1 Topic by Heartlander

  • Heartlander
  • Heartlander
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  • From: Kent from Kansas City
  • Registered: 2013-06-23
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Topic: Basic SketchUp Question

Let's say I draw a straight line, then interect it with a lateral line, like a 'T'. When I do that, sometimes the straight line bends toward the other line.

This can cause an otherwise perfectly planar surface to become non-planar. When I run a tool like SuSolid "Repair Distorted Faces", it makes matters messier by adding diagonal lines everywhere it sees one of these bent lines in my model.

Is there a setting in SketchUp that I can't find that tells it to NOT warp lines like that? Kind of a Snap To Grid setting?

I spend a lot of time trying to repair this exact problem.

Thanks.

Robox printer, HICTOP (Prusa i3 variant) Model 3DP17 printer, ELEK 2.5W laser engraver, AutoDesk 123D Design, Windows 10

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2 Reply by foofoodog

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Re: Basic SketchUp Question

I am not sure I understand or have ever seen the behavior you are describing. If anything sketchup is a bit officious when it comes to giving you "snap to" help. Is that some other add on helping you complete the shape and not just sketchup? FWIW I run it with only the STL, CleanUp and the Solid Inspector extensions and it works as intended, as it always has.

3 Reply by ronsii

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Re: Basic SketchUp Question

Like foofoo I am not quite sure I know what you mean??? So it modifies the first line you draw bending it out of plane towards the second line...? if this is what it does can you see this effect before it is output to stl or after it goes through the export process?

One other thing have you turned on the 'instructor' under the window menu it gives a lot of help when it comes to modifier keys and such.

4 Reply by lawsy

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Re: Basic SketchUp Question

A couple of things:

1. Distorted faces as pointed out by SUsolid DO NOT affect the onject being manifold. I ignore them and you can too when modelling.

2. SketchUp hates small geometry. There is a free plugin called Boolean Helper which can scale the model up and down by 100 times at the click of a button. For fancy geometry, I frequently scale everything up for the operation. For things like mixing solids and surface intersections, you are much less likely to have errors on a big model.

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5 Reply by foofoodog

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Re: Basic SketchUp Question

lawsy wrote:

SketchUp hates small geometry..

Yep, if you want the extrusion tool (follow me) to work at all you have to go big. Scale up by some factor of 10 and back down when you are done. 

And when you draw a circle you can key the number of sides before you start so you aren't always drawing 24 sided circles. I do 96 sides and that seems to print smooth as well as provide good handles.

Also going into Window -> Model Info -> Units and setting up what you really want there helps a lot.