@jean lemire said:

Hi Jacob, hi folks.

See this SU file for ideas.

Jean, Thank you for your tutorial. The Senster structure consists of LOTS of tetrahedrons, and in order to make the model look like the original, I need rather accurate dimensioning of all the individual elements.

I can not see how to do that using your method, or do you have some tips on that too?

Draw the lines in 3D space triangulating them. ...

That's the whole problem, you have to make the end connect. You can't simply rotate a line whilst keeping it's length fixed. You can't easily rotate two lines that already form two sides of a triangle to fit up to another line endpoint.

I tried drawing several spheres with radius equivalent to the element lengths, and whre the three of them intersect, that's where the line should end. This gets too complicated when the model grows.

Hi, I'm in a project that aims ro rebuild the Senster, an awesome contraption that was on display in the Philips technology museum Evoluon in the early 70's. Have a look at http://www.senster.com to see for yourself.

Before actually building one, i'd like to get the construction sorted out, and I was trying to do this in Sketchup.

I'm basically looking for a tool that lets me take 3 lines (or cylinders) and snap their endpoints together to form a triangle. Then add elements to make the whole space frame (lattice, truss)construction.

Anyone out there with experience in this field, or with a magical, come-handy plugin / tool

/Jacob