Extrusions Benefits to methods
-
I've seen Dave R and others on occasions when extruding a component from a flat template extrude only 1/4 of the final piece, then move-copy the first quarter scale it, attach it to the first one, then repeat with the 1/2 extrusion to make the final component.
Today I made a template for a spindle saved the template in a skp, then used it to make two spindles, one making just 1/4, then copying pasting, the I did the whole thing with one extrusion. I used 6 segment arcs in the template, and a 24 segment circle for the extrusion on both of them.
What I ended up with was the spindle made in 1/4s saved to 199 K while the other took up 201 K on the drive. Now the funny thing is, I went in and move/copied a second spindle in each of the skp. The resulting files were had the full extrusion still at 201 K while the 1/4 extrusion file went to 202 K.
It took me significantly longer to do the 1/4 spindle than for the full one and it doesn't seem like much saving of space for the extra time. Is there another reason to do the 1/4 extrusion other than disc space?
-
Similar but without the slices taken off. Yes, I did make a component of the 1/4 spindle. I did have to explode the copy to join it to the original.
-
Are you referring to something like this?
Did you make a component of the 1/4 spindle?
It shouldn't take longer to make the 1/4 spindle.
-
Exploding undid all the good making it a component provided. Could you either post or e-mail the SKP file so I can see it?
-
Here's the skp.
-
Jerry, since you exploded the quarters, you've lost the benefit of making them in the first place. This is why the file size is larger. And did you mean for the post to have a sort of squarish section?
-
Jerry, here is a screen grab of the leg I posted before. You see how the section is a discreet component?
-
Ok, I just tried again, this time basically making the spindle a group of nested components and the file size dropped down to 90 K.
I didn't see where the spindle looked squarish, wasn't making it for anything in particular. Just playing around mostly.
Something I noticed was that I had to add one additional segment beyond 90 degrees to the circle to get a full 1/4 extrusion. Then rotate it to coincide with the axis.
-
Jerry, you shouldn't need to add the line segments. those are what caused the squarish appearance. I'm just off to put my son to bed but I'll show you how to deal with this when I get done.
-
Let's see if this helps explain it.
First, you are absolutely correct that the begining and end segments of the path need to be at 90° to each other for a 1/4 sector and for Follow Me to work correctly. Instead of adding line segments to your 90° arc, though try the following.
In this image, I've added red lines over the line segments at 90° to each other. Notice these are half the length of the other line segments.
Instead of drawing an arc for the Follow Me profile, draw a circle and make sure you drag it out on axis. Then rotate the circle on its center by half the angle between vertices. In the case of a default 24-segment circle, that would be 7.5°. This will set sides parallel to the axis lines. Divide the circle into quarters or as I did eighths and discard all but one of those. Now you have your path for Follow Me set up correctly. The end segments are at 90° to each other and when you put two sectors together, they meet on a line rather than at a point. the other benefit of this is that when you hide seam lines, they are actually hidden. If the seam line occurs on the vertex of the circle, the edges won't hide nicely and softening then will do strange things to the appearance of the faces.
It takes longer to read this than do it.
Advertisement