Curved Tapered Leg, need help.
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I've just learned the basics of Sketchup in the past few days. Watched all 28 videos and ran through the exercises...
Now I need to make this leg.
http://screencast.com/t/rzIB4zn6HpBUAs you can see, I've approximated the curve I need for the outline of the curved taper, even though I don't remember quite how I got those curves drawn and in place. And I'm absolutely positive I didn't do it the most efficient way.
I have downloaded the taper maker plugin, and got it working, but I can't figure out how to make it work for this form. When I use the taper maker plug in, the ending and beginning rectangles aren't in the right place, and neither is the taper...
Any tips on how to draw this up a little more efficiently?
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This does not really need any plugin or special trick but can be done by intersecting two, easy shapes. Below is a file where I placed two groups superposed. They are instances of the same, relatively simple, 2D curves (hide one to see what the shape is). Explode them, right click > Intersect selection and start removing unnecessary geometry. If you had SU 8 Pro, a simple Intersect command from the Solid tools would get you there.
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And if one doesn't have Sketchup Pro how would one do this the "easy way"?
I think I did it the hard way, by drawing triangle shapes between the curves... See attachment.
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Oh.. I see now.
For cryin' out loud.
That was just toooo easy.I've been fooling with this for a couple days, and I could have done it in a couple of minutes....
Thanks so much for your help. I can't get over how well thought out this program is.
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@unknownuser said:
And if one doesn't have Sketchup Pro how would one do this the "easy way"?
So yes, SU 8 Pro has this "shortcut" among its new solid tools. But we used to do it the same way - manually - until it came out. There are two other, similar, "boolean" plugins however:
Bool Tools ($ 10) and Boolean-Oscoolean (free)
@unknownuser said:
Oh.. I see now.
For cryin' out loud. That was just toooo easy.Well, easy if you know how to. But this is what this forum is for, isn't it?
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Well shucks... spoke too soon.
I created the desired shapes, then did the intersection select command, removed everything but what I wanted, and it looked great.
When I went to import it into my other design program (Planit's Cabinet Vision Solid Ultimate), it had "hollow" spots....
What now? Did I do something wrong in the Sketchup model?
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That one looks like it works. I can't totally tell from the remote connection - The screen resolution leaves a bit to be desired...
But some other guys who use the program say that once they put a bottom on the one I made, that it didn't have hollow spots on it any more.
What did you do to it to make it work?
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Well, indeed there was a hole at the bottom; I filled it. Then there was a face between the straight piece and the curved one. I do not know if that could have remained but your program's name is also some "solid" and a so called solid in SU should not have any inner faces so I deleted it. Finally there were a bunch of reversed (blue) faces directed outside. I know that some programs do not like these so I reversed those faces so that every face showing outside was front face.
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I'm not surprised I screwed it all up... I worked on this thing for quite some time. I shoulda started over after you showed me how to do it....
How do you reverse a face? (Or for that matter, delete one?)
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To delete a face Erase an edge that it relies on, OR to leave all of its edges 'intact', just pick the face with the Selection tool [so it's highlighted] and press the 'delete' key.
To Reverse a face [or faces] Select it, right-click > context-menu 'Reverse Faces' and it flips over.
It you have a 'solid' object with a few reversed faces select one that's the desired way round and the context-menu item 'Orient Faces' will make all connected faces match the selected face.
You can set short-cut keys to Reverse and Orient: select a face [the command is only available for shortcutting if it's displayed] and Window > Preferences > Shortcuts... filter for say 'reverse' and pick the tool and assign a key-combo...
Now if you select a face and press the assigned key the face flips without need to open context-menus etc... -
Awesome... Thanks for all the help guys. The leg looks terrific in the program, and now I know how to do even more stuff in Sketchup...
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