SketchUp for Woodworking

[SketchUp Guru]

I mentioned this in another post but I thought I'd put the link in a separate thread. This is a link to the site material I put together and called SketchUp for Woodworkers. It has a few tutorials oriented toward drawing woodworking projects on it now and the owner of the site indicated he'd add a few more of mine. His site also has some interesting tutorials and other information aimed at helping SU users get more out of the program.

If you've already decided that SU isn't for you, following this link is probably a waste of your time.

http://sketchucation.com/woodwork/Index.html
http://www.sketchucation.com/index.htm

 

[Chris Knight]

Dave,
Thanks very much for these links, they will be very useful.

 

[wizer]

thanks Dave, something else for my todo list.

 

[tim]

Thanks Dave. They look very useful indeed.

Cheers

Tim

 

[SketchUp Guru]

My pleasure guys. I'm always looking for more tutorials to do so if you can think of something you'd like to see just let me know.

 

[Nick W]

Dave,

Thanks for these. I'll take a look at them later.

 

[Neomorph]

Thanks Dave.

One of my main objections to SU was the tutorials sucked. Part of me is still nagging me that SU will be worth it if I can only get to grips with it and after looking at the panel door tutorial on that site is TONS better than the sketchup original tutorials. That's how the tutorials should have been done in the first place.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

John, take a look at my tutorials and tell me what you think of them. I'm not trying to toot my own horn but I think you'll find my tutorials more applicable to the sort of stuff you want to draw.

 

[Neomorph]

Well after a problem with the follow on tool doing the inside routing for the door panel (instead of selecting the full face before "follow me" you select just the lines around the hole) I managed to make my very own panel doors for my Media Center Cabinet.

If I hadn't followed your tutorial Dave I can honestly say I wouldn't have been able to build them. Now all I need do is the base and the main work is complete... Now I just gotta build the thing heh.

 

[mahking51]

DaveR
Just a little problem for you:

This is just a play around to get more familiar with SU.
I can make the circles cut through the tenon to create holes but cannot see how to delete the extra overlap bits to create a compound hole.
Hope this makes sense!?
Is this what is called 'Boolean' type stuff?
Regards
Martin

 

[SketchUp Guru]

John, that is excellent! Great job. I'm glad you got a little something from my tutorials.

Martin, just trace along one segment from/to each of the intersections to/from a neighboring segment end. This will cut the circles at those intersection and then you can delete the unwanted parts.

If you knew where the intersections would fall, you could draw the smaller circles as arcs instead of circles. That would automatically cut the large circle.

There is a thing about drawing crossing lines because one won't cut the other unless an endpoint of a segment falls at the intersection. The problem comes in that you might not always want the cut to occur and how would SU know which way you want to go?

 

[Neomorph]

Dave I managed to get the three circle cutouts to work now I'm getting a better feel as to how SU is actually doing the work in the background

OK here is my first tutorial.. heh.

1. Draw your three holes.

2. Push each hole through.

3. Select the inside face of hole 1 and right click and select "Instersect with model"

4. Do the same with the other 2 holes.

5. Delete the faces that are no longer needed but don't delete the lines because of a quirk in SU means it deletes the holes.

6. Select each extra line that you want to remove and click Hide.

7. Make the whole piece of wood with the tenon and its holes a component. This way when you click unhide all the extra lines don't reappear (unless you edit the component and click unhide that is :wink: )

Martin could you to please resize your pic so that it doesn't push the whole thread over. I made that same mistake earlier when I published my first pic direct from SU. Cheers.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

John, if you just trace the line segments as I outlined above, you can erase the lines instead of hiding them. Keep in mind that file size is related to the number of line segments and the number of faces. Hidden line segments are included in the count. On one set of circles it wouldn't be a big deal but the count can add up quickly.

Take a look at last weeks Friday SketchUp Tips and the part about the number of line segments used to create an arc or circle.

 

[Neomorph]

Ahhhhhh... Brain's in duff mode today lol. When I read it to begin with I didn't quite get it.

BTW since I enabled OpenGL hardware accelleration I haven't had a single slomo experience. So everything is looking rosy now.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Good. I'm glad you've dealt with the slomo issue and fixed it. Now, did you read my new installment of tips on the Off Topic forum?

 

[Nick W]

John,

I'm really pleased that SU has 'clicked' for you. It's a shame that it was such a painful process.


Dave,

Your tutorials are good stuff. Any more in the pipeline?

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Nick, thanks. I've got a few ideas but I'm always looking for suggestions too. Have you anything you'd like to see? Did I send you the three tutorials I did last week on drawing and resizing doors?

 

[Nick W]

Dave,
No ideas at the moment. Oi, who said 'What's new'? :wink:

I saw the tutorials on the web, if that's what you mean.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

I've got three that will be added to the site I linked to the other day but I haven't looked to see if they are up yet. I just completed another on drawing drawers.

If anyone is interested in that one or the ones on doing raised paneled doors, send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll send them off to you.

 

[Neomorph]

I've got three that will be added to the site I linked to the other day but I haven't looked to see if they are up yet. I just completed another on drawing drawers.

If anyone is interested in that one or the ones on doing raised paneled doors, send me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll send them off to you.

ME, ME, ME *jumps up and down like an excited kid*

I'm sending you a pm about the drawer tutorial...

As you saw the results of the doors on my media server, your panel door tutorial enabled me to take the existing doors on my solid pine wardrobe and match them, measure for measure, with the new doors on the media server. When a tutorial can impart that info clearly and concisely and also allow you to edit it to test the instruction (just don't save heh) it's gotta be good!