SketchUp Guru
Established Member
It's still dark, it's raining, I've got a head cold and I haven't had my first cuppa yet so I hope this tip is useful.
Let's talk about easing the edges of a piece. If you were doing this on wood, you might use a router with a small roundover bit or some sandpaper. If you are a Neander, you might use a plane for this.
In SketchUp you could draw a small arc and use Follow Me to put the radius on the edges although it gets to be a challenge when you have 3 edges that meet. (That can be done but we'll save it for a future tip if anyone is interested.) In addition to that challenge, there is the possibility of creating those small faces that SU won't fill and there's the 'cost' of increased edges and faces that can bog down the computer.
You could simply Soften the edges using the Eraser tool and Ctrl key but you end up with what you see in B. in the first image. Not quite the right look.
C. and D. show another and I think better way to give that eased look. In C I've used the Offset tool on all the faces to create a rectangle inside the outer edges. The piece is drawn 2" square and I've used a 1/16" offset. Then I Softened the edges with Ctrl+Eraser tool.
After that I moved on to what you see in D. I used Shift+Eraser tool to Hide the offset lines. The offset lines form a limit to the softening effect on the edges and you get that nice highlight on the edge as you would get on a piece of wood.
You can also use this to good effect on complex shapes. For example a kidney-shaped desktop. If you simply soften the edges, you'll get what llok like wrinkles running across the surface. But if you use the Offset tool first, you limit the softening to outside the offset lines.
Howzat?
Let's talk about easing the edges of a piece. If you were doing this on wood, you might use a router with a small roundover bit or some sandpaper. If you are a Neander, you might use a plane for this.
In SketchUp you could draw a small arc and use Follow Me to put the radius on the edges although it gets to be a challenge when you have 3 edges that meet. (That can be done but we'll save it for a future tip if anyone is interested.) In addition to that challenge, there is the possibility of creating those small faces that SU won't fill and there's the 'cost' of increased edges and faces that can bog down the computer.
You could simply Soften the edges using the Eraser tool and Ctrl key but you end up with what you see in B. in the first image. Not quite the right look.
C. and D. show another and I think better way to give that eased look. In C I've used the Offset tool on all the faces to create a rectangle inside the outer edges. The piece is drawn 2" square and I've used a 1/16" offset. Then I Softened the edges with Ctrl+Eraser tool.
After that I moved on to what you see in D. I used Shift+Eraser tool to Hide the offset lines. The offset lines form a limit to the softening effect on the edges and you get that nice highlight on the edge as you would get on a piece of wood.
You can also use this to good effect on complex shapes. For example a kidney-shaped desktop. If you simply soften the edges, you'll get what llok like wrinkles running across the surface. But if you use the Offset tool first, you limit the softening to outside the offset lines.
Howzat?
