Leg with two concave surfaces

[silentC]

I'm trying to draw this leg in SketchUp. It's just a 4" square leg but it has two adjacent concave faces. I can't for the life of me get SketchUp to render the second concave face. It stops as soon as it hits the first one and wont go any further. Does anyone know how to do this?

[Brown Dog]

For some reason when i went to open your file my PC crapped its dacks :((...I think it has issues (my PC that is)

Anyway without having seen your sketch...Iand if i get your meaning correctly, I asked this question a while ago and got some very good responses that helped me out

See Here (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=46110) I think post #24 has the answer your after

hope this helps
Cheers
BD:)

[silentC]

OK, yep that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Too bad it's in the form of a cleverness test rather than a step by step. I hate trying to be clever, it doesn't suit me. :)

I think the general idea is that you make a wire frame and then use some method to fill it? Obviously trying to do it with that push/pull tool is not going to cut it. I've got the wire frame now, so one step closer.

Looks like more hours in front of the bloody computer ahead of me tonight!

Cheers... :wink:

[BozInOz]

I've recently made a project with a similar style leg. see -->
http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=67443

However, I can't remember how I did it. Originally I have all 4 sides curved.

Anyway, I had a little play.

Made a 4x4x32.
Then a curve with a 1" bulge.
Pushed that back 4" to remove it.
Then on the surface that was left - selected, copied, rotated and drop it in on another side
Removed the flat surface over it.But that's not how I did it last time...

[silentC]

Could you expand on point 4? I get the select, copy and rotate but I can't get the bastard thing to sit properly using the move tool, it keeps wanting to jump around.

[Brown Dog]

Too bad it's in the form of a cleverness test rather than a step by step. I hate trying to be clever, it doesn't suit me. :)



I know what you mean :)...it took me about 6 months from the time of asking that question to actually getting it to work. I had to wait for a day i was feeling particularly clever.

it did help though....I think if you have the wire frame the next part is quite easy :?. From memory the idea is to turn the curved surface into different segments then render each one sperately.

I will try to explain step by step (its easier to do than explain :rolleyes:)

* Starting in a corner at one end of the leg.

* Start a line from that corner then move the cursor to the other edge of that face diagonally. Move cursor over edge until a coloured square appears with something like "segment end" or something.

* Click on that point. This should give you one segment.

*repeat this up the entire face of the leg. From memory sometimes you need to draw a perpendicular line back to the starting edge then diagonal etc.... You just need to make sure there is a line from each "segment end" to the next on each edge.

*once this is done the face will have a zig zag line all the way from top to bottom.

*Now with the paint bucket render each individual segment you created with the zig zag line.

*then use the smooth tool to smooth the face. Im not sure but i think you also have to hide edges....just play around with the options in the drop down menus until it looks right


This is all from memory and its been a while since I did it myself....but i hope its makes sense

cheers
BD:)

[BozInOz]

One thing I've learnt in woodworking is there are many ways of doing the same thing, and a a few of those ways are just as good as each other...

To clarify my instructions. Use the corners to move things... they'll clip together.

[silentC]

Use the corners to move things...

Tip of the week!! That just solved my positioning problem.

Anyway I got sick of trying to make that stupid shape, so I turned yours into a component and dropped it into my drawing. I still don't know how you did it but no longer care!! But thanks :wink:

Cheers :)

[Brown Dog]

Okay PC is now co operating...here is your file with how i would do it....partly completed.

Like i said the idea is to create individual faces by dividing up the faceinto little triangles .

to get rid of the lines you just turn off edges in the View menu


cheers
BD:)

[kayu]

Hi,

Stiching is a way of doing it, but I think there's a easier and quicker method.

I attached a small tutorial.

Kayu

[silentC]

Excellent. I'll try it out later on. Thanks all for the assistance.

[Makeitgood]

Hello silent c,

I have run into exactly the same problem, 100mmm legs and all!
It appears that the second arc doesn't touch the newly formed curved face.I've spent a few hours on this problem but I decided to let it sit in the sub concious for a while.I agree you can push two opposing faces out to create the curved faces but when I found that you can't do the others I undood and just left the arcs on.There may not be a way to do it yet, but I reckon there would be a way.

What I do is draw the arcs on the four faces and print at full scale to a printer/plotter which I cut out and stick on the square legs. Then simply cut along the curved lines on bandsaw.

I think the odds of someone else having exactly the same/obscure SU problem is fairly high.It shows that this forum has plenty of depth.

Regards
MAKEITGOOD

[silentC]

Have a look at Kayu's tutorial. I've done it that way and it works fine.

[hazza]

I can't get that tut to work for me but to do it is simple:

1. Select the curved face.
2. Copy and paste it so that it doesn't touch any part of the current model.
3. Group it.
4. Rotate it 90 degrees.
5. Explode it.
6. Move it so that the curve is in the right position.
7. Edit -> Intersect -> Intersect with model
8. Delet the lines no longer needed.

[hazza]

Actually I just saw that you already have the 2 curves you need, an even easier way than my previous suggestion:

1. Download the "Curve Stitcher" plugin from here (http://www.smustard.com/scripts/)
2. Select both curves.
3. Plugins -> Curve stitcher
4. Edit -> Intersect -> Intersect with model
5. Delete the lines no longer needed.