The best way to make roads that bend and go up or down?
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Hi everybody!
I want to make a highway interchanges like this one:
And I am wondering what the best way is to make a road that bends and goes up or down at the same time. This is the best technique that I came up with so far:
(delete the unnessecary lines)
(I mean, make the line in the previous image much smaller, so it looks like this)
(Lift only one side of the little line and do it strictly vertically)
I don't think that this is the best technique tho. It is rather time consuming and not too accurate. I would really like to know if any of you know how to do this in a more effecient/ faster way. All tips are welcome!
Thanks,
Pieter
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Hi Pieter,
This is a good technique albeit indeed tme consuming (but do not expect easy ways with such a junctions).
You could get it maybe with Follow me and keep easier or faster - one thing though; always make sure that after the curve (which should only be "tangent" to one of the axes), draw a short line along an axis so that you end up with a face that can be extruded correctly (this is just because SU curves segmentation).
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Hi Pieter,
I am also looking a long time for a solution for the construction of Roads. Until now, my favorite tools are Curviloft together with Perpendicular Faces.
The entries or exits should be designed as at point A and will be adjusted with an acceleration lane on the highway.
Charly
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I have tried the follow me and keep tool and it is indeed more intuitive and faster to use. Thanks for the advice!
I have had a look at the Curviloft and Perpendicular Face plugins and they look very interesting. However, and correct me if I am wrong, I think that even though these are interesting plugins, the real difficulty lies in making the "initial path" or curve the road should follow. These tools are just another way, like Shape Bender and Follow me and keep, to make a road out of the initial path.
I have encountered a few problems making this path. If you don't do it very carefully you get things like this:
I think a part of the problem are the limitations of the curve tool in sketchup.
Does anyone know a solution to this?
Thanks in advance!
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Hi Pieterv,
Have you tried 1001bits toolset? This has a 'Extrude along sloping curved path' tool which way help?
Here's the userguide.
It also has 'Slope selected edges' tool which might suit your modeling needs.
There's a 30day trial for the Pro version so no harm checking it out.
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And Fredo's Bezier/ Spline tool might help with your curves.
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=13563
Plus you can bend your curves using Fredo scale/Radial bender.
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Hey Rclub24,
I have had a look at the 1001bits userguide and I think "Extrude along sloping curved path" is pretty similar to Shape Bender and Follow me and keep. Thanks for the advice anyway!
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Hey Box,
I am trying the Bezierspline tool and it looks very promising. I will try to post some examples when I'm a bit more advanced.
Thanks a lot!!
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Another way that NURBS curves are better for defining the path of the road is you can pull the handles to make them more parabolic. My understanding is that if roads are built using circular arcs, they are hard to drive. You have to pull the wheel from straight to the proper radius at an instant, instead of a smooth transition over (a brief) time.
Just a design consideration, it says nothing for modeling.
Best,
Jim -
Hey Jim,
Just to be clear, by NURBS you mean tools like bezierspline?
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Another thought on a workaround:
If you can get the lines you want in illustrator, why not export to DWG from there and import into sketchup for a starting point?
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Hi everyone again!
After some testing I have figured out what the best way is for me to make roads that bend an go up or down at the same time.
I mainly use two plugins:
Fredo's BezierSpline plugin: (Of which I only use the Uniform B-Spline tool because of the smooth results for this purpose.)
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=13563
and Wikii's Follow Me and Keep plugin: (to make a road out of the curve)
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=16465
This way I was able to make the following interchange:
I think the main drawback for the moment is that you have to devide the curves you make with BezierSpline into really a lot of sides until they get smooth. I can be wrong, but it also appears to me that the sides are not equal destributed along the curve.
@Dabbig:
Thanks, that might be usefull too one day!
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That is a nice interchange!
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Cool. How long did that take once you figured out the right plugins to use?
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That's hard to say in fact, because I didn't work continiously at it. Let's say I worked a couple of hours every day on it for about four or five days. I find it hard to make an estimation though.
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Indeed a nice result (from here at least - don't bother yourelf with smaller flaws like segmentation - Su is just this kind of a tool).
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Remarkable result!
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