If anyone here's used SketchUp, then you probably know how hard it is, after you make a complex curved surface made up of triangles (or something else) to make all the lines soft, to actually make this complex curved surface, look complex and curved. I find myself making thee complex surfaces when I design cars. We likely all know that unless you're driving a Tesla Cybertruck, then there's always those curves around the tires. I start by creating lines from one side (or point) of the open space, to the other. I make about 4 lines to every 1 foot. then, I begin making zig-zags between each of the lines, forming triangles. this closes the space, between e.g. the Mudguard and the start of the door. well, after I do all of that, I need to select each and every individual line that makes up each triangle, and I have to click the "Soft" box to make everything look like a curved surface, not the surface area of an Icosahedron from your old geometry class back from high-school. Depending on the surface, this could take up to an hour. what I would suggest for the next update, would be for Trimble to put in a feature, where you use a tool, select all the points (or end-points) of whatever shape contains all the lines, then click a "done" This tool I propose, would then soften all the lines inside the area that was selected. To make this virtually possible, I propose that Sketchup would use the lines, followed by a good code, to form a logical 3D selection, formed by the points selected. A good code would be needed to keep Sketchup from forming a really 'off' selection shape. Then again, it would be much easier and much more
possible to have the user bridge selection lines, from point-to-point, so they can form any selection shape, just the way they want it. then, I propose that Sketchup would highlight the lines, but
only the
lines inside the box, not the shapes. when highlighting the lines, I propose that it would be a good idea for Sketchup to hide the rest of the model, or make it translucent, so that the user doesn't assume they just deleted the rest of their model. The reason it would be a good idea to make the rest of the model translucent, is because the user can see the maximum amount of lines selected, without having to use the orbit tool, because this new tool I propose isn't like the selection tool, but my idea is just a suggestion, after all, so Trimble would likely upgrade it and make it better, if they were to actually take this idea into consideration. Back to the main subject, I propose that Sketchup would highlight the lines inside and hide the rest of the model
before making the lines inside soft, so that the user can make sure they've got the right lines selected. Then the user could click a "soft" button, or any other type of button, because why not add more features? Technically, my idea is basically a different type of selection tool, because Sketchup already has an
inspector, so the inspector could be used,
instead of making a whole new temporary UI window, just for this selection tool, to save time, and also storage space (realistically speaking.) Why would this be a good idea? Well, one thing is for sure: I didn't just type a whole paragraph for a proposed tool that it
insignificant. of course, I do not
expect Trimble to input my proposed new tool into Sketchup, because after all, I'm just a random user. I see this proposed tool as one that will be very useful, as it will save
hours of time, and it will be useful to people like me, who are serious with 3D design. I made this thread, because maybe there are people out there, who face the same problem as I. for those who do, I hope that this idea can get enough support to actually be considered by Trimble, so that this feature can actually be seen in Sketchup one day, because lots of us need a feature like this.
------------------------------
Joe Drumond
------------------------------