Access the characters individually

Alohaa

Hello,

I would like to 3d print and/or mill my licecar plates as a key fob. After a long search, I found the right font, traced the bitmap in Inkscape and imported it into SU, but all the characters hang together.

How can I access the individual characters in the attached file? Separating them into individual parts has not worked.
Is it possible in SU or should I have done it in Inkscape?Font.skp

Kind regards
Alohaa

Dave R

What you show in the SketchUp model is an image as a material applied to a long thin rectangle.

Screenshot - 12_7_2023 , 8_04_21 AM.png

So far you have nothing to 3D print and those letters as they are cannot be extruded.

Do you know the name of the font? Can you find it as True Type file? If so, the easiest thing would be to install the font and then use it for 3D Text in SketchUp.

Whatever you did in Inkscape or however you exported it didn't provide you with anything really useful. You could trace the letters in SketchUp. I guess you don't need to do the entire alphabet.

BTW, is it a good idea to put the car's plate number on the key fob? If you lose the key it'll be easy for the finder to figure out which car to steal.

Alohaa

Your objection is of course pertinent, but it's more of a gimmick, and whether I'll ever hang the parts on the keys is a moot point!
I have found the font here:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luxembourg-License-Plate-Font-01.svg

I don't know if it's available as truetype

Dave R

No. That's not a True Type file. It's presented as an SVG file. In Inkscape convert the .svg file to .dxf and then import the vector file into SketchUp. Or, since you have the name of the font, search for a .ttf file of it.

Here's a tutorial on making that conversion.
https://kellylollardesigns.com/blogs/news/converting-svg-to-dxf

Dave R

Looks like all you really need to do in Inkscape is open the .svg file and then save it as .dxf. After import into SketchUp you'll need to create the faces for the letters. You can edit the component and trace edges with the Line tool or there are several other ways to get the faces.

Screenshot - 12_7_2023 , 8_38_31 AM.png

Exploded the component and make components of the individual characters.

Alohaa

Thank you very much!

Rich O Brien

@unknownuser said:

BTW, is it a good idea to put the car's plate number on the key fob? If you lose the key it'll be easy for the finder to figure out which car to steal.

But if you engrave your address on the back they might just drive it home for you? Maybe fuel it up too?

Alohaa

My cars are nearly always in the garage, and when they are out, I hope not to loose the key.

And you can also look at it another way: if someone found it, with the key ring, and handed it in to the lost property office, you could identify the owner, me!

Unfortunately, the extruded letters cannot be extruded.

Lux plate font.dxf

Dave R

@alohaa said:

Unfortunately, the extruded letters cannot be extruded.

That doesn't make any sense.

Did you do what I wrote?

[quoe]After import into SketchUp you'll need to create the faces for the letters. You can edit the component and trace edges with the Line tool [/quote]

If I import your .dxf file I'll see the same thing. Only edges, no faces. .dxf files normally only import as edges which is why I added the above statement.

Alohaa

Sorry, that was a lapsus pennae, and it is evident that it can't make any sense; of course it should read: "Unfortunately, the letters cannot be extruded".
"You can edit the component and trace edges with the Line tool"
Unfortunately, there are not only straight lines, and the curves are not regular. I'll see how easy it is to do in Inkscape.
What I don't understand: how could there be faces in a drawing that is flat and where there are only lines?

Dave R

@alohaa said:

Unfortunately, there are not only straight lines, and the curves are not regular.

You only have to trace a single edge segment in each character to get the face to file. You don't have to trace the entire character. You've been using SketchUp long enough by now that you must know that SketchUp represents curves with short edge segments.

@alohaa said:

I'll see how easy it is to do in Inkscape./quote]
There's no point in going back to Inkscape for this.

@alohaa said:

What I don't understand: how could there be faces in a drawing that is flat and where there are only lines?

I don't understand what this means. You can have edges in SketchUp with now faces. There's nothing for Push/Pull to do until you add those faces, though.