Sketchup 7

[Leon]

I have been an AutoCAD LT user for 12 or so years. I have been using CAD programs since 1986. Never have I run across and learned so quickly to draw on a CAD type program as with Sketchup. 3D is SIMPLE with Sketchup. I down loaded it years ago and removed it, down loaded it again and forgot about it, uninstalled it once again and finally down loaded version 6 and after putzing with it 2 or 3 more times discovered that it was OK. Version 7 was released a few months or so ago and it is even better. It seems that there are fewer errors and problems and designing on it now seems very intuitive once I learned to assemble my drawings with components, thanks Swingman. Anyway, you can now print drawings to scale in version 7. For woodworking IMHO this was a major missing feature in the earlier versions . It seems that I always needed to transfer a curve or something complicated in full size scale to the actual wood. Now that is possible. So if you have not upgraded to version 7, what are you waiting for?

[Morris Dovey]

I have version 7, but it still won't handle the simple shape I was working on (with a different package) when your post popped up.

I'll put what I have so far on abpw, and perhaps you can tell me how I can make it in SU7.

[Steve Turner]

I've been messing with it a lot lately and it IS pretty dang spiffy. But I'm also a TurboCAD junky and there are a lot of things from that program that I miss terribly in Sketchup. Some of the decisions it automatically makes for you can be pretty maddening (merging entities together when they just happen to be touching, for example) but perhaps with time I'll learn to work around my preconceived notions of how it

*ought* to operate. For a free program it's pretty damned incredible.

[LEGEND65]

I hadn't even realized you could do that now, sweet!

-Kevin

[LEGEND65]

Draw the 3 straight line segments at the corners on each side. Draw the arcs between them. Push/Pull on the surface to drag it out into

3d. Unless there's something I'm missing about the drawing, that's an easy one.

-Kevin

[Morris Dovey]

You /are/ missing something. The (surface and matching plywood rib) curve is a parabola with a curve length of exactly eight feet with the focus at the point midway between the edges. There aren't any circular arcs other than the ends of the small tubes, which haven't been 'extruded' yet.

I tried making a cone and sectioning to produce a parabolic curve, but still had the problem of making the length of the curve come out right. 'Taint as easy as it looks. :-p

[Lee Michaels]

"Morris Dovey" wrote

Is this for a parabolic reflecter? I have made a bunch of those for a solar powered pool company many years ago. We used metal coated mylar and set the panels into a frame to support them. We thermoformed them in a vacuum forming machine. The machine was home built.

We would cut the shape we wanted in metal and use that to form the plaster mold. Mount that mold on the thermoforming bed and heat the plastic. Turn on the vacuum and the panels were instantly formed. Trim them and collect eight of them to make on parabolic reflector.

Ahhhh....., the wild visionary days of a mispent youth. Dreaming of riches in the solar heating biz. But I got it out of my system a long time ago. I am much better now. :-)

[Morris Dovey]

'Tis. You can see photos of a half-width prototype at

are being used to heat the hot head of a fluidyne engine. You can see a photo of a low temperature (and low-efficiency) prototype at the bottom of

concept drawings of the next generation at

the solar radiation to heat is easy - using the heat from a concentrator with only 32 ft^2 of mirror to produce more than 1 hp is "interesting".

[Robatoy]

simplicity appeals to me.

[LEGEND65]

Okay. I googled "google sketchup parabola" and got all kinds of stuff.

I use sketchup to visualize, not necessarily get an exact drawing. So something like that a simple arc would probably be fine to get what I need from it. Now that I know I can actually generate scale drawings I may use it a bit more for creating templates that need to be exact. But my models are never complete. This is what I'm working on now:

remotely complete as far as construction details. The edges of the top are natural but a simple angle is good enough for modeling. On the top those circles are dished out with the 'disher' I talked about elsewhere, I could have spent time trying to figure out how to model that but I don't care because I already know what it looks like. The side panels are actually curved, wasn't sure how I was going to actually do that so I modeled it flat to be sure that would look good too. When I first headed to the shop a single column of drawers spanned the whole width. After I decided to split it after seeing how wide those drawers were going to be I went back and modeled my concept for curving things to make sure that was going to look right. I got what I needed out of it. I'm going to have a whole lot of fun trying to fit those drawer fronts in a couple days though :)

The main thing that annoys me is the dimensioning tool that doesn't move the dimension outside when there isn't enough room which then becomes unreadable.

-Kevin

[Morris Dovey]

larger than the one I'm working on.

My goal is something simple enough that anyone, anywhere can assemble with a screwdriver and have running in ten or fifteen minutes using a single graphics-only instruction sheet.

[Morris Dovey]

I'd really like to see some photos of the finished top in place. That'll be quite a feature.

[Leon]

[Morris Dovey]

Oops - sorry (I forgot). There's a freshly uploaded copy at

[Leon]

> Normally I use sketchup to visualize, not necessarily get an exact

Keep in mind that Sketchup can be very difficult to use if you don't create components and assemble them if you want a working drawing. After assemble of the components that can be easily moved again.

For printing to scale be sure to uncheck the "Fit to page" and "Use model extents" boxes and then change the scale boxes to be equal for the In print out and the In Sketchup. This is possible after unchecking the mentioned boxes.

Apossable solution is to manually draw the demention in those situations.

[Leon]

If I understand you correctly, merging, remember to make all pieces a component first, just like you would when actually building and assembling. When you make each piece a component they no longer are automatically "permanently attracted to each other"

Hoping that I am understanding your situation, taking a box for instance, draw 1 side and give it depth, "push" to the disired thickness. If you need to rabbet the ends or put a dado in at the bottom do that now. When that piece is absolutely completed make it in to a component. Now any other line or part that may be along the same lines of the side can be easily moved or modified. Copy that component side to make the other side and rotate as needed. If you make any modifications to one component all copies will also automatically modify the same "UNLESS" you make that component "Unique" All components can be modified later if necessary. After you have drawn all the components, move them together to assemble. As long as all of the pieces are components you can move and manulipulate as desired. Remember that you must edit a component to midify it. Simply drawing extra lines on a component will not make them a part of the component.

[Leon]

I was reading a FWW article explaining a new plug in for making "to scale" templates. Basically a tool for cutting out templates to check complex shapes that you are making. Think a curved and tapering table leg. Learning that you could now print to scale was a side benefit. I tried it on version 6 and it would not work.

The plug in is "Slicer". In the program it will take a curved and tapered leg and divide it into as many cross sections as you like and then lay all those sections out to be printed in full scale.

[Steve Turner]

I've been piddling with Sketchup again this morning (have the day off work today) and I'd just about come to that same conclusion when I read your post; thanks for solidifying it for me. This sounds kinda like using blocks and groups in TurboCAD; separately edited components that maintain their own identity when inserted into a drawing. Thanks.

[Leon]

I sent you an e-mail with an attachment of what I think you are asking about.

Le>

[Leon]

Correct!

I had to get out of the mind set of drawing I was using a t-square and triangles.