French curve

[Mark J]

Is there any way to make either a French curve or a compound curve in Sketchup?

Once you have a curve created is there any way to edit the curvature? Or length?

[Jean [Fr]]

Use the spline tool and give it coordinates.

[Mark J]

Thanks Jean,  doing a quick search in the SketchUp knowledge base for spline tool also turned up Bezier Curve which is what I meant by French Curve.  

Both are "extensions"  which I would have to figure how to obtain and use.  Not saying that's insurmountable, but I've never downloaded an extension.  

Is there any tool built into the basic SketchUp Make 2016 or 2017 which I could use?  I'm guessing the answer is no or someone would not have gone to the trouble to create the extension.

[Jean [Fr]]

I thought you wanted to make something like this in Sketchup :

There's different ways to make curves in Sketchup, which is a very poor tool IMO. Some methods are better than others depending on what you wanna do.
What do you want to draw with curves ?

[Bob Lang]

If you're using a newish version of SketchUp, go to the Window menu and select "Extension Warehouse". There is a search box at the top of the window where you can enter "Curves" or "Bezier Curves". Each Plug In has its own page where you can get more information about what it does, how it does it and how well other users like it. Installation is a simple as clicking the "Install" button on the extension's page.

I use the "Bezier Curve Tool" from the SketchUp team. It's OK, but I don't need to use it very often. Some of the others available look worth exploring.

[Mark J]

58 minutes ago, Jean [Fr] said:

I thought you wanted to make something like this in Sketchup :

There's different ways to make curves in Sketchup, which is a very poor tool IMO. Some methods are better than others depending on what you wanna do.
What do you want to draw with curves ?

Yes Jean, I am trying to do curves like your examples.  

I find SketchUp to be a blessing and a curse, about 1/3 blessing and 2/3 curse.  I can draw 2 D on graph paper quickly and accurately,  and I don't have to boot up the pencil.  But I cannot for the life of me draw anything that is 3 dimensional on a piece of paper.  So SketchUp is a real boone in that regard.  The price is that it  has a learning curve and since I use it infrequently I usually have to re-learn quite a bit.  Bob Lang's eBook is very helpful and I'll put in a plug for it here (no charge Bob).  I have it running in the background for reference when I am using SketchUp.  

I want to get to do some woodworking today, so I was trying to avoid the prospect of spending a lot of time figuring out the download part and then learning how the extension works.  Bob, you make it sound easy so I'll give it a try later.  

I have figured out a way to bludgeon out a solution.  I draw the curve I want on graph paper, then transfer the coordinates to SketchUp, guide point by guide point.  Then literally connect the dots.  This gives me a rough approximation for the curve which I can then rotate into 3D.  It is slow, time consuming and not in the least elegant, but it works well enough to see how something is going to look.  Regrettably,  trying something even slightly different requires starting over from the beginning.   So I will be giving your suggestions a try.

 

[gee-dub]

+1 in the Bezier Curve tool set.

[Marmotjr]

Not using extensions in Sketchup is like driving a stock Harley Davidson with training wheels. 

 

 

[Mark J]

21 hours ago, Bob Lang said:

If you're using a newish version of SketchUp, go to the Window menu and select "Extension Warehouse". There is a search box at the top of the window where you can enter "Curves" or "Bezier Curves". Each Plug In has its own page where you can get more information about what it does, how it does it and how well other users like it. Installation is a simple as clicking the "Install" button on the extension's page.

I use the "Bezier Curve Tool" from the SketchUp team. It's OK, but I don't need to use it very often. Some of the others available look worth exploring.

So I've added the SketchUp Team Bezier Plug In.  Is there a way to remove a Plug In should that become desirable?

[gee-dub]

I use the Sketchucation stuff so I use . . .

 

[wtnhighlander]

Quick sidetrack - anyone else use Sketchup outside a native Windows environment? I like the ease of using Sketchup for modeling joinery and proportions, but have become more and more frustrated with each new release. The system requirements for 2017 now prevent me from running it, even in a virtual machine.

[Bob Lang]

After you install a plugin from the extension warehouse, there is "My Extensions" available from the box in the upper right corner, if you're signed in. You can disable and uninstall extensions from the list that appears.

If you have access to a scanner, you can create an image file from your hand-drawn sketch, and import that image into SketchUp. Then you can scale the image to its real-life size and trace over it to create SketchUp geometry.

Thanks for the kind words about my book.

[Jean [Fr]]

I guess you have enough solutions @Mark J. Estensions is probably the way to go with Sketchup. I still wonder why people keep on using Sketchup. Extensions or not. There's so many free programs which are really made to make parts and not made to build quickly naive buildings. I would make the same analyse for Tinkercad : programs which looks simple at the start, but which makes everything complicated later.  If you want to go one step further and go faster, try Onshape for example. It's a real CAD program on cloud, which is pretty well documented, with video tutorials for each function and a huge user community too. And if you start to use a real CAD program, you will never go back. You have a lot of part-oriented advanced functions, like making a parametric model with relationship between values, you can modify on the fly to validate a design. With Onshape, the history of the model is saved, and you can build up versions, then go back. Through, as it is a cloud program, you can work with other people and make collaborative projects, or simply getting some help when you feel lost. IMHO, this is a contemporary way to do CAD work, Sketchup is rooted into the past.

[Marmotjr]

There should be a 'recent' thread in this forum about our favorite plugins.  Check it out, it may be of some use to you.

I only upgrade when I feel there is a need.  I'm running '14 or '15 right now, and it works great for me, so I don't feel the need to upgrade.  Check out their downloads page, you might be able to find an older version there.