Push/Pull horizontal, curved lines

alyons

Ok so basically I'm looking to be able to create grooves in a 3d piece.

I have made the piece by hand, but now want to make a 3d drawing of it.

It is the Continent of Africa and the grooves are the boundaries of countries. I made them with a rounded router bit and did it by hand, the depth was may 1mm, so pretty small.

On the horizontal axis, the lines are pretty curved, few straight sections at all.

An easy example would be say get a 3d square, any size you want. In the top of it, I want a curved line (it would need to be 2 lines completely parallel actually, I reckon, say 2mm apart).
Then I want to be able to remove this line from the top of the piece to a depth of 1mm. Ideally with rounded corners at the bottom of the groove but not vital.

Any ideas?

pilou

Why not post an image ?
Very more speedy to understand than a text!

You can "PushPull" in any directions any Lines even Multiples with the tricky Projection by Didier Bur!
last icon bottom right

gilles

Is this something like that?

Box

There are several ways to do what you want with the basic tools. But first thing to take note of is face size limitations in SU. If you are working down at the mm level you should scale everything up to work on it as SU has trouble forming tiny faces. Once done you can scale down easily.

One way, you can use the offset tool to create your second line, join the ends to make an enclosed face and use pushpull to give it depth. Simply softening the bottom edges will make it look round when it is so small. But you can do more to make it round if you wish.

Another way. create a profile of the groove you want as a flat face and use that with the follow me tool along your line. This is what Gilles has shown above.

These are very basic processes in SU and understanding them is more important than using a plugin at this stage.

pilou

One more time a simple image avoid some headache to understand a complex text!
And it's so speed!
I have read only the title!

alyons

Ye what Gilles has posted is pretty similar except the line will generally go from one side to another (not necessarily opposit side, may wind around the face and go to the side on the left for example). Rather than being a loop enclosed in the face.

Thanks for the help, I was expecting an email to let me know about replies, sorry for the delay. I'll have a go at what you said and see what happens. I'd say I'll have more questions!!