Is Sketchup Okay For 'Hidden Line' tech drawings?

Thanks to the help of these Groups I'm making progress in Sketchup with my desire, which is to make 'engineering' or 'tech' drawings of the woodwork I design.

A thought has occurred to me: I'm going to want to show 'hidden lines' - i.e. the dotted lines we use on tech drawings to show where, perhaps, a groove has been cut out or a mortise in a piece of wood.

Is it going to be okay for this?

regards,

ab

abrogard,

I can't see how SketchUp could be manipulated to produce dashed hidden lines. I suspect that Photoshop modification of a SketchUp export might be one way to do this. You can use the 'wireframe' and 'hidden line' face-style modes to produce two 2D graphic exports. Layer these in Photoshop. Edit the hidden-line layer to produce dashed lines. Sounds like a lot of work...

Might you be able to use an 'X-ray' view, instead:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/weekender410/f916efa4.jpg

Image from the "Design.Click.Build." woodworking blog:

http://blogs.taunton.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?webtag=fw-designforum

Regards,

Taff

abrogard,

I've used the Photoshop layer method to depict hidden lines, as shown below. (I still can't conceive how to 'easily' dash the lines.)

Taff

Thanks a lot, Taff, you're a great help. Not the first time you've helped me, I know.

What you've shown here will be good enough for what I want. I'll proceed with Sketchup rather than try some other computer drafting prog.

:)

import to ViaCAD 3D (U$ 99) and do the engineering stuff incl. the drawings of 2D design derivatives there:

www.punchcad.com/

hth,

Norbert

www.sketch3d.de/

> import to ViaCAD 3D (U$ 99) and do the engineering stuff incl. the

> drawings of 2D design derivatives there:

>

How about a script for US $20 that actually lets you display dashed lines in SU!

http://www.smustard.com/script/DashedLines

I always promote this site when I can. They have a great selection of both pay and free ruby scripts.

-LP

You can also draw the line and soften or hide them. In normal view, they will not show. In HIdden Geometry mode you will see them.

To hide a line use Erase+Shift. To soften a line use Erase+Ctrl (PC).

One could easily make dashed lines in SU by drawing a series of short lines, (draw one, then copy (cntrl Move) 2 times it's length, then x however many needed to complete the dashed line, hit enter and you will have a dashed line or do the same with no space between

making a multiple selection (use shift key with select tool) of every other line and Hide.

catamountain's reply got me thinking about this some more. I took a model, switched to 'wireframe' face style, selected all the lines and checked the 'soft' box (in the 'Entity Info' box.) This has the effect of dashing ALL the lines. I exported a 2D graphic.

I then unchecked the 'soft' box, making all the lines solid. Switching to the 'hidden line' face style hides all the lines on the backside. I exported a second 2D graphic. (Make certain that you don't change the view of the model - don't orbit, zoom, pan, etc.)

In Photoshop, I layered the two exported 2D images. The solid lines overlay some of the dashed lines, so that only the dashed lines remaining visible are the ones on the backside.

The attached image is the result. Is this too much trouble? It's much easier than my initial proposal.

Taff

I tried the 'soft' method with another object, and there's a problem. Several lines that should be dashed are displayed as solid lines. (See 'Block_soft.png)

As mentioned by catamountain, I also tried checking the 'hidden' box, instead of 'soft.' The visible result seems to take care of the above problem. (See 'Block_hidden.png')

Taff

Duplicating and offsetting the baseline layer in Photoshop makes for thicker 'solid' lines. The resulting image is a bit more comprehensible.

Taff