Rounded edges

[Mekrel]

Hi all,

Firstly, thanks for setting up what appears to be a nicely presented forum and also thanks to the people who make up the community here.

I've just started sketch up and I'm surprised by how far I've got already. I've actually made something in sketchup which I thought would take me weeks to do and learn in the matter of a day.

Now I'm stuck on a problem. I need to be able to make curved edges and it seems stupid to me that Sketchup does not have the ability to select edges and simply round them with a radius value.

I've read around before coming to you guys and it seems the best method for me to complete my objectives is to make my rounded edges and to pull them through each other at 90 degrees. Then Intersect them before getting rid of the spare and unwanted geometry.

http://www.meknet.co.uk/BT/BT1.jpg

Here you can see two rounded edges at 90 degrees, ready to be pulled through each other.

http://www.meknet.co.uk/BT/BT2.jpg

Ok, pulled through fine like planned

http://www.meknet.co.uk/BT/BT3.jpg

I used cntrl+a to select all, then intersect models.

http://www.meknet.co.uk/BT/BT4.jpg

How ever, when deleting I get missing gaps? I can't think why as each edge is sat on the same place so will be of same height and they pull through equal. They are copies of each other two, so the curved edge should be exact.

Can anyone offer any guidance?

Thanks guys

[CADken]

try tracing the border of the gap with the pen tool and it may perhaps fill in the blanks. :thumbsup:

[Strix]

yeah, I hate how sketchup does that - the only cure I've found is to run round one edge of the 'hole' with the pen, so if you find out a sensible answer can you report back to us please?

I've been tearing my hair out with trying to fit a modelled conservatory into a photograph - it wants all the perspective points in the wrong places :(

[Mekrel]

try tracing the border of the gap with the pen tool and it may perhaps fill in the blanks. :thumbsup:

Thanks, but it's a no go :(

had some more searching around, but everything I do doesn't seem to follow suit to what the guides say. Making arcs on faces will automatically lop off the excess. Problem with this is that pulling/pushing isn't accomplishable.

May be down to the fact I'm working with such small figures, such as 1mm radius for these curves. I'm designing a water block top (well not designing, it's already been done but the compay has done it out of Alu and people want an alternative).

http://www.meknet.co.uk/BT/BT5.jpg

Tried this method also, but drawing in the corner does not work lke the guide I found. It doesn't make any faces so I can use the smooth command like the guide states.

:(

[Strix]

hmm, what happens if you use the method of constraining your pull in one direction and limiting it to a distance of the rear face of the second object, so there's less to prune off?

have you spun it round? is there anything else missing?

oh, can you use screenshots to share pics with us? that last one has freaked my screen out and I'm having to pan all over the place to see what you've written!!

[Strix]

ah - had a go at this myself, and its happy for me to draw two perpendicular sides, arc the corners, but then it wants to constrain the pull to the edge of the corresponding arc on the other face (so a 2unit cube with a 1unit arc has a constrained pull of 1unit), leaving a whole corner missing. Pull the floor up and it stops short too

now you need a sphere to fill that bit in

I've not tried that one but seen a tutorial somewhere that instructs something like drawing a circle on the 'floor', and use the rotate command to pick it up, plonk it in mid air and spin it :?

Help > learning centre > prod 'next' until you get to 'creating a sphere' :thumbsup

[f700es]

Try using follow me for the top fillet and then push/pull the side up and use intersect to subtract it from the main. After a bit of clean up you can get this....

http://f700es.googlepages.com/Sketup-1.jpg

[Strix]

I've just had another bash at it. got as far as the missing corner again, and just used the 'follow me' tool (next to rotate) to click on one vertical face of an arced section, and clicked the 'floor' arc and pulled it to the end point of the perpendicular face to that first selected


righty ho - how do I attach pics here? :whistle:

[Strix]

ah, it's okay, I've figured that one out - I had to run down the sides of the new corner with the eraser function, zooming in carefully so as not to lose a whole face somewhere else, but that seems to have worked :) (mine has the perspective function turned off as I was using the elevation views to check it was going right)

PS - I allowed my third arc point each time to hover and give me a prompt of 'tangential' so I knew I'd get a spherical corner

[Mekrel]

Nice one guys, thanks for the tips, even if you have wound me up by being able to do it and I can't :lol: .

Problem with mine is things seem to react different in my sketchup than to others. If I draw an arc to push out the part I do not want, then the face where I would use the push/pull on disappears without me erasing it.


Also, using the line tool to draw around disappearing faces doesn't seem to solve that problem either like it does in your examples.

I'm wondering, did you guys try doing it on a small cube (say 5mm cubed) with 1mm rounded edges? I think the size of things is where my problem lies.

[Strix]

the size shouldn't be a problem, after all, it's only units, unless you've not set yours to be 1 unit = 1mm and are typing in .001 instead :?

sketchup is a pain - see my signature

and see my two images - I had to erase a chunk of stuff off to arrive at the final example... and I had to put bits back in, and that wasn't always successful first time so I had to do a different edge


I've turned mine into something that resembles a loaf of bread since. pushed the flat faces out so my corners scale more like yours, drew a circle on one of the top edges, pushed that down as a cylinder, used FOLLOW ME to drag the rounded corner around this cylinder, and hey presto...
the damned thing has a gap in it between the new curve and the one from your example. Ignore and carry on. complete symmetry of rounding edges to top face, go back to fill in strange sliver of gap. one side will play ball and the other won't! :x :x

[f700es]

Don't give up Strix, it will come. SU can be a bit different but once you get it you will be able to do just about anything with it. It's stickyness can be a problem at times but once you learn to use it and not work against it you won't notice it as bad.
Good luck

[Strix]

I'm just used to my CAD doing as I tell it, not as it pleases :(

one 'feature' that bugs hell out of me is that OFFSET doesn't work on a single line, as the single line you drew has grown roots to everything it touches and you've now offset a whole rectangle and have to go round erasing things :?

[f700es]

I'm just used to my CAD doing as I tell it, not as it pleases :(

one 'feature' that bugs hell out of me is that OFFSET doesn't work on a single line, as the single line you drew has grown roots to everything it touches and you've now offset a whole rectangle and have to go round erasing things :?

You've got to remember that SU is based on faces, not lines. Try to think with lines like CAD. This is 3D so you have to think with it in that way. You'll get it :)

[Strix]

yeah - and my other pet hate is that you can't MOVE anything, or it drags half your drawing about with it

I'm going to have to get the hang of grouping things :roll: