Followme tool problem on circular path

dpinvidic

Hi all, I am new to sketchup, and new to this forum.

And I have a problem.
I am trying to reproduce the item in this tutorial:

It is a chess piece, and uses the followme tool to create a chess piece after the profile is defined.
My problem is that after the shape is created, it is no longer a solid.
I can use the follow me on a straight path, and the same profile works.
The actual bottom segment of the profile seems to disappear if a circular path is used.
I copied the profile (2D face), and tried it with a straight path, AND a curved arc, and it is fine.
It seems to be a problem when the bottom segment is joined with the surface of my disk which is formed by the circular path.

Using SU-2014. I hope I have explained this clearly...

Regards,

Dan (who is getting frustrated on this....)

mitcorb

Hi, Dan:
If I understand you correctly, don't bother trying to join the disc to the form. Simply draw a line across the bottom or along one of the segments of the circular base. The face will close.
HOWEVER..
If you are building an extremely small object at real world scale and you cannot get a solid, then you need to build it 10 to 100 times larger and then scale it down, so that tiny faces- if any -will close.
FURTHERMORE..
It will help if you shift(rotate) the midpoint of one of the segments of the circular path to align with your ground axis x. In other words, rotate the circle as suggested, then set the profile directly above that midpoint. This will ensure full 360 degree turn and closing of the lathed form.
Finishing that, do that line across as mentioned in the second sentence at the top.

Dave R

Further to Tim's remarks, you might have a look at the video here which shows how I deal with small things and Follow Me.

mitcorb

@Dave, your link is much more eloquent.

Box

One thing to note, I'm not sure if Dave got to it in his blog post, if the profile is touching the face of the follow me path it will remove the face, if it's not touching it won't remove the face. This is a different issue to tiny faces and isn't a bug, it can be used to your advantage.

Quick example vid.
[screenr:2gwmqrvg]1h2N[/screenr:2gwmqrvg]

Dave R

Thank you Tim.

Box, it didn't come up in that blog post but of course you're right.

pbacot

Nice video Dave. It's soothing to watch going through the correct steps once (rather than bashing away at it and fixing it after). In the end it's all very clear and methodical.

Dave R

Thank you, Peter.

I think one of the most challenging things is to understand what's likely to happen a few steps down the road and to stay ahead of the problems. Once you get that sorted, it is all pretty straightforward.

dpinvidic

Thanks everyone. I found the solution on another video.
It looks like having a surface causes a problem...however in video #68 this was not a problem.
After drawing a circle, I need to delete the surface. Then I get a solid model.
If I leave the surface intact, then the model does not have a bottom surface after following the circle.

Still trying to learn all of these concepts.

Thanks again for the replies.

Dan

Dave R

The thing with the face of the circle is that Follow Me is both additive and subtractive. If you watched the video I linked to, you'll see that I placed the circular path below the profile so it wasn't touching. This way even if the bottoms of the chessmen had be flat, the face of the circle would still be formed.