Ski Builders Forum

Any opinions out there on using Sketchup? I looked at it about a year ago, but I didn't understand the open nature of the platform, so knew little about plug-ins.

This clip demonstrates how assessable it is:



This offers more detail on the particular function - intersect faces:



At a basic level, it seems like a good platform for drawing a 3D ski and revealing the fibre/core etc using the section plane feature. It didn't take long to do that last night and it wasn't like I was learning a whole new package.

I looked at it again because I wanted to export in stl. Per the first clip above, importing 2D dxf files would be one possible option ... provided there are no issues with compatability.

It would be great to here more on this.

There is a plugin to export to .stl format.

I use the stl file to feed my CAM software (Cut3D). It works quite good to profile the cores on my cnc router.

The negative point is, that circles are not really circles in Sketchup. Same problem if dxf is imported from SnoCAD into Sketchup -> connected lines instead of one smooth polyline.

Cheers, Christoph

Thanks Jibber - good to know.

This is what I have noticed. Sketchup will import dxf from Draftsight. Sketchup will create a stl file that can be used as an FEA model (further work required). Draftsight appears happy to accept the same stl file.

Although importing dxf files produced by Draftsight into Sketchup is possible, the process of making faces and intersecting results in a crash. Too much data being manipulated due to the nature of the underlying file (I will try a better computer). I haven't used SnoCAD as the basis of my dxf files for this operation, as I have found them to be problematic in the past. Perhaps I'll give them ago!

Plugins:

dxf: https://sites.google.com/site/jimfoltz/ ... ns/freedxf
make faces: http://www.smustard.com/script/MakeFaces
stl files: https://github.com/SketchUp/sketchup-stl
CAD: http://www.cad-addict.com/2009/07/sketc ... ugins.html

I've noticed a lot of video online supporting Sketchup - people drawing aircraft and other complex structures, so I'm sure it must have the capacity to do what would be required or at the very least act as a useful add-on.