Even after a few years of using Sketchup, I still seem to have fits trying to do even simple tasks sometimes. I can still use AutoCAD almost in my sleep, so I'm not sure where the issue lies for me. I do like what the 3D does in terms of spotting assembly mistakes and such before actually physically building the object in question. Alibre, works a lot like Inventor, makes 2D parts from the 3D drawing, and exports to DXF that then could import the parts to SU for the PS. I downloaded the trial, and started to play with it. Seems doable, and the personal edition isn't all the expensive for what it does. Before I invest too much time trying this out, has anyone tried it?
I use the professional version at work, but I only do 3d models of electronics components. I've not played with the sheetmetal stuff. Simple enough to use, I'll make a small group of components every month or two and I've not had any problems remembering how to do stuff, actually I keep getting better, even at that pace. I know they have an add on that can generate g-code also. If I remember correctly, the Trial version is the same as the Professional version untill the trial runs out.
THANKS for the feedback. Anyway to trace an imported image? The sheet metal part is in the mid range package which is still a little rich for my blood. The g-code stuff is in the high end version. WAY out of my league. Although as soon as I registered, they sent me a "one time" only special for the mid and high end versions. Maybe by the time my trial expires, they give me a REALLY good deal I did enter a phony phone number in the registration field, and they blocked the trial until I called them. Sneaky little buggers I did ask the guy to limit the trial to the home version so I could see exactly what the limitations were. He said he was going to. He also tried to up-sell me on some things in the process. Mostly training videos As you know both SU and Alibre, is there something I'm missing with SU? In the hour I played with Alibre, I felt more productive than I have been using SU. THANKS
I use both Solidworks and AutoCAD professionally on a daily basis and have training for Catia. I know exactly what you mean about SU being more difficult. The thing I found is that you need to forget how you draw in Autocad. You don't trim lines or extend them (unless there is a plugin for it that I don't know about). Here is one example. My daughter has a school project to build a ferris wheel. She wants to make it out of blue cor. I drew the whole thing in Solidworks in about an hour and a half. It would take me several more hours to do the same thing in SU. It seems to do things much differently than other CAD programs I've used. Bottom line is that I have had dozens of hours of training for the programs I use at work to make me more efficient. If I used SU more, I'm sure I would get much faster with it. I would love to have more training in SU. I know Crash is putting the final touches on a training DVD for SU. I will be buying that when he gets it up for sale. Tim
Well not sure if it had anything to do with them dummying down my trial or not, but Alibre kept crashing on me last nigh. So I never got anywhere. I did import some AutoCAD stuff I had, but that's about as far as I got with it before it crashed. If Crash is coming out with a DVD, I'm game for that. I REALLY would like to keep going w/ SU as that is the established format here, and I do like some of the tools like the unfold, and PhlatScript so it would be nice to keep it all in one app. I'm sure it's just me not getting SU's way of doing things. I've been dabbling in 2D cad since the mid 90s, and all the ones I used followed the same basic way of doing things so the learning curve from one to the other was a cinch. Albrie seemed to follow the same logic so to speak.... Maybe SU is easier for the folks who aren't familiar with CAD packages?
I think you may be right about new CAD users getting up and running faster. I can't say since I didn't come to SU as a newbie. I don know that one of the things that helped me get faster in SU is using the keyboard shortcuts especially for select. In Autocad and Solidworks, hitting ESC deselects and the program automatically goes into select mode. With SU, you need to click the select button or hit the space bar. That save me a tremendous amount of time when I got that habit developed. I am getting faster the more I use it. Here are some of the other shortcuts. L Line A Arc R Rectangle C Circle M Move Q Rotate S Scale F Offset O Orbit H Pan Z Zoom Ctrl+Shift+W Zoom Window Ctrl+Shift+E Zoom Extents Hope this helps, TIm
I'm good on the Keyboard shortcuts, and I agree they are tremendous time savers... Learned that early on. Can keep one hand on the mouse, and the other on the keyboard. Problem for me is what would appear to be the simple things... For example, here is one I am working on now. I traced a fuse side from a 3 view, and went to extrude to 1/4" For some odd reason the one face is missing, or at least it appears to be. Attached is an example. I have a generic cube next to it to show it is "normal" Not sure what I did to get the missing side. This is just a typical example of the types of issues I'm having....I'm fairly confident it is something I'm doing, but I just can't figure out what. Another thing is rotating in 3D. Sometimes it works as expected, and other times I have a heck of a time getting the right axis to be the rotation axis. I finally get it, but not after quite a bit of fiddling... Attached files
I had that same issue with my daughter's ferris wheel the other night. I never did figure out how it happened. I ended up just undoing it and then did the extrude again. The rotation thing is a little trickier. I just pick a face that is perpendicular to the axis I want to rotate about and do the rotation and then move the component to where I want it. You are making the individual pieces into components right? Unless you were talking about rotating the display to see another view. That can be a little tricky until you get the hang of it. I don't have any tips on that, Tim
Do you group and use the move tool to rotate in 3D? That's the way I do it because, when I started I hated the rotate tool. And of course, I have a plugin that will rotate groups 90 deg with key strokes. To get the right axis, with the rotation tool there is a trick of locking it by placing it on something like one of that cube's faces and holding ( forgot which shift or control key). Or dragging along an edge will set that as the axis. No idea about the face. You can always post it, if you want someone to have a look at it. -Kwok
I found that if I hold down the 'shift' key while orbiting it gives me a nicer rotate. The problem that I have is that if I stay in the rotated position that I like and then press the wheel by mistake, it will jump back to the position it was in before I orbited it. BTW, I'm talking about SU 7
Well I deleted a line in my outline of the fuselage (I just picked one, no reason), and then recreated the line... then it extruded as expected. Yes I do make components (G-shortcut key) before trying to rotate. My little trick is make a little box on the face of the axis I want to rotate, Shift-select the part, and the box, then use that box to set the axis of rotation. Seems to work MOST of the time. Even though it is a bunch of extra steps it is a real time saver, particularly when trying to rotate complex shapes. KYYU, do you have a link to the script you have for rotating on an axis? One time saver that most of you are probably aware of, but when you name a component, and use it elsewhere, and them make a change to one of the components, and re-make the component, and call it the same name, it will update ALL the copies. Really helpful when you have an array of ribs, and you realized you forgot a notch or something. Edit one, and they all change. That was a nice feature I used in other CAD packages that I was really happy was in SU. I did re-find some videos on SU that i forgot where on this forum. I'll try to watch when I have some time. Hopefully I'll get some more tricks to help me get over some of the "weirdness" of me using SU.
viewtopic.php?f=103&t=1646 The plugin is called "Key Rotate". Use the arrow keys for X,Y. And home/end keys for spinning around Z. But if your part is a component or group, you can just use the "Move Tool" to rotate. The bounding box has rotation marks. Just hover around and they will show up, 4 red x'es on each face. Very easy compared to the "Rotation Tool". -Kwok
Hay Kwok; that tip on using the move tool to rotate is EXACTLY what I was looking for. THANKS!!!! I had a chance to try it out real quick last night. Can't say I saw those red Xs before, but then again I wasn't looking for them. I still haven't had a chance to try your plug-ins as when I had time my son had the PC tied up. I also watched some of Mark's tutorials on the full fuselage build. Picked up a few, but VERY important things. Still need to watch the rest of them. THANKS again
I would advise watching all the Sketchup tutorials. I'm sure you will find a lot of handy tips in each.
Yep, plan on hitting them all here soon. I just want to wrap up the fuse design ones while they are still fresh
