# FSUT--OK, I've got a simple one



## SketchUp Guru (22 Sep 2006)

It's still dark, it's raining, I've got a head cold and I haven't had my first cuppa yet so I hope this tip is useful.

Let's talk about easing the edges of a piece. If you were doing this on wood, you might use a router with a small roundover bit or some sandpaper. If you are a Neander, you might use a plane for this. 

In SketchUp you could draw a small arc and use Follow Me to put the radius on the edges although it gets to be a challenge when you have 3 edges that meet. (That can be done but we'll save it for a future tip if anyone is interested.) In addition to that challenge, there is the possibility of creating those small faces that SU won't fill and there's the 'cost' of increased edges and faces that can bog down the computer.

You could simply Soften the edges using the Eraser tool and Ctrl key but you end up with what you see in B. in the first image. Not quite the right look.

C. and D. show another and I think better way to give that eased look. In C I've used the Offset tool on all the faces to create a rectangle inside the outer edges. The piece is drawn 2" square and I've used a 1/16" offset. Then I Softened the edges with Ctrl+Eraser tool.

After that I moved on to what you see in D. I used Shift+Eraser tool to Hide the offset lines. The offset lines form a limit to the softening effect on the edges and you get that nice highlight on the edge as you would get on a piece of wood.







You can also use this to good effect on complex shapes. For example a kidney-shaped desktop. If you simply soften the edges, you'll get what llok like wrinkles running across the surface. But if you use the Offset tool first, you limit the softening to outside the offset lines.

Howzat?


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## Steve Maskery (22 Sep 2006)

Brilliant Dave, I must try to remember.
TVM


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## Alf (22 Sep 2006)

Cool, Dave - thanks. Oh, and hope the cold clears up.  

Cheers, Alf


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## SketchUp Guru (22 Sep 2006)

Thank you Steve and Alf.

Alf, my father says that a cold will generally clear up in about 7 days but if you take cold medications it only takes a week! :roll: :lol:


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## garywayne (30 Sep 2006)

Hi Dave.

I realise I'm a bit late on this one, somehow I missed it. :-k 

A really good tip. What I would like to do is print these SU tips without the replies, (nothing personal peeps. Just want to save paper, and trees, and envionment, oh, and money). The problem I have is when I copy to Word I get the text but not the image.

Can anyone help me with this please.


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## SketchUp Guru (30 Sep 2006)

Gary, I think it depends upon the version of Word you have. I don't have it on my computers at home anymore but the older version I had was the same way. I found it simple enough to select the image separately from the text, right click and choose Copy. Then I could past the image into the Word doc.

The version I have on my computer at work copies text and images together. Perhaps an upgrade for you? 

Maybe there's someone who has time and could make PDF documents of them and post them someplace.


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## Johnboy (30 Sep 2006)

I have just tried it with Word 2003 and it pastes the images and text OK. As Dave says you can save the image then put it into word if copy and paste doesn't work.

John


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## Paul Chapman (30 Sep 2006)

Just tried it with Word 2000 using the right click method described by Dave and it worked OK :wink: 

Paul


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## SketchUp Guru (30 Sep 2006)

I doubt I'd have time to do it with all my tips and tutorials but I copied this one into Open Office and made a PDF of it. If anyone is interested, send me your e-mail address in a PM and I'll e-mail the PDF to you.


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## garywayne (30 Sep 2006)

Well, thanks again Dave.

I have downloaded "Open Office". Works a treat.


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