Hey, what is up, nation?
In this session we're going to be answering a question
that was asked on reddit, where someone asks
"How to make a curved rectangle that covers this curved wall?""
Basically they have four arcs here
and they want to make a shape that essentially connects all those four arcs.
We're gonna be jumping into that after the intro.
All right, so a lot of people in the answer to this question on reddit
were saying "Essentially that you could do this with
different plugins", and that's certainly true.
But no one was talking about
how you could do this in Sketchup without using a plug-in.
And it's actually pretty simple.
So I figured I'd chime in and make this video,
showing how you can make these four arcs
in the vanilla version of Sketchup.
So I've opened Sketchup here,
and what I'm gonna do is start by making the four arcs.
Now the way that I'm going to do this is very specific.
I was having issues with this earlier.
And basically what I think was happening,
is that the arcs weren't completely parallel .
So what I'm gonna do just to make sure,
is I'm gonna draw a rectangle.
And I'm just gonna make sure that it's fairly large
because Sketchup doesn't like small increments.
So you just want to make sure that when you're drawing something,
that it's, if it's not working, we're it's not working how you think,
you may want to try scaling it up.
So we're just gonna use the art tool, draw that.
So let's smoosh this a little.
Okay, so we have that.
And then I'm just gonna click into this and make it a group.
And then I'm gonna do the rectangle tool again.
We're gonna hit the left arrow key,
that's gonna allow me to draw on this green axis.
A for the arc tool.
Select my endpoint.
And then I'm gonna select hold shift here to lock to that plane.
And then select my center point.
E for the eraser tool and delete the rest of this stuff.
Double-click into this, right-click.
Make group.
Okay, so now we have these two guys.
And essentially, if you need it, if I just copy these,
hit M to move, and then as I
start to move I hit control to make a copy.
That's basically what we had.
There was a box behind it.
But basically this is the shape
that they're trying to to connect the arcs.
So what we're gonna do here is select.
I'm gonna hit control here to select this guy.
In addition to the other one.
M to move.
As I start to move hit control, and we'll make a copy.
Now I'm gonna double click into this.
Now that's a group, and it gives me this editing option.
Hit P to push-pull, go all the way across.
Go out of that group by hitting escape,
and go into this other group by double-clicking P.
Okay, so now we have these two intersecting shapes.
Now I'm gonna be using the solid tools here.
If you don't see this, this is in the vanilla version of Sketchup.
So what you need to do is
right-click in an open space in your tool bar,
go down to where it says "solid tools"
and make sure that this is checked.
If this is missing or you can't find it,
you can always uncheck and then check it again and it will pop up.
And then you can dock it where you want or leave it outside.
What we're gonna be using today is called intersect.
As I mouse over this you can see it says "Intersect".
All the solids but keep only their intersection,
something, in the model.
So basically what that means is that it's gonna
get rid of these extra, like, pieces.
And they're just gonna keep what is resultant.
One thing they didn't point out earlier
and I'll just show you really quick,
is that as I hit A you can see in the bottom right
it says "sides".
Everything in Sketchup is made of sides.
So an arc is a curved shape,
but actually in Sketchup is a bunch of line segments.
So if you want a smoother looking line,
and in this case it's gonna affect the final look.
You want to just make this number higher,
as you go through and make your arcs.
So just something to be aware of before we go into this.
Now I'm gonna hit intersect, and then it's gonna,
as I mouse over these groups because they're solid,
that means they're completely filled in.
Sometimes you may need to check like the back shape
or you may have a line inside, or an extra face inside.
So you just need to make sure that they're
completely solid groups without any extra things.
This is pretty simple.
So you can see that it's pretty easy.
So I had a little one.
When I click the first one, and then the second,
and it kind of looks like they're the same,
because they're in the same, occupying the same space.
And then it gives me a little too for the second step.
Now you can see that we get this guy.
I think probably the Ark's weren't a 100% connected.
Which is why we have this little or they weren't
exactly the same, they weren't meeting at the same point.
Which is why we get this.
But if you want to get rid of these other lines,
just sort of smooth it out,
you can come in hit E, and then hit ctrl.
This is one way to do it.
You just hide these lines.
Or you can just double click onto this,
and then in your default tray
go to soften edges and you can just increase this.
So you can see we have some pretty soft edges right there.
Now you can see that there's like some lines
going across here.
And that is from the arc side.
So basically what it's doing,
is its connecting these shapes together from those arcs.
So if you want to make these less freak,
or I guess they would be more frequent.
But hopefully less noticeable,
because of the change of lighting,
would be more subtle, more of a gradient.
If they're smaller.
Yeah, hopefully this helped!
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And as always, happy hacking!