Creating Round-Overs with "Follow Me" Tool

Slim · 9 Mar 2008

This is the end for a cot I am designing.

I want to put a round-over profile on the upper edges of the top rail. As you can see, I have already rounded the corners. This presents me with a problem, as I have nowhere to draw the roundover to use with the follow me tool. (I hope that made sense).

Am I missing something, or is there a way of doing both the rounded corners and rounded top edges?

Thanks in advance.

SketchUp Guru · 10 Mar 2008

Hi Simon,

Here's how I would do it:

Copy the component away from the model and sacle that copy up by a factor of 100. This makes it easier to work and avoids the small-face-not-filling-problem. Delete the bottom face of the component so you can work inside it. Draw the roundover profile on the inside at the midpoint of one of the straight sections. Double click on the top face (you're looking at its inside at this stage) to select it and all of the bounding edges. Get the FOllow Me tool and click on the profile. Clean up as needed and correct reversed faces if any. Trace along one of the line segments on the bottom edge to heal the bottom face. Delete the giant copy of the component. The orignal will have received the same treatment.

I have an illustration that shows this. I'll post it as soon as I find it.

Found it.

Stop at 3.

Slim · 10 Mar 2008

Brilliant Dave, it worked a treat.

Thanks

SketchUp Guru · 10 Mar 2008

Oh good. I'm glad it made sense.

Shultzy · 10 Mar 2008

Dave, I took a slightly different approach. I took slim's top rail and cut it in half, then drew the roundover on the square end. Push / pull around the top surface, copy, mirror, intersect then remove unwanted lines.

SketchUp Guru · 10 Mar 2008

Shultzy, Push/Pull?

That's another good way to do it.

Awhile ago I was asked to show how to make a cube with all edges and corners radiused so I did that image and a description to go along with it. The nice thing is that would really work for about any shape.