Drawing freehand, curves and polylines in 3D
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Hi Guys can any body explain please how to draw in 3d freehand. I read that you need to press and hold the shift key while you draw but this does not work, it stays on the same plane. Also when drawing polylines I turn off plane lock and select polyline , right clik, but there is no option to edit polyline in context menu so I cant move it off the current plane. I use Sketchup 8 on OSX Lion
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Hi, David:
Without some kind of visual examples, I am not sure I have a clear idea. However, if you mean you need to draw in "midair", I think you will need to set up some landing points where your arcs start and stop. With polylines, again, you need a surface or keypoints in the model space to span. You can draw flat on a surface, such as a rectangle on the ground plane, finish, and select the polyline or arc, select Move+Cmd(?)or in windows, Ctrl and basically copy it and lift it off the plane and move it where you want it. Delete the original if desired. If you are tracing on an imported image, and you want to keep your linework on the image plane, you can mount the image on say a rectangle, so that all of your vertices snap to that plane.
Be sure you have activated the Extensions in Menu: Window>Preferences>Extensions. I am not sure if this provides curve editing context menu, but it might. Someone can verify that.
While I am at it, have you checked the Help button on the Main Menu ribbon? In there is Help Center, and on the web at You Tube there are videos that introduce the native tools. Just do a browser search including "Sketchup"Edit: Ok, I am back. I see you meant the Freehand Tool, which basically draws a rambling polyline as long as you have pointer down (left mouse button depressed).
But then, I may still not understand your meaning, so I recommend checking out those videos, many of which were done by Sketchup way back. They are still very helpful. Post back if you think of something else. -
Better is use the Bezier curves by Fredo 6
you can edit them after drawing! -
I think that drawing freehand in 3D is not a good idea within SketchUp because you are not able to profit from the powerful inference system...
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bishop1948
Don't know if this will help. In my modeling of construction sites I have to show cables running from here to there in the models. I made this DC 3D Grid.skp to set up a reference from two points in my model. I than use any one of the multiple curve drawing plugins to make a line from my start to ending points. I usually move and rotate the grid to make sure the start and end points end up on the grid.
You can change the basic cube size and then use the scale tool to make the grid as large or small as required, which adds more of the basic cubes.
I hide the grid, and use the make pipe tool to make the cables. If the cables are small, and most are, I use either, 3 to 8 sides. No use in adding a lot of geometry to you model if the cable is going to just be in the back ground.
By using the DC 3D Grid component, I am able to give a more realistic illustration of electrical, fuel and other cables being connected from point to point on construction sites.
Hope this helps. Note, if the DC component's menu doesn't pop up try exploding one time. Not sure how to save a DC component that isn't wrapped into another group.
Ken
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@unknownuser said:
In my modeling of construction sites I have to show cables running from here to there in the models.
You know this plugin: WireTool?
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