Free Sketchup Plugins

[Okwa]

Sure. But it happened to me, as I said in the other post (sorry for posting the image here and not in the right "Follow All" post), also with other designs.

[Support]

That's fine here, it's not out of place, it's part of the flow Let me look at that model...

[Support]

The problem is where all these lines meet at the front. So what I did is select the group, use the Explode Children, then opened it and select the area of the needle, then do a "Intersect with selection" then delete the needles. Use the Follow All on specific edges. Not much I can do about that.

[Okwa]

Thank you for looking at it. I had already feared this answer.
I have already noticed that it is best to use a mixture of "Follow All" and "Tubify" anyway. Simply use the corresponding tool in a targeted manner. This way I can keep the number of faces low, which makes it easier to work with SKP and Raylectron, and still achieve the desired effects at the same time.

[Support]

@Okwa I found the problem. The Sketchup "Follow Me" does produce these needles if the angle is less than 90 degrees, so for angles of 10 degrees, you can expect this to be very pronounced. So what I did is, I split the work when edges are 90 degrees or less. Now it works perfectly on your ship that you sent me. Can you re-download the plugin and give it a try?

[Support]

...

[Okwa]

Sure, no problem.

[Okwa]

@Okwa I found the problem. The Sketchup "Follow Me" does produce these needles if the angle is less than 90 degrees, so for angles of 10 degrees, you can expect this to be very pronounced. So what I did is, I split the work when edges are 90 degrees or less. Now it works perfectly on your ship that you sent me. Can you re-download the plugin and give it a try?

In the meantime, I have tried a wide variety of increasingly complex designs and could no longer detect this "needle error" in any design. What has changed, but this is not an error, but only a change, at open ends of the lines, at least in my models, so far by "Follow All" always a pointed end was created. Now the ends are flat. As I said, this is not a error, just a changed "behavior" that users should be aware of.
Great work. Really very good.

[Support]

So basically and ideally, we could have 3 options, leave the end flat, close them according to the pattern used or the "Follow Me" way. In the screen shot, at the top, you can see the edges I used and the circles. The lower/left is the latest "Follow All" and I then use a ball to close the end. The next one down is the "Follow Me" way. The next 2 down are 90 degrees so the "Follow All" closes it nicely, but there is the alternative too, bellow it.

Now, that's nice using a circle, but, using a triangle for example, it doesn't mean that the end will meet perfectly. "Follow Me" might reverse one triangle so the ends can't close properly.

This is going to be a lot more involved and challenging

[Okwa]

@Support Because you mention triangle. Here is a screenshot of two "Follow All" trials with triangles. The different meeting of the ends, depending on how the triangle was aligned before.

[Support]

@Support Because you mention triangle. Here is a screenshot of two "Follow All" trials with triangles. The different meeting of the ends, depending on how the triangle was aligned before.

Yes, the orientation does matter. When you run 'Follow All', it orient the face to the direction of the edge so it may not rotated as you desire. But if you orient the way you first want, it won't have to orient it much so it's unlikely that the face will be looking like on the left side. For circles, that won't matter.

[GateGirl86]

Now I am really anxious to try these out. I might add Michael, since you asked about ideas. One that is lacking in SKU, parallel/copy, like you'd find in a CAD system. For example, you have a line drawn horizontally, rather than use the copy/move function, you have the parallel function, you click on the line (or it might even be a hexagon), a pop up asks you how much you want to have the parallel line, say 1m, and then which side.

My other thought was copying something, it might be a hex nut for example, and then having 20 of them on a PCD.

[Support]

Now I am really anxious to try these out. I might add Michael, since you asked about ideas. One that is lacking in SKU, parallel/copy, like you'd find in a CAD system. For example, you have a line drawn horizontally, rather than use the copy/move function, you have the parallel function, you click on the line (or it might even be a hexagon), a pop up asks you how much you want to have the parallel line, say 1m, and then which side.

My other thought was copying something, it might be a hex nut for example, and then having 20 of them on a PCD.

I can certainly do that, but In SketchUp, the current way to achieve this is by using the 'Move' tool in combination with the 'Ctrl' key to create a copy, then locking the direction with the arrow keys and typing the distance. But I could create a popup window that ask for the move distance and on what axis.

For the PCD, in Sketchup, we use the 'Rotate' tool with the Ctrl key to copy an object around a central point by typing in the angle between copies and the number of copies needed. I could make a popup window that ask how many copies to place the selected object on the selected path, round or not.

What do you think I should do/make?

[GateGirl86]

Certainly. The reason I asked is because as you describe it in Sketchup for both, it is rather cumbersome and to be honest, not terribly efficient. A simple click, how much do you want to make the parallel line and to what side.
The circular PCD function, much the same, how many positions and what PCD. Quite simple. Go for it.

[Support]

[GateGirl86]