Treeline

[Alan Fraser]

Here's a seamless parkland treeline. The trees are silhouetted in the png image, so any sky will show through, but I haven't bothered to bloat geometry by physically cutting them out to throw a ragged shadow, because in almost every case they would be too far away to notice.
You can line these end to end to create any length you like.

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park_treeline.skp

[urgen]

Good idea and excellent execution! ... Thanks,Alan!

[fbartels]

Alan, Thanks! Already using it in my current model. BTW, there is a little artifact lineish thing just along the top edge of the image.

[tomsdesk]

Nice, Alan...thank you.

[boofredlay]

Thanks Alan

[Alan Fraser]

It's been noticed by a few people that sometimes a slight hint of the edge of a transparent png is apparent when it has no business being there. In this case, however, it does seem that Photoshop was the culprit...it didn't erase right to the very edge. There was a slight, 1 pixel hint of semi-transparent sky still present. I cropped it off and re-uploaded.
You'll find it best to temporarily turn on Hidden geometry when lining these up. It's the only way you are guaranteed to be able to butt them together accurately.

[bertb]

Thanks Alan, nice and usefull.

[dylan]

Cheers Alan, a nice addition!

[betzie]

thanks alan, very usefull

[watkins]

Dear Alan,

A ruby that generates a circle with a given side length might be useful.

Select the circle's centre, and then activate circle_side_fixed script

Enter:

Number of sides = n (24 by default)
Side length = L (e.g. equal to the tree line component length)

The Ruby then calculates the correct radius (L/2sin(360/n) = 130,345.09430 mm for your tree line) and draws circle. The script could be generalised to include polygons of fixed side length. Saves the hassle of calculating the radius.

Regards,
Bob

[Anssi]

@watkins said:

Dear Alan,

A ruby that generates a circle with a given side length might be useful.

Select the circle's centre, and then activate circle_side_fixed script

Enter:

Number of sides = n (24 by default)
Side length = L (e.g. equal to the tree line component length)

The Ruby then calculates the correct radius (L/2sin(360/n) = 130,345.09430 mm for your tree line) and draws circle. The script could be generalised to include polygons of fixed side length. Saves the hassle of calculating the radius.

Regards,
Bob

Bob,

You don't need a Ruby for this:

Draw a circle with the wanted number of segments but any radius and group it (if it is not the only object in your model)
Edit the group. Select the Tape Measure tool and measure one segment of the circle.
Type the segment length you want(the value appears in the VCB), and press Enter. SU asks if you want to resize the group/component. Click OK. Done.

Note that in SU, the circumference of a "circle" is smaller than that of a real circle with the same radius, as the circle in SU is a polygon.

Anssi

[watkins]

Dear Anssi,

Many thanks for that tip. I hadn't thought to do that.

Regards,
Bob

[nrevk niatpak]

thanks. it'll come in handy ...