Newbie Tutorial - How to close any face in Sketchup

EarthMover

This is a really brief tutorial to show a progression of steps that will allow you to trouble shoot why a face won't close and a guaranteed solution to close any face.

In teaching different people Sketchup, closing faces is one of the most frustrating things for some people...especially in the learning phase. Hopefully this simple troubleshooting method will help alleviate some headaches for new users.

Requires several plugins. If you have trouble finding them, let me know and I'll post the links.

http://www.screencast.com/users/EarthMover/folders/Jing/media/485e3a5a-67bc-400c-b9b7-79f0eed948c5

d12dozr

Good tut, Adam!

xrok1

you forgot freedo scale. scale to 0 in the z axis to make edges coplanar

EarthMover

Thanks Xrok1! Good suggestion....I never thought of that!

Gaieus

Cool video indeed. We all know that sometimes tracking down some tiny modelling glitches to find out why a particular face doesn't want to create is a PITA.

The projection tools you used last can also be "supplemented" by the Drape tool.

EarthMover

Thanks Csaba ...that's another good one. The drape tool is actually easier and quicker I think. I never thought of the drape tool to drape upward, but it indeed works well. The other difference of using the drape tool vs. using the projection plugin is that the drape tool will project the edges into a grouped face and put them inside the group. The projection plugin puts the edges onto the outside of the group. Drape tool will make the edges automatically into a face and the projection plugin has to be done manually by redrawing a line or running Make Faces 1.1. Man, I learn something new everyday!!

Xrok1 - I tried some experimenting with using the Fredoscale to make all edges co-planar, but had no luck. I used the scale to target, clicked on the Z handle, hit tab and tried to enter 0, but it doesn't seem to allow a zero input. Is there another way to work that?

MercurialArts

Why yes, this is frustrating! So, I am an artist making images in photoshop, using magic tracer 2.0 to convert from raster to dxf. Once I import into SU, I can't get a face on the outline, which seems to act as a component. The end result of this process would be dxf files a water jetter or laser cutter could use to cut metal and glass shapes, and the SU drawing being my working drawings. Stray lines finds nothing. But I still can't fill or extrude this shape. Where do I get the projection tools? I tried drape, it only takes the outline, and I have internal stuff as well. I have watched the video several times.... I don't have the bucks to buy more plugins, the software I have cost me my flex funding..

urgen

....and WELD
weld.rar

....and very simple-SUNDBOX+SKIN
sundbox.rar

MercurialArts

So, when I try weld, its says pick at least 2 edges, when I try the sandbox contour method, it says I must choose contours. When I select even one line of my imported dxf the whole thing is selected with a box around it. Every line is blue. What does this mean? It would seem that all the lines are connected... but again, not a solid, no extrusion... Wha?

MercurialArts

Ah, what a dork, yes, its a component, edit component, check for stray lines brought up 13 items, I am solid and extruded. Thanks for the tips, I just needed to figure out how to apply all those neeto tricks to my object! dxf gets imported as a component.
I had to
select component,
edit menu, component, edit component
then go through and use stray line tool and weld tool to fix it up. Tiny little problems that are super hard to see, but between repeated uses of both tools, wazambo!

Gaieus

You can also edit a component/group from the context ("right click") menu - or even better; just double click on it. If you triple click, you will end up "inside" its editing context PLUS all the geometry inside selected already.

broomstick

awesome video, man. You taught me something i did' nt know about stray lines, and you introduced me to projection tools

My I have your permission to do a similar video for my blog in Italian?

EarthMover

No problem Broomstick! Glad it was helpful. Feel free to use it as you wish.

Here is also a quick follow up video on Closing a face with the Drape Tool.

http://www.screencast.com/users/EarthMover/folders/Jing/media/3e2420f2-b79e-40eb-8083-720632e204b7

broomstick

thanks you are very kind. I'll aknowledge you in the video, and post the link as soon as it is up

mpkarch

Earthmover,

I am curious to know where you got all the icons in your tutorial.

MPKArch

brookefox

I posted a link to this, Adam, and send along my thanks as well. Duh... 'stray lines' was sitting lonely in my PI folder unnoticed and forgotten by me...

EarthMover

No problem. Some new plugins have been released since this tutorial that change the technique a bit.

Particularly "Edge Tools" from ThomThom - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=24593 has the feature Close Gaps. This is much easier than "label stray lines" as it does the work of solving the gaps as well.

Also another one I find helpful with a stubborn face is "Flatten & Extrude" from ThomThom. -http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=23491. Once the gaps are closed you can group the edges and run the Flatten script and it will move all the verts to the same Z and close all the faces. (TIG's "Drop Verticies" will do similar on ungrouped edges but will not close the face automatically - http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=39251)

Hope this helps.