Circle force orient; circle to square

brookefox

Two things from Jean (2008 BaseCamp PDF) requiring clarification for me:

Can't get the forced circle orientation to work. For me in empty space anywhere it is on the flat (blue).

orient force.JPG

Is this circle to square transition a 'trick' of a many to a 4 sided circle? If so or if not, how do you do that 'trick', please (I know one can with plugins)?

round to square without plugin.JPG

Gaieus

Hi Brooke,

You should be able to orient your view so that you can have two inferences without having to further orbit quite easily. Have a look at this "Jean (Johnny) Lemire" way of quickly drawing a sphere this way...

YouTube - A very quick sphere in Google SketchUp
[flash=480,385:3gn1kqd4]http://www.youtube.com/v/4g5NQjNAYvI&hl=en_GB&fs=1[/flash:3gn1kqd4]

It was actually this he was trying to present there but indeed those laptop monitors were set so small we could hardly see anything...

brookefox

Thanks, Gai, I got that, it just seems to work inconsistently for me, which is an improvement, because it was not happening at all yesterday. You know, one of those things that both make you feel like you are crazy and that perhaps no one will take you seriously if you keep it up.

Now, about that native LoftbySpline...circle to square...

brookefox

Link to the video in question with Jean's part near the end. I see that the circle to square transition is indeed a number of segments sleight of hand, if you will, which is nonetheless cool and not his point, anyway.

http://sites.google.com/site/3dbasecamp2008/all-sessions-2008/sketchup-and-layout-tips--tricks

At 1:25:55, he gets the center for a rotation by clicking once on one midpoint and then again on another midpoint with the center of rotation being established as the undrawn intersection of perps from these points, it seems, that being the center of the top square. I haven't been able to dupe that.

Any tips?

rotation center two picks.JPG

Rich O Brien

Brooke,

Jean does not 'click' at the midpoints. He uses SU's inferencing engine to establish the midpoints on the green and red axis. Once that is done he quickly finds the centre point.

Hovering at a point until SU display 'End Point' 'Mid Point' etc, kick SU's inferencing engine into action.

brookefox

Thank you, Rich.

I must explore and use the most useful double inference.

Jean Lemire

Hi folks.

When doing these demos at BaseCamp (BC) 2008, one of my aim was to show as many tricks as possible in the short time allowed.

In fact, with this square to round demo, the main purpose was to explain how to make a slender object while avoiding going back and forth from one end to the other using Zoom-pan-zoom-pan-zoom-etc. To acheive that I drew the two end faces first and quite close to each other, eliminating the panning-zooming action. When the object was completed, I simply stretched it to required length by selecting and moving one end, using SU ability to automatically stretch the faces connected to the end being moved.

But, to construct this model, I also used a few other tricks like these:

1 - How to get a dual interference from any two adjacent sides. This can be done with polygon like square, rectangle or parallelogram (for a real polygon, you can get the center directly if the curve has not been exploded). For the parallelogram, you will need also a parallel inference. This means a triple inference trick. I did not showed this in the BC presentation.

2 - How to specify the exact number of sides before drawing a circle or polygon or arc. This is in the help but seems to mystify a few users.

3 - How to complete a symmetrical model using a Copy/Rotate of one completed part. The rotation center being found with trick 1 above.

4 - Use a four sided polygon to get a square. Its not really faster that drawing a real square but it gives you three advantages:

a - You can draw the square from its center;

b - You get a square from which the center can be inferenced quickly and that you can also mark with a "Point at center".

c - You get the square quickly instead of waiting for the dotted line that the Rectangle Tool shows when arriving at a square shape. Ok, you only save half a second or so.

Of course, there are disadvantages too:

a - You cannot draw a square with given sides since the Polygon Tool draw by diameter.

b - To align the square with the axes, you will need to rotate the finished square, unless you have rotated the axes first.

Finally, one last note. When you have a square, made with the Polygon Tool. After you have rotated it so that its side are parallel to the axes, you can scale it to make a rectangle and it keeps its center point. And even if you deform it to a parallelogram, using, for example, Fredo's FreeScale Shearing Tool, it will still maintain its center point.

Just ideas.

brookefox

Thanks, Jean, for the generous explication.