Posts made by outland86

@pbacot said:

@outland86 said:

as do most CAD programs

Export into CAD then do it?

i love lateral thinkers you may be right
but i have never been able to export 3d models to my CAD as it uses parmetric modeling and does not allow for manipulation of models from other programs it is Autodesk inventor. a great drawing and assembly program but it does not have the simple roof and house making features that sketchup does other wise i would do the designs using that ..
but i am not a math based person and trying to calculate gables and angles would be way too hard for me which is where sketchup comes in i coud draw the house and make the roof pitches etc and then if i can get the faces out into 2d DXFs i can cut the roof parts out on my CNC and they will all fit together fine...i wish someone would make the Dollhouse plugin

thanks for the replys and ideas they are appreciated
i will try the fight of ideas plugin..i am not really looking for somthing this complex though ...i really thought just being able to pick a face and right click and save the face as a DXF line drawing
would have been somthing sketchup did as standard as do most CAD programs one way i thought of was to select the face and do an align view to get the face flat looking right at it then i would need to hide the other geometry and export the face as a 3 2d graphic using the DXF output
but again hiding lots of faces is a big task...is there no very basic plugin that allows you to just select the face and export as 2d line drawing for import into a vector graphic package without having to do any other treatment to it or the model just select face right click and save as would be what is needed... that would have to be an extreamly useful function for sketchup i would think

Hi i was hopeing /wondering if there is a plugin that will allow me to
export faces as 2d DXF files
here is what i want to do make a house make a gable and then just be able to click on each face of the roof indervidually and export each face it as a single dxf with out the whole model and not the camera view just the accurate geometry
so that i can make a pattern to cut out each part of the roof and glue them back together
using CNC or a scrollsaw by hand..even or even paper
i know it can be done if i hide parts of the model and look at it from certain angles etc but that is a lot of work for such a simple request
so i was hoping there was somthing out there that just allowed me to select the face or profile and export just that face or lines as a DXF ...as if it was just a flat 2d drawing ...

hope this makes sense

all i can say is WOW!!!!!

this is a major breakthrough
not only for CNC but also for Robotic vision in general

but what this means to CNC in the near term is you will now very inexpensively scan in say a wood relief carving of say a deer jumping over a log or scan a clay relief sculpture ,from there you will be able to
create a 3D raster toolpath for a ball nose cutting tool and machine this relief on a robotic tool(CNC machiner) making say an ornate carved wood mantel for your fireplace.

this is just one use.there are thousands that have been way to expensive up to now with 3d scanners costing thousands of dollars this will revolutionize Home and DIY CNC and robotic vision

imagine if you will a cheap robot arm that can see, this robot arm will be able to take a dremel tool and use it to cut a full 3d shape in any light material like foam for instance
this could be used to make molds or any number of things. most of all imagine if your job is to design things for this robot to make.
how hard would it be to design/make a super cheap six axis robotic arm out of MDF using inexpensive stepper motors and belts and screws that could hold a dremel tool ?
the design could be done in sketchup and i'll build the prototype in my R&D shops
i have some cnc tools to make the parts.
then we'll release the design and build instructions to the public domain
and tada!! robotic 6 axis dremel 3d carving machines will pop up in home shops all over the world
anyone up to the challange ?

Join the Evolution !

http://www.fabscity.com

i have it !!!!

just get a big 3d printer print out the model whip out to the shed get a chainsaw

and bobs your uncle

do you think NASA will hire me ?

Hello again all

there is a reason why i asked the question before and after reading the responses i feel compelled to ask another question and would be interested to hear your replies

if as a designer you could use your skills to create sinple and even complex designs and products that could be reproduced on robotic tools like CNC routers and Mills and lathes even hotwire foam cutters etc
that you could publish through a common website and make money from your work on an ongoing basis by way of sharing royalty with the publisher of said work.
not unlike turbosquid with 3d models or itunes with musicians songs would that not be a cool way to over time be fairly compensated for your work. the more prolific you are the more you could earn. the better the designs the more you could charge.
would this not be a great way to supplement your income and help offset some of those large costs and thousands of hours put in to learn this craft ?

Roboitc tools are coming of age and in the near future i see robotic routers in every home depot and hardware store, opening up a huge oppurtunity for you modelers artists and designers to supply a hungry global market of hobby and semi pro robotic tool owners with pre packaged design content FABS

all that was needed was a few standards and basic rules to follow so that the end user or robotic tool owner could simply plug and play the files....... follow a few simple instructions inculded in the FAB and presto your design pops up in workshops dens and basements all over the world.... distributed manufacturing green and clean and a new way for you to make a living

i am building a website just for you guys and Gals and maybe just maybe it will work

its a work in progress but i am working hard to get it up and running

check it out

http://www.fabscity.com

@tig said:

You could probably find a suitable free model on the 3D Warehouse that would do ?
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?q=helicopter+huey&styp=m&btnG=Search&reps=2
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=5ae11b134934f08a643ae903098a314&prevstart=0 ???
Perhaps you could do a bit of adjusting, simplification etc...
Then use Slicer ruby to make the slices - it even lays them out for you to cut out - and 'bob's your uncle'
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=16694#p16694

Bob's your Uncle: roughly translates to 'there ya go - that's all there is to it!' Just press this big red button that says 'Launch Missile', and "Bob's your uncle".

i would have thought that if a guy had the skill to fly one of these Models and also the skill to make it from scratch. he /she might have the skill to make accurate drawings of what they need and post them to whomever was trying to help them with a particular modeling problem

but hey what do i know

at $35 to $60 per hour i would be interested to know how many jobs everyone actually gets per year?
and do you all manage to pay your bills doing this fulltime? where does most of your work come from Elance rentacoder?
or word of mouth.

just i put a couple of jobs up on elance and they came back with bids i could not believe mostly from india
and after seeing those i am finding it difficult to see how a US based CAD person could survive that type of competition.

it sounds like its a labor of love in many cases

here is a common one

Bob's your Uncle: roughly translates to 'there ya go - that's all there is to it!' Just press this big red button that says 'Launch Missile', and "Bob's your uncle".

i better go to bed before i make an even bigger dork of myself lol

thanks again for all your help

here is what the wiki says about it

The phrase "The pot calling the kettle black" is an idiom used to accuse a person or thing of being marked with or guilty of the very thing they are pointing out

thank you

pot calling kettle black = pot is black from fire burning just like kettle so why is pot calling kettle black when he is also black

not too sure where it came from but is somthing i grew up with in New Zealand and have bought too the USA i guess lol
perhaps in 50 years it will be part of the language here

us kiwis have many of these little jibes and colloquialisms in our street speak my MInnesotan wife is forvewr looking at me sideways when i talk not knowing if i just insulted her of paid her a compliment usually its a compliment

fair sucka the sav aye mate = please give me a fair share of the credit from this deal or idea we are talking about

ah ok i see

its just that the CAD software i am used to working with adds dimensioned constraints to the 2d polylines in a given drawing and no matter how they are viewed they are always exported with those contraints in place
but i see now that this software does not function that way. no problem though its just a matter of knowing this information. and finding the workflow solution to achieve the same end result

thank you much for your input and work on this Tig and others and i am sorryif something i said pissed anyone off

regards

Paul

@honoluludesktop said:

outland86, The fellows here who are trying to help you are probably too nice to complain about your attitude:

"i cant believe that people could deal with these problems and still find this a useful program "

"does google know that this is a problem?"

Just because SU doesn't work the way you "think it should" doesn't justify your attitude. Floating point calculations is not exact, only precise. I don't know of a computer system that can does integer math. If it did, you would complain about speed!-{

i did not know attitude even came into this equation
but i am sorry if you were offended by anythiung i have said
i appreciate all and everyones help more than you could know
but did that justify your own ending remark
pot calling kettle black me thinks

Hi DWG is not useable for the CNC tool path software only DXF
i do not want to create another step for the end user where they have to do yet another conversion with outside software

not to sure why changing the camera that views the polylines should effect the actual drawings export dimensions
can you tell me why this may have an effect ?

the dxf files were creted in another cad program vectric aspire and autocad
they have slots in them that are 1/4 inch wide .25
they import as inch into sketchup and show .25 fine after import
if i do nothing to them at all and then export them back to the external cad program they now show 0.2889 on the slot width

so i tried creating a similar file using native sketchup tools and i get the same issue if i create a 1/4 inch slot and export the DXF i get the same or simliar result

where/how would i upload a file for you to check this yourself ?

regards

Paul

the reason i need exact scaleing is i want to use the 2d dxf profiles to cut parts on a cnc machine and accuracy has to be perfect or the parts wont fit together
DXF is a CAD format . i would have thought the sketchup people would know accuracy was paramount.

the whole point of using sketchup is that it is free and i am trying to make a system for people with little or no money to make designs that can be cut on CNC machines and then sell them to others to help make a home based income for them.

the thing about sketchup is you can model your design in 3d as well to visualize it
but then take the 2d DXF profiles and cut them out to construct your design in the real world. this cannot happen if the DXF export does not work properly
does google know that this is a problem?

yes it works fine for the import but when you export the DXF and bring it in to another cad application it is always larger by about 200 thou
very annoying.

this seems to happen no matter what the export options are set to and is the same over several external cad applications

oh sorry

hope you get well soon

is there no more development for this plugin ?