Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Chapter 4 Using Plugins Effectively
Unfold
By J. Folz—Free [10]
This plugin is an excellent helper if you need to take
3D geometry from SketchUp and “flatten” it into 2D
for cutting and manufacturing. This method works
very well, especially for thinner materials like paper
or sheet metal.
By itself, this plugin does not add glue tabs to
the flattened sheets; use the Glue Tab plugin (previously
discussed) for those.
Waybe
By Waybe—Various costs [http://waybe.weebly.com]
This commercial plugin provides an all-in-one solution for unfolding objects (including flattened
layout and glue tabs).
Wudworx Tools
By Wudworx—Various costs [https://sites.google.com/site/wudworx]
Also geared toward woodworkers, this site currently offers
three plugins: Board Maker, Mortise & Tenon, and Dovetails.
Example 4.4: Slicing Up a Volume
This example shows how you can use the Slicer plugin to
prepare a solid for egg-crate-type manufacturing. To make
things easy, we’ll use one of SketchUp’s default spheres (get
it with the Component window) for this. However, the plug in
will work on any solid group or component (it just must be
“watertight” and without holes). Make sure you have the
plugin installed before you begin.
1. Highlight the sphere and select Slicer5 from
the Plugins menu (you can also use the toolbar
for this). This opens up a dialog with options.
2. For this model, we want to slice the sphere
into vertical and horizontal planes. Therefore,
select “XZ” as the axis combination. Also, set
all other parameters as you see them in the
dialog image.
3. Because we are slicing this sphere in two
directions, the plugin asks us for the second
axis parameters in another dialog.
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