Just bought the new Sketchup Go as my old SU 2017 had become extremely troublesome. I wanted to model a Cabriole leg but apparently there is no besier curve tool in Go? If so that makes it about useless for my purposes. A quick SU forum check seemed to confirm this but I am hoping someone here knows the program or app well enough to give me a definitive answer. I still have time to cancel and request a refund. Thanks
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
I use 2018 as I believe their more recent upgrades are about as flawed as old woodworking forums... and I refuse to go subscription.
There are plugins still advertised on the Warehouse...
Other than that I can't offer much as I never have gotten the hang of the BZ curves... I just use a swag of "48 segment" arcs magnified 1,000 times... working in metric makes the unit change from mm to M easier.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
What is SketchUp Go? SketchUp Go is a subscription-based version of SketchUp for Web that includes professional-level features as well as Trimble Connect for Business and email support.
Email support was never one of Trimble's strengths... at least not with the licensed versions. Personally WEB based versions suck... if you have good connection, it may be usable, but then you depend on bandwidth and not the shekels you paid for a computer... gimme a break... bandwidth on a crappy computer is never gonna improve... I'd rather stick with the foibles of an older PC version without the wizz bang features that Trimble are too miserly to install/implement and depend on users to pay for plugin licenses... much as me being a SketchUp junkie, plugins are only feature that people need but the developers/owners couldn't be bother to implement.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Thanks. Looks like Go is a web version only and doesn’t support curves. Fortunately I have two weeks to get out and get a refund. A little research led me to Alibre Atom 3D which looks like it will get the job done. …… and it’s less money …… and I get to own it ……. and I have 30 days to return it ……. and it was on 50% off for Black Friday sale
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
I've been using Onshape. It's free, and does Bezier curves and splines. The only catch is that the free public option is limited to public projects only. If you don't mind others being able to see your work, it's a great deal.
Half of what we read or hear about finishing is right. We just don’t know which half! — Bob Flexner
Thanks Rich. The BF special for Alibre was $99 and it’s a download, not a subscription so I’m going to give it a try. If it works for me it will be a good deal.
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
+1 for OnShape. I am still learning it and I have not used it for something like a cabriole leg yet but I found it much easier to learn than Fusion 360. Their free online tutorials are excellent and when I need to do something a little more complex, I can usually find a tutorial for the feature I need. One great thing about it is the parametric approach makes changes so much easier than what is required with Sketchup. You can usually go back to an earlier step, tweak a sketch and have later steps adjust accordingly. And Free is good.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
Thanks. I’m working with Alibre Atom 3D at the moment. It sounds like what you are describing. You can go back and revisit individual past steps. The approach is totally different but so far I’m liking it.
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Update: Alibre Atom 3D is a bust on the modelling of intersection extrusions, which is what cabriole legs are, also. The good news is they are very good to deal with and refunded my purchase with a smile. …moving on to OnShape now I guess…. If all else fails I’ll just get the 30 day SU Pro trial and model the stupid leg! 🤣
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Thanks to Rich and Lazyman. After working my way through the stuff that doesn’t work, OnShape has come through. It has the same kind of command structure as Alibre but differs in that it works. 😉 It feels to me like the difference between these two and SU is that they seem more right brain and SU seems more left brain. That’s a good thing for me. Anyway I can now draw cabriole legs in about five minutes and go back and tweak until I’m happy. …. and it’s FREE! Thanks guys!
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Well, it took a few hours at the laptop but I got my Cabriole leg (and the rest of the table) all modeled, drafted, and a full size pattern done. This is all nice and formal but all I will use in the shop in reality will be the pattern. I don’t work from plans well, even my own.🤣🤣
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Did you print the pattern full sized or extrapolate it from your scaled drawings? I have done that with Onshape and it works well. IIRC, I printed a 1:1 drawing to a PDF and used Acrobat to print it page by page. There is an option to add cross hairs when printing to paper for aligning the adjacent printed pages.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
I printed 1:1 right from the workspace to 8 1/2 x 11 and assembled using my usual tricks. I used to use crosshairs but I don’t anymore. I do a lot of this when making patterns for larger marquetry in Inkscape.
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
FYI, I still use the free version of Sketchup 2017 for quick and dirty drawings and occasionally download drawings from 3D warehouse. 3D warehouse will no longer download into the 2017 format so what I typically have to do is open them in the current free online version and export it to my PC in the 2017 format. When I exported one the other day, a message popped up saying that they will no longer support those older versions after January 31st so it looks like another strike against continuing to use Sketchup unless you want to pay for it. I was still able to upload a 2017 drawing into the 3D warehouse this week and it didn't say anything about the support for that ending but I suspect that may be happening soon too.
Time to spend a little more time honing my OnShape skills so that I can more easily do the quick prototyping that I often still do in Sketchup.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
The trick if you can call it that that I found to learning OnShape (without paying for classes) was to watch lots of YouTube videos by different presenters. There is a lot to learn and no one presenter covers it all. Every time I watch a video covering something I’ve already learned I discover something new and sometimes vital to understanding the element.
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Even better, I found that I could save an OnShape drawing as an svg file and export it to Inkscape. That allowed me to fit a marquetry design directly on the apron drawing in actual size.
The early bird gets the worm but its the second mouse that gets the cheese.
That's cool. You can import several types of drawing formats into OnShape as well.
I have not looked at any YouTube videos but that is at least partly because I have used their free self paced courses quite a bit. If you have not used them, they can be pretty helpful and there are a bunch of them from basic to advanced topics. My problem is that I can do certain things in Sketchup so quickly, especially related to woodworking, that I do not often try those things in OnShape first.
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
