Problems with extrusion
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Closed polygon to be extruded.OK,
I am trying to model a fairly simple piece of sheet-metal, but it has a specific profile. I've drawn the profile, and copied the profile with an offset of 1/4" (still too thick, but it will do for a starting point), and then joined the two profiles with short line segments.
So now I have a 'closed polygon'.... but I can't seem to use the 'push/pull' tool to extrude my sheet!
I've used this tool with several other projects without any problems. Is there some trick to making my 'profile' extrude into a sheet? Are there some restrictions to what can be extruded using 'push/pull'?
Below is a simple picture of my closed polygon, with profiles included:
If you could help, I'd appreciate it! I've also attached the SketchUp file.
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There was no face to extrude. I drew a line segment along an edge and the face filled in. Then Push/Pull had something to do.
I'm curious how you drew this because there are a lot of co-linear line segments that ought to be single lines.
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@dave r said:
There was no face to extrude. I drew a line segment along an edge and the face filled in. Then Push/Pull had something to do.
I'm curious how you drew this because there are a lot of co-linear line segments that ought to be single lines.
Yes, this is exactly how I got the part to extrude, about a half-hour after posting this. One or more of my line segments must not have been co-planer.
As to how it was drawn: I initially tried to draw it 'free hand' in Sketchup, but kept screwing up the drawing plane. Next, I drew it quite easily in Layout with the cool grids supplied. However upon exporting as DXF, and importing back into Sketchup I just could not get the real-world scale to work.
Finally, I switched back to Sketchup, put myself into an ortho-view, and drew several guide-lines spaced (horizontally) at +1/4" and +5/8"; with perpendicular guidelines to create the line vertices I needed to complete the profile. I then just used the line tool to draw from guideline vertices to guideline vertices. Finally, I made a 'group' of all my line segments, and copied the group with an offset of 1/4" (the thickness of my sheet). By joining these two groups with short line segments at each end, I assumed I had a closed face.
Each resulting 'sheet section' is actually repeated (in the horizontal plane) 4 times, for a single sheet dimension of 36". In the real-world these 36" sheets can be as long as 45-ft!
I used the resulting sheeting to cover a barn-like structure (actually a high-school batting cage), and the sheeting is quite commonly used here in the Lone Star State.
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It might be that making the group of the line segments was your downfall. There isn't any reason to do that for this. I would draw the edges for one side, select them all and do the offset. Then connect the ends with line segments. This isn't really a very complex thing and it sounds like you were working awfully hard to get it.
It does make sense to define the corners with crossing guidelines but from there it should be a simple matter of connecting the dots, well, intersections.
I would be inclined to redraw some of those edges if not the entire thing before using it in a model. You could reduce the file size a fair bit if you make single line segments between the creases in the panel.
I bet that makes quite a racket when it is hit by a baseball.
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Hi CactusMatt, hi folks.
I suggest that you take the time to view the video tutorials to get acquainted with SketchUp (SU).
It is more capable than you think in making this very simple design.
Believe me, the few hours taken in viewing these videos will save you a lot more hours of frustration when using SU.
In the mean time, here is a reconstitution of your pannel, using some assumptions. Click on the scene tabs of this SU file for ideas.
Panel-Loc extrusion profile - JL.skp
If you save only the final extruded panel, you will see that the size of the resulting file is 20K.Best regards.
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