Adding slopes to non-perpendicular arcs and objects
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Hi all,
Thanks for reading, especially as I badly named the title
Here's a problem that I and many others may come up against, when you're using mapping information by whichever company provides it (Ordnance Survey in the case of the UK).
I've created a demo situation which comes up and will come up quite often, that the creation of perfect roads (via Instant Road) and tools on surface don't seem to resolve, despite being excellent tools.
So, I have a road segment which I know two vertical details of, in this case, there is one part which we can call "0mm", and the bottom of a curve is -3000mm.
If you're interested in looking at the file yourself, here it is:
http://www.bikerchris.co.uk/3d/adding-vertical-info-sketchup.skp (right click, save target as - although I'm sure you know that!)
As you can imagine, if this was a 'ideal world' road, it would have a main part 6m wide and however long (say 20m), and then a perfect 3m radius arc, with a perfectly perpendicular road coming off it, like this:
In this scenario, as you can see, it's very easy to add a slope - the problem comes when you have to add a gradient to a surface which slowly raises/falls and is in different directions as it lowers as well as having different widths.
In my last situation, I had some great ideas from pbacot on this forum, with some wonderfully inventive workarounds (my hat off to you sir). In the end, I decided to just create rough contours for a 100 x 100m area based on 3 spot heights on the centre line of a road slither which went across the area. I then took the original mapping data, made it a block and put it above the contours and used the drape tool. This was a good enough method, but there are many features surrounding the road which have extreme differences in level height (to be surveyed or judged using google streetview, sods law).
I could easily bodge, but we know how it goes - the bodge means it takes longer to correct if someone spots an error
I do hope this all makes sense, do ask if I've described things badly!
Thanks,
Chris
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Hi Dave,
Thanks for responding. I'm sorry but I can't see any changes within the model? Am I wrong?
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I do look forward to your solution dave, here's another more simple scenario:
And here's the sketchup file: http://www.bikerchris.co.uk/3d/example2-connecting-a-2D-curve-to-lower-or-upper-Z.skp
So in this situation, I would like the 'floating' arc face to connect to the flat face at 0.000m. I'm sure others must face this problem, or at least I hope so!
All comments welcome!
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@techdave02 said:
sorry oops
No problem - I upload the wrong files all the time.
That is PERFECT!!!! Would you be able to give a hint about your method? Thanks so much for taking your time mate, really is appreciated.
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Thanks Dave, much appreciated! I've installed it now, can you give me another hint about which tool you used? Pretty please
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You could look at Fredo's Curvishear plugin. Maybe it'll do what you want.
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2 this is the option
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sent you a PM of my latest project
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bickerchris;
What is the ultimate application of your model? Does it need to meet road intersection / interchage design? If it does then there are a number of other criteria that may impact what you are trying to do?? -
bikerchris
Tak2hata's Draw_Slope_Normals will work too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9qzsLg1ii0%26amp;feature=share%26amp;list=UU7HM1vF707x5nSWuhhxZedgdtr
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Hi TechDave and Dave,
Again, thank you both for your massive amounts of help.
Dave R, I went down the route of Curvishear and it was perfect, what a find and definitely a donation going towards Fredo6 as he's incredibly worthy of it.
Mac1 - the application of the model is for proposals for new development, what helps less is the severe amount of different levels around the site, one of which is a ramped curved access road into a lower part of the site. The combination of the Fredo Curvishear and Curviloft skinning is the perfect solution to make the mapping data into 3D, when things aren't just straight lines.
TechDave, I'm still really grateful for all of your help, please don't take offence at me going to Dave R's solution, yours was great, but too complicated for my brain
dtrarch, thanks for your suggestion, I'll keep a note!
You're all great people and I'm so grateful for your help!
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Hi TechDave and Dave,
Again, thank you both for your massive amounts of help.
Dave R, I went down the route of Curvishear and it was perfect, what a find and definitely a donation going towards Fredo6 as he's incredibly worthy of it.
Mac1 - the application of the model is for proposals for new development, what helps less is the severe amount of different levels around the site, one of which is a ramped curved access road into a lower part of the site. The combination of the Fredo Curvishear and Curviloft skinning is the perfect solution to make the mapping data into 3D, when things aren't just straight lines.
TechDave, I'm still really grateful for all of your help, please don't take offense at me going to Dave R's solution, yours was great, but too complicated for my brain
dtrarch, thanks for your suggestion, I'll keep a note!
You're all great people and I'm so grateful for your help!
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All good; Happy New Year!!
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Hi All, thought I would return to this topic, as it seems that my prayers weren't 100% answered - pretty damn close though! Curvishear works perfectly when curves only are in use. Unfortunately the entity I wanted to extrude to different heights is a combination of straight and curved components...typical!
Anyway, just thought I'd update ye' olde thread.
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Divide the straight line segments into a number of short ones and then weld them back together. Divide by right clicking on the line and choosing Divide. Use TIG-Weld to weld the line segments together.
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You are so clever it's frightening Dave, sounds like a great solution, I'll give it a go. Thank you for thinking about it!
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