How to get from 3D model to 2D construction plans?
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Hi Dave,
About not laying the parts flat but slap them vertically against a sheet.....good thought. I am still lacking in 3D thinking, that's clear, indeed there is no need to turn parts flat on the floor. Removing the thickness of the bulkheads and turning them into a simple line drawing was necessary to get the part as .dxf into Astra for nesting. So I have to find out if I can use the Grid plugin to make a vertical grid. I really need a scalable grid around the parts to be able to convert them to full size saw patterns.
I'm amazed that at your location (Minnesota, right?) the ice was so weak. We've had ice here in the Netherlands for the third year in a row, after 8 years of mild winters without ice. A little ice age now, if you ask me. So I thought it's about time to finally invest in building an ice boat. I've sailed a borrowed DN for a day 30 years ago, and I still remember that day as if it were yesterday, an unforgettable experience!
Here's another teaser for you to start on an iceboat too.
Cheers!
Michel
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Now cut that out! You're going to make me build an ice boat aren't you? I want to build a little double-ender (15-16 feet long) next.
Yes, I was surprised by our lack of real winter here this time around. Last winter was cold with lots of snow much like those I remember as a child. The problem here is that even with winters like that, there is so much snow on top of the ice that you'd need skis on your ice boat. And then there's the pressure ridges that form making for a bit of excitement. On the other hand, when the ice is good, you could sail for perhaps miles without tacking.
Here's an aerial view of part of the lake.
The lake is more than 20 miles long and in most places more than 1 mile wide. In the photo you can see the marina where I keep my sailboat. Her slip is in the near basin. If you look close you can see a bend in the nearest row of boats. My boat sits right at the bend.
Anyway, here's a few suggestions for you. Leave the parts as components. Set their axes to some logical point. That may be dead center or it might be centered at the bottom. When you are ready to lay them out for cutting, put them on a vertical plane as I mentioned before. If you want to have a grid, that's fine but you may not need it. Once you've placed the bulkhead/frame components, Select the plane and use Intersect Faces>With Model. This will result in the edges of your bulkheads being transferred to the face of the plane. Now it's that which you'll export to Astra. This leaves your bulkheads and frames intact and, by leaving them as components, you still have the ability to make modifications in the model that carry through to the bulkheads laid out on the plane if you need to. You just have to replace the large plane before running Intersect again.
By the way, I'd like to see photos of your build process and of the finished boat. And if I ever end up in the Netherlands when there's ice, I want a ride.
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Dave, nice lake, from this distance it looks a bit like the lakes in Northern Italy, but with a larger marina.
You made me aware of the benefit of using components in stead of groups, if I need to alter the model, the panels on the grid change with it. I hadn't seen that as a benefit, more as a disadvantage.
Another problem I have is the fuselage sides. In the model they have texture, but zero thickness. In real life they will be 15 mm of 20 mm thick. The connection between decks and sides is not constructable in the way it is in the model now. In reality the sides need to be tapered down to receive the deck edge and the shape of the bulkheads changed perhaps but I don't see a way to model that without thickening up the sides. The sides are single curved, if you look from above, they have a shallow S-curve. I can't push/pull them to a thickness because of this curve. Do you see a way to thicken the sides to real life proportions?
Michel
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It is a pretty nice lake. Techincally it's a wide area in the Mississippi River.
So to thicken the skin to represent it's real thickness, you could use Joint Push/Pull. Hit Tab before starting the push/pull operation and choose Thickening. That ought to get you what you need for the skins.
There are many benefits to using components in your model but the editing thing is huge.
TTFN
Dave
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Dave, another great tip, the joint push/pull plugin! Many thanks! I should have known this weeks earlier.
Michel
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At least it exists now for you. A number of years ago, before it was around I drew the hull of the little boat I designed and built as a cradle for my son. I created the thickness by hand. Lots of work.
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Wow
That's superb Dave
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What? The lake? I didn't make it.
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The crib. It's really nice.
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Thank you. It was fun to build, too. The planks are clear pine that I resawed and planed to 1/8" thick. It's amazing how strong it is considering how thin the planks are. The worst part was planing the rolling bevels on the planks and the gains at the ends. The planks are so thin, it only took a couple of swipes with the plane to cut them. It was easy to get too much off.
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That's a sweet little swinging bunk!
Michel
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Thank you Michel.
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Hi MichelC
I think I could help.
I am busy with creating tools to make paper scale models in Sketchup.
You can see examples how my scripts work here: http://www.screenr.com/user/SketchupPP
In fact it covers quite a lot of what you are asking for.One thing that is missing is a nesting algorithm, but it is very complex story.
Greets
Matt -
I have a related question. Is there a way to export a picture from SU that would eliminate perspective distortions (parts of a model that are further away look smaller), so all visible surfaces of the model in the exported picture keep their “true” size? For my purposes the model doesn’t have to be unfolded into its various parts, just a flat picture. Does that make sense?
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Chad, you can set the camera to Parallel Projection. Look in the camera menu. Perhaps that will do what you want? another thing you can do is reduce the "wide angle" distortion by adjusting the field of view. Select the Zoom tool from the Camera toolbar. The measurements box will indicate either an angle of view or a focal length (degrees or mm). You can enter a low angle of view or a higher focal length to reduce the appearance of things receding into the distance.
Here's an example:
28mm focal length
85mm focal length -
Yes! Switching to parallel projection did the trick. Thanks!
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Cool!
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