SketchUp Guru
Established Member
I guess it has been awhile since I posted any FSUTs and although it is only Tuesday here in Minnesota it must surely be Friday somewhere in the world so here is the latest. I hope it isn't a repeat. 
Since it might not be very clear as to what the real tip is, it is about how to simulate a detail without actually creating it in an efforet to keep file size down.
Attached is a quick drawing showing two methods of creating a roundover appearance on a table leg. Of course this method doesn't only apply to table legs. The legs are drawn at 1 1/2" square. On the right I used arcs with a 1/8" radius. I set the number of segments in the arcs to 6. This leg has 84 edges and 30 faces.
The left leg shows the start of a different method. I copied the edge line onto the adjoining faces. I set the lines 1/8" away from the edge. After repeating that all the way around, I softened the corner (Ctrl+Eraser tool) and hid the offset lines (Shift+Eraser tool). I ended up with a leg with only 36 edges and 14 faces.
For a single leg the segment and face counts aren't very important but in a larger, more complex model this can easily become an issue for your video card.
Here is a more complex model as an example. The file is 1.3Mb. It has 55674 edges and 22041. Although there are many repeated elements (169 component instances) there are only 29 component definitions which helps to keep the edge and segment counts "low". It still loads up the video card's RAM on this computer.
Hopefully this is useful for someone. Cheers.
Since it might not be very clear as to what the real tip is, it is about how to simulate a detail without actually creating it in an efforet to keep file size down.
Attached is a quick drawing showing two methods of creating a roundover appearance on a table leg. Of course this method doesn't only apply to table legs. The legs are drawn at 1 1/2" square. On the right I used arcs with a 1/8" radius. I set the number of segments in the arcs to 6. This leg has 84 edges and 30 faces.
The left leg shows the start of a different method. I copied the edge line onto the adjoining faces. I set the lines 1/8" away from the edge. After repeating that all the way around, I softened the corner (Ctrl+Eraser tool) and hid the offset lines (Shift+Eraser tool). I ended up with a leg with only 36 edges and 14 faces.
For a single leg the segment and face counts aren't very important but in a larger, more complex model this can easily become an issue for your video card.
Here is a more complex model as an example. The file is 1.3Mb. It has 55674 edges and 22041. Although there are many repeated elements (169 component instances) there are only 29 component definitions which helps to keep the edge and segment counts "low". It still loads up the video card's RAM on this computer.
Hopefully this is useful for someone. Cheers.
