Hey Everyone,

Im starting up on a hellcat, this is my first real experience with Sketchup, other then a profile outline I traced .... now I want to try my hand at a full fuse, with unfolding.

First thing I need some help with is the 3-view appears to be out of alignment once I line up everything best I can. I line up the front (cowling area), and about half way back, the panel lines start to become out of sync between the top and side views. Am I doing something wrong, or am I just worrying too much.

Second shot is just outlining the formers. For some reason the export messed up the faces, they are all there .... not sure why they are being displayed like that in the jpg export. I did it all with the line tool, and it looks real 'chunky'. I either need to zoom in more and add more 'points' for smoother lines, or use the arc tool where possible to get the smooth radius Im after.

The images below are chopped, visit here for full sized ones:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthre ... st13182821




Thanks in advance for any input, etc.
Don

 

In my (admittedly limited) experience, the 3-views should stay aligned with the "cardinal" axes. Since the 3-views are projections (like a shadow cast on to a far surface), if the plans were drawn with (for example) the tail wheel on the ground, by trying to line the plan view with the centerline of the side view, then the geometry doesn't line up since the plan view will be shorter than the true centerline since the centerline represents the hypotenuse of a right triange..

If you leave the 3-views aligned with the axes, then you can "lift" perpendiculars from the floor and the wall and see where they intersect.

 

From my experience, most plans are just 'scanned in' hand drawn plans... That's means their imperfect. What you draw in sketchup is perfect, and the result is these misalignments.

Some plans are worse then others, and how well you need them to line up depends on you. For you above example, I would try the scale command on the side view to get it to match the top view, even though it's really the same image.

Also, nice choice on the Hellcat! You can use my model as a reference if you like: viewtopic.php?f=73&t=320

 

Thanks for the input fellas! I guess I just ASSUMED that if one had an engineering 3-view you would spend a bit of time to ensure that they were infact aligned/scaled correctly

TVCasualty, I will look into that for certain! Do you have the plans/3 views you built yours from? And also how often do you fellas encounter these types of alignment issues? Most always, sometimes or never. I ask because I'm trying to determine if I should just invest in finding a better set of plans to trace from.

Thanks again!
Don

 

Sure do, there is a set in the model, and I got them from this set of drawings.

I try to use the best plans I can find, but sometimes you just cant tell until you are knee deep in it. Once you've gotten that far, unless you've found a deal breaker I thinks its best just to work through?

Sometimes a set of plans will even have a "curve" in them, lol that one is tricky to work through, but I've done it. Attached files F6F1.ZIP (342.9 KB)Â F6F2.ZIP (797.6 KB)Â