I have a number of models that I have built over the time I've been getting the basics of SU down and before I learned about decreasing the number of segments in arcs and circles. With spindles and curved surfaces, these models are needlessly large in size. Is there a way to globally change these settings, i.e. select an area or a model and reduce the segments in all of the arcs and circles?

Don't know if this is what you're looking for, but...

Draw a 1/2 view of the cone using the radii of the smaller and larger circles and the altitude of the cone. Now draw a circle centered at the apex of the of the pattern, delete the surface of the circle, then select the circle. Now get your follow-me tool and click on your pattern.

Cone.skp

@mitcorb said:

For me, reading as much of the forums as possible, whether seeking an answer to a problem or not, challenging myself with non business modeling projects, "going down blind alleys" and discovering the intricate behavior of the program has helped develop my methodology. It really does take some time in the trenches and soon these things will become second nature to you.

Sometimes I come over here and just read and find out all kinds of helpful stuff I didn't realize that I didn't know. Does that makes sense?

Ok, I just tried again, this time basically making the spindle a group of nested components and the file size dropped down to 90 K.

I didn't see where the spindle looked squarish, wasn't making it for anything in particular. Just playing around mostly.

Something I noticed was that I had to add one additional segment beyond 90 degrees to the circle to get a full 1/4 extrusion. Then rotate it to coincide with the axis.

Here's the skp.

1-4 Extrude Spindle.skp

Similar but without the slices taken off. Yes, I did make a component of the 1/4 spindle. I did have to explode the copy to join it to the original.

I've seen Dave R and others on occasions when extruding a component from a flat template extrude only 1/4 of the final piece, then move-copy the first quarter scale it, attach it to the first one, then repeat with the 1/2 extrusion to make the final component.

Today I made a template for a spindle saved the template in a skp, then used it to make two spindles, one making just 1/4, then copying pasting, the I did the whole thing with one extrusion. I used 6 segment arcs in the template, and a 24 segment circle for the extrusion on both of them.

What I ended up with was the spindle made in 1/4s saved to 199 K while the other took up 201 K on the drive. Now the funny thing is, I went in and move/copied a second spindle in each of the skp. The resulting files were had the full extrusion still at 201 K while the 1/4 extrusion file went to 202 K.

It took me significantly longer to do the 1/4 spindle than for the full one and it doesn't seem like much saving of space for the extra time. Is there another reason to do the 1/4 extrusion other than disc space?

Other than being nice to each other, I don't think there are many rules of etiquette on these forums. If you ask a question and get some good answers, it seems like the thing to do is to reply with a thank you within the thread. Heck, even if you didn't ask a question, but found some good tips in another thread, nothing says you can't tell the folks that they've been helpful.

Thanks, Dave. Those are great.

@dave r said:

Those materials are nice for short boards. Some of them work fairly well on longer stuff but the grain repeats too frequently for my needs. I have a bunch of longer material images. They are of boards between 8 and 14 feet long so I can pick out different parts of a single image for different 'boards' in the model.

Wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing some of those. The stuff I've found on the net is not so great and I'm having to move the material around to try to rid it of weird colored (rainbow like colors) sections.