stair_DC.skpI created this DC stair component to be more useful to my workflow than some of the others I have seen. I used to build stairways and one of the first measurements needed was the overall height -finished floor to finished floor. The overall height, or total rise, is entered into the dialog box and the individual rises adjust to as near as 7 1/2" (the optimal rise height). Width and run are also adjustable.

Thanks Dave
That did it. The video helped a lot.

@box said:

Ah, I did redraw the radius, so perhaps it was my placement that let it intersect better.

It's not a shape I am overly familiar with, DaveR probably has a tutorial on the best way to draw this type of thing. My answer was only in response to the followme basics of it.
But I think the main issue was untidy geometry, if that's messed up it makes it hard for the other tools to work.

Edit: Now I see your CAD reference, that's a good place to start. Cad geometry can be nasty in SU and needs to be cleaned up.

I have a compose command in my CAD program (they probably all do) which is supposed to close unconnected lines. Not sure if this is where the hangup is. Thanks for your help.

@box said:

It would have been a lot easier to find the original problem if you had uploaded the leg before you had used followme on it.
However a few things, you are working quite small (correct sizes I guess) but things can go wrong when very small faces are created. It helps to work with scaled up, then scale down again.
You seem to have lots of strange geometry going on, it may be from how you created the curves in the first place, but ......
I simply cleaned up some loose edges and double lines and unsoftend and welded the Path. Then followme worked perfectly, a bit of deleting excess bits and away you go.

After scaling up 100X and welding the path it seems my radius does not completely intersect the faces on down the leg and so doesn't create separate geometry.
BTW I have tried Curviloft (loft along spline) and Roundcorner as well to no avail.

Edit:
I'm creating my original profile in CAD

@box said:

Did you click on the small offcut part or the larger section of the block. It works for me if I select the "triangular" profile.

Edit: You can ignore that, it works either way for me..
You may have a break in the path that is stopping it.
If you post the skp we can look and see if there is some problem with it.

french cab2.skp

@box said:

Both are very good plugins for what you want to do, but your question was can Followme follow a curve. The vanilla answer is Yes.
If you select the profile path from top to bottom on the leg then use the followme tool on the radius face it will go all the way.

It looks to me as if you might be using followme incorrectly.
Preselect the path you want to follow, then select the followme tool and click on the profile.

But this is the method i used. I preselected the path and then clicked on the round over - didn't work

Hi All
Is it possible to "follow me" a radius along a curve. I'm trying to round over the front edge of this cabriole leg. My model shows where the radius stops. I need it to go all the way down to the foot of the leg. Thanks

I bought one a few months ago and the standard driver did not work at all. Support walked me through installing their beta version. It will work and then suddenly stop (last time it stopped when I saved my drawing). It does seem to work with everything else but I bought it for SU.
BTW I use a Mac as well

@thomthom said:

I generally find that parallel view often produce clipping glitches.

Thanks
It's good to know it's not a problem inherent to my machine.

@dave r said:

Any time.

TBH, I don't know if this qualifies as a bug or it's just the way it is.

I guess though I'm curious why it never happened before a few months ago. In fact , the last time you you helped me one on one I mentioned it to you. It had just started shortly before that time.

@dave r said:

It's basically when some of the model is behind the image plane of the camera. There are several things that cause it. It is more common when the camera is set to Parallel Projection and it commonly happens when the model is very large (geographically), when the model is located at a substantial distance from the origin and/or when you zoom in on a small part of the model.

Thank You

@dave r said:

I saw it too. I think it is something related to clipping. The camera is set to Parallel Projection and is also set to be at a long distance from the model. If you switch to Perspective it looks like the model disappears. Zoom back in on the corner of the model and then switch back to Parallel Projection. It doesn't happen then.

Dave
What is "clipping"?

@dave r said:

Probably a bunch of components you'd made but deleted? Or some large imported image? Go to Window>Model Info>Statistics and click on the Purge Unused button.

Yes bunch of components

test.skp

@dave r said:

If you send me the SKP file, I'll take a look at it on my Mac.

Wow
I was going to send the file and realized it is 5.6MB (2 MB max) although there is hardly anything in it. What gives?

@thomthom said:

Is the model or component geometry far away from their origin?

No it doesn't seem to matter. The component can be small or large and near the origin.

@tig said:

It might be a graphics-card issue...
Have you go the latest drivers ?
Have you tried editing the Sketchup > Preferences > OpenGL settings to see which combo of them doesn't result in this issue etc...

Adjusting the preferences did not do anything. In fact, when I toggled them all off the results were bizarre.
I have an IMac btw

I'm not sure what to call this but faces do not appear to distinctly connect at intersections. This started happening several months back. Has anyone seen this?

@dave r said:

[attachment=0:3d51qsvi]<!-- ia0 -->Newel Better.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:3d51qsvi]

Beautiful work Dave. Thanks again for the tutorial!!!
Thanks as well Jean. Great info here!

@dave r said:

well that wasn't so bad. I'm kind of surprised I haven't already done a tutorial on doing this.

So I drew the tapered column and then drew a flute which I copied around the column and intersected with the surface of the column. Then I deleted the geometry I didn't want and was left with a fluted column.

I guess I'll do up a tutorial in the next few days.

Wow
I was just getting a file ready to upload for you to look at but you've already done it. I'll upload anyway and try again
edit: I guess my biggest problem is the ends of the fluting.
N105.dwg

@unknownuser said:

Maybe this tutorial by Dave can help ?

Love Dave's Tutorials but the challenge for me is

1. the shaft is tapered

2. the flutes don't end squarelyI looked at one of Dave's other tutorials on FH for a fluted shell carving and though it was helpful I didn't get to the promised land with it. Anyway thanks