sketchup help needed

[zapdafish]

Got an email from Rockler about a CNC tool. https://shapertools.com/

Wanted to see how hard it would be to design something for it. So followed this tutorial

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/woodnews/2009october/sketchup.html


Can someone explain how to do the following? It's driving me nuts as I don't know how to get one face of the different components on the same plane. Hoping there is a plugin or extension that does most of it and then lets me move things around after.

Using the "move" and "rotate" tools, lay all of the parts of your toolbox onto a single flat surface, staying inside your workspace. I must admit that I am not very adept at this part of the process, though whether you are renting time on one of these machines or having someone else produce it for you, you will most likely be able to find someone to help you with the technical parts of this step. ​

I'd like to do some Greene and Greene style furniture and am thinking this would be a great way to create templates.


Thanks

 

[zapdafish]

I figured out something,

https://simonbeard.github.io/sketchup-svg-outline-plugin/

this extension generates an svg, basically all the components and a ton of extra junk. according to shapertools this is the format they use. no need to turn it to 2d or put all the parts in a flat surface first

https://inkscape.org/en/download/
inkscape is an svg editor that lets me then delete and arrange the components that i want

toolbox is at work and I didn't feel like recreating it so I created a quick sketch up to test with



after inkscape, this is a png of the svg file, I'll give it a try on the toolbox tomorrow at work

 

[jazzflute]

So they don't tell you this part at shapertools, but when I saw their video I started an email dialog with them, because that's just what annoying technology product managers do. (It's involuntary)

The keen-eyed will notice in their drawings that they do not utilize objects drawn with strokes in their interface, but rather only objects that are filled with a solid color, and with a different color for each object.

The ex-Adobe product managers and graphic arts CTOs amongst you will ascertain that the reason for that is that they cannot deal with stroke thicknesses and offsets when trying to define a path, so the just use the actual boundary size of the drawn object with a fill and no stroke, and then to do their bit offsets, they effectively 'stroke' the SVG object by the desired offset in order to get the new tool path. And I can confirm that you will be correct, and that while they will not volunteer that information directly, they will acknowledge its accuracy when asked.

(OK... nobody needed to read that part, except maybe Dave, who is undoubtedly going to pop up in this thread any minute now, because he is Dave... ;-) )

The bottom line is that, although they SAY you can use Sketch-up—and if you are a Sketch-up geek you CAN use Sketch-up—in reality, you probably don't want to TRY to use Sketch-up as your final drawing program for the shapertool. Another challenge that they have is that they cannot understand three dimensional objects, and almost everything that you will EVER draw in Sketch-up, even when exploded into pieces, is still a 3D object. Converting those back to flat objects and then filling them with unique colors at no thickness is also problematic.

Bottom line: Illustrator is better for shapertools. Not for drawing 3D furniture, but rather 2D closed path shapes with absolute tolerances and no stroke objects/definitions that have to be translated into SVG, which is basically a vector graphics XML format that we wrote at Adobe and then got adopted by an international standards organization a mere 16 years ago, and that some people have just started to use effectively in the last year or so. (Note to readers: Any 'new' technology that you hear about probably really isn't; you just need to hang out with geekier people.)

K

 

[zapdafish]

Thanks. I asked about how to access ShaperHub which is in the FAQ and haven't heard anything back from them yet. I wanted a closer look at some of their designs to get an idea of what I'd have to be able to emulate.

Main reason I want to use sketchup is it's free. Unfortunately not willing to pay a monthly fee to use software that doesn't make me money.

This is a piece of what the svg export looks like. If I were to fill these flat objects with color would shapertool be able to cut these out? I am pretty much assuming the thickness of the material is handled by me in the design



And can you explain what drawn with strokes means?

 

[Jeff]

You guys lost me somewhere after SketchUp and the transition to the "other CNC stuff". The Highland tutorial by Sean Headrick is an absolute mess by someone who doesn't know SU very well to begin with and then compounds that by trying to translate that into the CNC format.

They sure as heck could have chosen a simpler box to design and showcase the CNC equipment.

Here's a simple box with extended tenons for that Greene & Greene look. There are 5 pieces but only 3 components.

​

Moved those 5 pieces for an expanded view (this is Not "Explode" in SketchUp). Just the "Move" tool. Sorry, this is a poor depiction by me.

​

Use the "rotate" tool to put those 5 pieces in the same horizontal plane on the red and green axes in SU.

​

Is this what the CNC program wants? Paul Harvey sent a text message "Jeff, stay tuned for the rest of the story."

 

[zapdafish]

I think the CNC program wants 2d like the image in my post @08-26-2016, 09:47 AM . I couldn't find an easy way to put all the pieces on the same horizontal plane but the plugin I found converts it to 2d and then lays them all flat, it just does it horribly so I found inkscape to delete the extras and move em around. The program definitely couldn't handle the tenon being a different thickness like you have in your handle

I found staples has an engineering prints service that can handle up to 36" x 48" which I think will allow me to make some full size templates that I can then make the old fashioned way.

 

[Jeff]

Ok, you've got a good handle on it.

I can then make the old fashioned way.

What's wrong with that "old fashioned" way of doing it from square one today? No computers, no SketchUp, and no CNC gadgets to make templates.

I'm not a Neanderthal advocate but sometimes our high tech society is.............

 

[Dave Richards]

Interesting discussion and Kevin is right. I would be along, at least eventually.

There isn't any reason to discount SketchUp for making files for CNC cutting. It's done all the time. There are a variety of options for doing that.

This foosball table was designed in SketchUp. The plywood parts were cut with a CNC machine with files generated from SketchUp and the plastic parts, including the players were 3D printed from the SketchUp model.


Here's a simple sawhorse designed in SketchUp and CNC cut. The SketchUp model and the milling files are available for this.

There are many other examples of CNC-cut objects that were made from SketchUp models. If you want to use SketchUp for that, go ahead. For those who don't, there are plenty of other options available.