[Plugin] Shape Bender Beta

Burkhard

You can simple do it with shape bender.
For better results, you' need some better preparations.

smganeles

after using the shape bender plugin to bend a fairly complex shape to a specified curve, some random edges of the rendering were left out and dissapeared
otherwise it seemed to work fine (besides making sketchup not respond for a while because i am on a slow and old computer)
these were not in the original rendering before the object was bent
what could have gone wrong and is there any way to fix this
pictures of both before and after the bending are attached

before

after

TIG

SketchUp [and OpenGL] have problems creating facets if they are very very tiny.
Your steel-beam has some very small segments to its rounded edges.
You could probably make a much simpler version with far fewer facets.
When ShapeBender [or other tools like FollowMe etc] try to 'extrude' these tiny facets they can fail to form some faces simply because they are now so very tiny.
To overcome this...
Scale the steel/curve/line x100.
Do the ShapeBending etc...
Then Scale down x0.01.
These tiny facets can exist, BUT it's the creating them that is an issue...
This is the known problem and it's fix.
Depending on the facets' "tininess" you can scale x10, x100 or x1000 and then back...

smganeles

thank u
i will try this

draftprint3d

When I am bending a shape, it goes a lot faster when Netflix is playing fullscreen in front. I have no explanation but that is what I observe.

thomthom

Odd... but it might be that the full screen app in front disable UI functions in SketchUp that would otherwise slow things down.

Z Donk

Hey, I just loaded this up and am trying to use it for the first time. Got it in my Plugin folder etc.. I'm trying to do exactly what chris did in his first example video and running into a wall: Once i have the simple group selected, as commanded, the "select a single line on the red axis" is the next command. Try as I might, I can't get the selection to take. It highlights blue, It's on the red axis, its a single line. The next command for selecting a curve does not come.... Tried it as a group, as an exploded group, etc. -The line is selected then the grid doesn't show and the commands stop there.. Bear in mind, I'm an intermediate sketchup user but even recreating Chris's simple example I hit a wall.

(Ultimately, I'm trying to bend a 3d geometric rectangle plate along 3 different angles)

Z Donk

Hi moderator, I found the problem, I didn't know I had to have the entire file in my plugins folder.. Off and running.

Dave R

@z donk said:

Hi moderator, I found the problem, I didn't know I had to have the entire file in my plugins folder.. Off and running.

So we can put your problem down to incorrect installation? That seems to be the most common reason plugins don't work for folks. It's one of the reasons for the Sketchucation Plugin Store. If you haven't got it and installed it, you should.

PabloNCS

Hi everyone,

I don't know what am I doing wrong, but the text I am trying to bend does not mantein its original size and it kind of stretches out.

Anyone can give a hint?

Thanks.

Dave R

The length of the arc is longer than the length of the original text and the original line so of course the text would get stretched. Make the straight line the same length as the text and the arc the length of the straight line and it works better. The letters will still get a bit distorted but that's to be expected. You might even make the arc a little shorter than the straight line in the case of your text.

PabloNCS

Thanks for the tip. It worked better that way.

archipenti

Hello

Seems we can not use custom axes for the "red axis"

is there any update or solutions for this little bug?

Dave R

That's not a bug.

viahe

Thank you so much. Simple but yet, great ruby

dancho

Hi Chris,

plugin don't work with FREDO's AdditionalPluginFolders.
Is it possible to make it work with it?

THX
Dancho

TIG

Like I told you in another recent post...
The code needs adjusting around lines #158-160 of the main code file clf_shape_bender/clf_shape_bender.rb...
Use Notepad plain text editor...
Change the lines:
line_cursor_path = Sketchup.find_support_file("line_pointer.png", "Plugins/clf_shape_bender") curve_cursor_path = Sketchup.find_support_file("curve_pointer.png", "Plugins/clf_shape_bender") default_cursor_path = Sketchup.find_support_file("default_pointer.png", "Plugins/clf_shape_bender")
to read:
line_cursor_path = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "clf_shape_bender", "line_pointer.png") curve_cursor_path = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "clf_shape_bender", "curve_pointer.png") default_cursor_path = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "clf_shape_bender", "default_pointer.png")
Save the file and restart SketchUp...
This approach will then work with any folder location. which is auto-loading a plugin like this, and which is looking for helper files in a subfolder within its folder...