properly from the global tgi3d options (45 for this case) similar to the edge softening critical angle.
Just say no to extra smoothing.
Up-sample will create some redundant soft edges, some of which you can remove using remove unnecessary edges utility.

Alan Fraser

There's also Elefont from Armanisoft. It not only allows you to interactively adjust the resolution of the curves, but it also offers a range of different bevels. It exports to dxf.
It's Windows only...but you don't need to install it. In fact it will work right out of the download zip file.