Hi All

We are a lighting manufacturer and use Sketchup to visualise our lights in clients spaces.

A typical use case is when we create a cluster of lights and then need to extend to flexes up to the ceiling. See attached screen grab....

We have all of our lights modelled which we drop into new files, then we go into each group and push/push the flex up to the ceiling.

My question...is there a better and ideally quicker way to do this (plugin or fancy dynamic components?)

Thank you for any help in advance

Cheers Mark

Thank you so much for your help chaps, it is really amazing to see how Sketchup has been redefined as a program, the organic modelling is exactly what we need!!

The examples is the thread suggested by baz really give a newbie like me a great idea of how the proxy shape guides Artisan to create the curves...very, very interesting.

We will keep on learning the hard modelling side so we have understanding and flexibility to create the proxy's we need, thanks again, you have all been very helpful.

Wow!! You guys can rock this stuff out so quickly, we struggle along for ages and end up with something that kind of looks like what we are after.

We are only very, very basic with sketchup, but are really enjoying the potential to communicate with our clients. Would love to see a bit more detail in how you chaps are getting to these results, are there any good resources for this kind of modelling. We are keen to get a good understanding of best practice etc.

Ideally we would like the objects to have a double wall as we probably won't be photo rendering very much and I guess this will give us the most realistic output from sketchup...

We are sort of getting some results out of artisan but have only just started using it, with the Vintage light is it best to model in the flat, pull up the concentric rings and then alter the points to determine the waves before using artisan...

Sorry for basic questions, we are better at glass blowing than 3d modelling...and thanks for the kind comments, much appreciated.

@rich o brien said:

[attachment=0:2l6ex1kh]<!-- ia0 -->Image 1.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:2l6ex1kh]

I think hard surface modelling is the best approach here.

Lofting will get good results but controlling segments will give you headaches

@RIch: Excuse my ignorance, but how exactly have you done that? Is that a follow me of a line around a 16 sided polygon followed by Subdivide & Smooth from Artisan Tools?

Thanks.

Hello,

We are a glassblowing studio that focuses on pendant lighting. Recently we've been experimenting with visualisations in SketchUp but have been running into a few issues. Most likely this is due to our inexperience with the tools and techniques - so I'm wondering if anyone has any hints and tips. Here's what we do: http://www.rothschildbickers.com/products/

For now we're really just after getting the geometry accurate, though in the long run we may be looking to do photorealistic renderings (probably with the Maxwell plugin). Some products are going to be easier than others of course, but we seem be struggling with the processing and file size in some attempts. Our aim is to use the models in sketch visuals during the design stages with architects & interior specifiers.

We started out drawing a section and using the follow-me tool to revolve it. This then progressed with bezier splines but we are experiencing a lot of crashes (iMac with 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo running 10.6.8 with 4GB SDRAM). Curviloft seems like it should work for this scenario and perhaps Artisan too with it's ability to sculpt a form.

Specifically we are struggling to model the wavy, optic (vertical lines on the surface) glass and stamped metal forms on the Flora Pendant.

• from left: Flora, Vintage, Spindle Pendant

Any advice or tips would be greatly.
Thanks.

Hi Dave

Thanks for your response, the PDF is out of Illustrator. I will put the sketch up file up after the weekend as it is on my office computer. The file looks good in sketch up but the guy who is doing my cutting says there are too many lines for the cutting software....

Have a good weekend everyone...

Hi All

Very, very new to Sketchup so please bear with me...

I am trying to make a .dwg file to give to a laser cutter to cut out of sheet steel. I have drawn it first in Illustrator (I have experience with this) and know that the exported DWG out of Illustrator is no good for my laser cutters. So I have imported it into Sketchup to see if it would produce better results.

The laser guy is still saying he is getting too many lines. Apart from re-drawing does anyone know of a nice work around to get dwg files that have small line counts for laser cutting using Sketchup? Or has had any joy with using Sketchup dwg's for laser cutting? I don't have access to Autocad...

Please let me know if you need more info, I have attached a pdf to show what we are making.

Thanks in advance for your help

Mark

ben.pdf