Some useful free sketchup plugins to improve your modelling speed

Sketchup plugins are useful to increase modelling speed, save huge time and get superior result. The sketchup plugins will facilitate you to get rid of redundant tasks like extruding (push/pull) several surfaces or generating offsets and multiple copies etc. Just provide the data, and the plugins will do rest automatically.

Given below, an extensive lists of free sketchup plugins which will allow you to produce some creative designs quickly and efficiently.

Tips to set up a plugin of SketchUp :-

Initially, click on “Extension Manager”; the red coloured gem icon located on the far right of the toolbar. Alternatively, one can open “Extension Manager” from “Window” drop menu. Then, click on “Install Extensions” located at the bottom left of the Extension Manager Window. Now, select the extension file with the ‘rbz’ extension from the download folder. The extension will be visible in your list of extensions. Ensure it is enabled. If you restart SketchUp, the shortcut toolbar or icon of the installed extension will come into view.

1. Joint Push/Pull (sketchucation.com): It is a plugin that offers different options for extrusion of surfaces. Among these options, one is extruding multiple surfaces in parallel. Get help from the user manual furnished by the developer for more details.

You have to download the Free Library extension supplied by the same developer before that.

2. Multiple Offsets (sketchucation.com): This plugin accomplishes the similar functionality found in AutoCAD’s offset but in 3D. It is possible to chose one or more surfaces which are going to be offset and then select one of the three options.

3. CLF Shape Bender (extensions.sketchup.com): This plugin allows you to bend a group or a component to tally the path of a curve or even a free-hand line. It provides you a wireframe preview of the product prior to implementation.

4. RandomPushPull (sketchucation.com): This plugin can be used to generate different forms or playful wall cladding. It arbitrarily extrudes all the selected surfaces inside the range you enter. You only require to provide a minimum and a maximum value, then you will obtain a set of extruded surfaces with depths ranging among these two values.

5. FredoScale (sketchucation.com): This plugin offers a diversified scale transformation options to your model. These options comprise of stretching, tapering, and twisting among others.

6. Soap Skin & Bubble (extensions.sketchup.com): This plugin allows you to utilize a skin over the space among specified edges as well as generate a complicated yet smooth surface. However, this plugin is only free till April 2018.

7. Curviloft (sketchucation.com): This is very effective plugin developed by Fredo6 that provides a parametric edge to the simple modeling software. It contains 9 different modeling options to be generated from a set of selected curved lines.

8. Selection Toys (extensions.sketchup.com): This plugin provides you a wide array of selection options, same as QSelect or Filter in AutoCAD. In this way, it is possible to avoid modifying or eliminating the wrong entity.

9. Weld (extensions.sketchup.com): Similar to the Weld option in 3Ds Max, this plugin can be used to transform a set of connected lines and arcs into a single polyline.

10. Fredo6: Bezier Spline (sketchucation.com): This extension provides you huge lists of line drawing options which comprise of Polylines, Bezier and Spline curves. These baselines are helpful to produce unique forms.

To get the lists of more free sketchup plugins, go through the following link arch2o.com

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Published By

Rajib Dey

www.sketchup4architect.com

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Wall Thickness for 3D Printing

Wall thickness is necessary when you give your 3D model in print; otherwise, the 3D printer may not understand the thickness and thinness of the walls of your designs and print your model wrongly. So, it is the unwritten rule of designing 3D model in SketchUp to add wall thickness to your design. Paper-thin surfaces are strictly avoided for 3D printable models.

Setting the correct wall thickness needs your knowledge and proficient skills in designing. 3D printing materials and 3D models are two different subjects. The right wall thickness makes your 3D model print flawless, and it appears the same as you expect.

Choose the perfect wall for your 3D printing:

3D designing is an interesting field that grows rapidly in the world. This has made the craze for 3d printing materials used for various purposes. So, it is necessary to learn how to print a 3D model properly the way the design shows. In the designing software, you no need to work on the thickness surfaces to make your model. But when it comes to printing, it is an obligatory thing to add wall thickness. It helps 3D printer understand how thick of the surfaces are and print accordingly.

Wall thickness is defined as the distance between one surface and its opposite sheer surface. There are a few things that have an impact on choosing how much thickness you want for the surfaces. Materials would definitely come first in the list. The other factors that show a direct connection with the design are alignment, size and overall design.

A guide to proper 3D printing with the wall thickness:

Printing materials play definitely an important role, and depending on which, you can opt for the minimum thickness of your wall. It needs a basic knowledge of different printing materials. If your design needs strong materials like high detailed stainless steel or titanium, you can keep your wall thickness indeed thick as the materials allow you to do so.

The other factors are also there to watch on your 3D printing issue. Structure and design of your 3D models can be the decider of the wall thickness of the surfaces. For example, a print of vertical wall with 5mm2 wall surface needs 0.3mm wall thickness while a vertical wall with the 100mm2 wall surface needs 1mm thickness. If you are printing a horizontal wall with 100mm2 areas, then the wall thickness must be of 2mm. To set a proper wall thickness, you have to be correct while setting inputs like the size of the surface, the alignment (horizontal and vertical).

The materials like ceramics which are fragile need different attention from the strong and hard materials. The larger the model is, the stronger the structure must be – this is considered to be the general rule while printing on the comparatively fragile surface. For example, the ceramic model of 50 mm x 50 mm x 50 mm needs a minimum thickness of 3mm. a ceramic object with 100 mm x 100 mm x 100 mm has 6mm thickness for printable.

The other factors attached with 3D printing:

While preparing your model for 3D printing, you have to be very cautious while dealing with each factor of your design. The essential details are 

• It is common to give the primary attention on the wall with minimum thinness. But problems arise with the wall of maximum thickness. Thicker parts produce stress more than the thinner ones, resulting in a crack or break in the materials.
• To avert breaks on your print, it is always recommended to have an extra thickness of 5mm wall.

Your every design surface needs a recommended wall thickness to keep your model perfect for printing. It is an extraordinary process where you can visualize your virtual 3D models in real. So, having wall thickness is as much necessary as having a correct designing idea.

Article Source: i.materialise.com

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Published By

Rajib Dey

www.sketchup4architect.com

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Preparing for printing from 3D Warehouse to 3D Printer

SketchUp is a free 3D drawing program for the architects and designers which are used to easily create printable models yet the models need to address before printed from the 3D printer. The models which are need to download sometimes found that they are not solid create big problem in the printing time.

Aaron has come with a solution; he needed a printable scaled version of the US Capitol Building and to record the technique of transforming the unprintable into a solid one.

Basic demands for 3D Printing:

• Water-tight Model • No paper-thin surfaces • Minimum wall thicknesses and feature sizes • Outward-facing surfaces

1. Water-tight Models: The models which are needed to turn into solid should be fully enclosed as like creating an interior space where water could be hold without overflowing it. All the nearby lines and vertices of every model need to be in one point not the close enough but should be perfectly in one line. To fix or stray the model either the stray vertex could move to the main vertex or the gaps could be filled by drawing new lines.

2. No paper-Thin surfaces: In case of drawing the artistic models, paper-thin features create problem as they prevent in printing as there is not a significant amount of material there. In this case to fix the model one could extrude the surface to make it a little thick or can delete it simply.

3. Minimum wall thicknesses and feature sizes: Every 3D printing system has a certain requirement in case of thickness of wall and feature sizes. These features give assurance about printing the model correctly which will not break quickly. By deleting the model or extruding the surface a little bit this probl3em can be solved.

4. Outward-facing surfaces: Often having surfaces in a model face a wrong direction and printing software ask for a side of each surface for printing. This can be fixed by right-clicking on the bad face and selecting Reverse Faces. Reverse faces will be found by following steps, open the Styles window, click on the Edit tab, click on the Face Settings box and then the Back Color has to change into a bright color.

Convert to STL Format: After doing all the things that are described above, most 3D Printers ask models to convert into the STL file format. There are many ways to covert SketchUp file into an STL file and the best free converters for using is the SketchUp to DXF or STL Plugin. At first deselect the model, then click on tools > Export to DXF or CAD > Export Unit into Inches > Export To in STL.

Check for STL Errors: After converting it become ready for checking errors but sometime it will make some errors so checkout online for fixing the STL errors.

Aaron Dietzen, SketchUp’s sales manager tried to print his SketchUp file through 3D printing. He has needed a printable scaled version of the US Capitol Building and he made a recording of the process of transforming the unprintable into a solid model. The original model had a great look so Aaron kept all his focus in the 3D printing. Throughout the model, many things could be found such as single surfaces, nested components and each and every thing t print.

The converted model might be like a baffling task to get all of geometry it need to clean up and then turned into a solid ready-to-print thing. It should be done carefully as the process can be defined into a series of simple steps.

There is a tutorial video on YouTube as a help. For more follow blog.sketchup.com



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Published By
Rajib Dey
www.sketchup4architect.com
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