@davidheim1 said:
The Dave Method (invented by Dave Richards, a constant presence on this forum) is a technique for intersecting shapes without problems. It gets around a SketchUp shortcoming: The program creates a hidden network of rectangles and triangles to create surfaces. But it also has a limit, and can't fill in those hidden shapes if they are too small, something like 0.1mm. However, components in SketchUp possess a property that gets around that size limitation: A change to one component produces the same change in every instance of that component.
So here's how the Dave Method uses that property of components to foil that shortcoming in SketchUp. Let's say you want to intersect two shapes to create a cabriole leg. Make the shapes a component, make a copy of the component, and scale the copy up 100x, 1000x, or even 10,000x. Perform the intersect command and erase the waste. That will produce a clean, solid shape with no microscopic voids. Delete the scaled-up copy. The original component will also be a clean, solid shape with no microscopic voids.
The Dave Method also works with the Follow Me tool. If you want to use Follow Me to create a shape, like an elaborate table leg with lots of small beads and coves, make the profile a component, scale it up, and use Follow Me on the big copy. If you only work on the original profile, the extruded shape will almost certainly have some missing faces.
Hope this helps.
Best,
dh
Perfect! Thank you!
