Roundover Challenge
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I was intrigued by your problem, so I wanted to try the ruby plugin "Round edges by Bezier" on your model. It does work. But it requires some cleaning up where a round edge is applied to an angled piece that meets a horizontal surface. Jeff Hammond is right about making the model oversize for editing. I've left the hidden lines on to highlight the curves. There are two models one cleaned up and the other detailing how to clean-up the model.
Best.
Leg with rounded edges cleaned up.skp
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Thanks Pkast. I wasn't clear about what needed rounding over in my original post. This leg has an outside face and inside face. The top of the inside face abuts the front leg of a legrest. The overlap is 3 1/2" so I don't want to roundover the top 3 1/2" of the edges on the inside face. The edges of the outside face are rounded over from top down. The curved top edges are not rounded over. Sorry for the confusion.
That said, these tuts are very helpful, and I now have several ways to approach the problem. Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to tackle his problem.
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Jeff, this is excellent. This method produces better geometry at the corners (duplicates what happens on the router table in my shop). I noticed you had an "invert selection" choice on your context menu. I installed that ruby script, and it's a real time saver.
I had a couple of questions. What are you using that invokes the dialog boxes that say "find faces for this curve" and "close curve?" Not sure what you were doing there.
Also, am I correct to assume that if I carried the roundover to the top of the leg instead of stopping it short as in the tut, that I would need to draw a line extending that edge beyond the curve at the top for the followme path, then copying the top curve and using that to intersect with model after using the followme tool to create the roundover? Seems like that should work. I did use your method to create a rectangular form with all edges rounded over. That worked beautifully.
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Peter, I had a go at this and ended up with the attached. I drew the end of the roundover below the 3" unrounded part as if you rounded it over with a 1/4" roundover router bit. I drew the path so it continued off the edge of the leg as if you'd run up against a stop and then pulled the router away from the work. Does this seem more like what you would expect to see at that point?
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i watched the video and the 1 thing i saw was that mac has invert selection
. i've always wanted invert selection 
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thats awsome, thanks dave. all these years... wasted, not knowing.
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If I'd only known you wanted it... -
could you please tell me what else i'm missing? -
A delicious piece of white chocolate cheesecake. Well, I'm missing that, too.
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you know, if you watch that laughing imot
really close... ah, never mind. -
@peter gunn said:
I had a couple of questions. What are you using that invokes the dialog boxes that say "find faces for this curve" and "close curve?" Not sure what you were doing there.
that's Weld.rb (and i actually put in a request with rickw to make a version without the dialog that you saw.. we'll see
).. it joins lines and will make them select easier (click it once instead of selecting each individual segment) and it also allows for smooth surfaces upon extrusion..@unknownuser said:
Also, am I correct to assume that if I carried the roundover to the top of the leg instead of stopping it short as in the tut, that I would need to draw a line extending that edge beyond the curve at the top for the followme path, then copying the top curve and using that to intersect with model after using the followme tool to create the roundover? Seems like that should work. I did use your method to create a rectangular form with all edges rounded over. That worked beautifully.
possibly, i'd have to look at the file again (i'm out of town right now and that stuff was done on my home computer).. i watched the video again and realized i didn't have to extend the line and draw the roundover where i did.. as long as every part of the extrusion is past the plane of intersection, you don't have to extend the line past..
@dave r said:
@xrok1 said:
i watched the video and the 1 thing i saw was that mac has invert selection
. i've always wanted invert selection All you have to do is ask.
yes, Just Ask
.. thanks again TIG, i use that one a lot.. i often base the way i'm going to draw something around that one ruby.. the single most unenjoyable thing i can do in sketchup is deleting a bunch of small lines or faces and invert selection will eliminate most of the deleting..i did a different movie last week which is highly based around the selection inversion at the end.. around 5 posts down in this thread:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=17102
you'll also see a weld.rb move in there that i like to do.. instead of selecting individual line segments, i'll delete some things so i can tripleclick the whole line before welding then close the face again.. like i say, i don't like doing the little selections/deletions and these two rubies come in very handy for that -
Dave: I was going for no roundover on the first 3 1/2" from the top curve on the inside edges--the back edge of the inside face and the front edge of the inside face. That may not be real clear. Probably best to post the finished product when I finish the product. Too busy building the last 3 days.
Jeff: Thanks for the info re weld.rb. That'll make a big difference.
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Peter, how are you making the stopped radiused edges for real? Are you finishing up the last little bit by hand?
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Just marking the point on either edge where I want the roundover to begin and doing the deed on the router table. I do a climb cut on one edge because of the direction of the grain.
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So then the end of the cut would be as I drew it. Because of the spinning cutter, it won't stop with a flat face.
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Dave: Oh, I get it now. Yes, the path is rounded out of the cut. Not like a stopped chamfer. So you drew that path in a scaled up model and used followme?
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Peter, yes. I drew the leg up to the point where I was ready to run Follow Me. Actually I drew it half thickness. I included a 1/4" radius are at the end of the path where the router would stop. Then I scaled it way up before running FM. I scaled it up by measuring the 7/16" thickness with the Tape Measure tool. I enter 1000 and hit enter to scale it up. After running Follow Me, Intersect and deleting waste, I measured that same line again, Entered 7/16 and hit Enter to scale it back down. Then I copied (Ctrl+Move) the half, flipped it, moved it into place and deleted the seam line.
When you are drawing these sorts of details think about the tool you would use in the shop and how it will move. Or how the wood will move relative to the tool.
I didn't do it in the example but if I were drawing that leg for a project of my own, I would probably redice the segment count for the roundover to no more than 6 segments. It won't look pretty up close but when viewed as part of an entire project, you won't be able to see the difference. It'll keep file size down and performance up.
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