EDGE TOOLS FOR SKETCHUP by Thom Thom – SketchUp Extension of the Week
In this video, I talk about edge tools – an edge management and editing extension for SketchUp from the developer Thom Thom!
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THE SKETCHUP ESSENTIALS COURSE
http://www.thesketchupessentials.com/course
EDGE TOOLS LINK
https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/edge-tools%C2%B2
Plugin Name:
Edge Tools2
Plugin Developer: Thom Thom
Plugin Cost: Free
Where can you get it? You can download it from the SketchUp extension warehouse
Edge Tools Functions
This extension contains a suite of tools designed for doing different things with Edges within SketchUp. As with most of Thom Thom’s tools, these seem to be tools that he designed for use himself, then made available as an extension to everyone else.
Split Faces
Split faces allows you to split up faces within your model based on the face’s edges. This can be especially useful if you’re trying to split a face with a line parallel to one of the edges. One cool function of this feature is that it will split a face on either side of an opening as long as the face is uninterrupted.
Inspect and Close Edge Gaps
Inspect and close edge gaps is a very useful tool that analyzes your model and looks for gaps between edges. It will then highlight these gaps within your SketchUp model. From there, you can use the next tool, close all edge gaps, to fill in these gaps. This is MASSIVELY useful when working with CAD files that you’ve imported. Setting the tolerance will allow you to adjust how far the extension is willing to go to fill in gaps. For example, a tolerance of 3/8” will fill in all gaps 3/8” and smaller.
Erase Stray Curves
Erase stray curves seems to erase curves that don’t seem to be part of complete edge loops. If any of you have a more comprehensive description of how exactly this works, please leave a comment below 😊
Simplify Curves
Simplify curves reduces the number of edges contained in your curves in your model. This can be very useful for shrinking the size of your model, but be careful as it will also make your curves less smooth. Again – very useful for CAD files
Make Vertices Colinear
The last set of tools are a bit confusing to me. My understanding of the way they’re supposed to work is that they’re supposed to take a series of edges and set them so that the vertices are aligned on certain axes, but I keep getting weird results. I think this is probably user error on my part, and it may be doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. I will say that a tool like this is very promising, especially for models where all the vertices are slightly off axis – this might be able to fix them very quickly.
That’s where I’m going to end this video – leave a comment below and let me know what you thought!
About Justin Geis
Hi, I'm Justin Geis, and I'm the founder of The SketchUp Essentials. I started using SketchUp as part of my work as a general contractor in 2008. I quickly realized the power of the software and started using it for personal projects. I started The SketchUp Essentials as a place to share easy to follow SketchUp tutorials and tips to help everyone harness the power of 3D Modeling in their lives. When not working with SketchUp, I enjoy playing soccer and spending time with my wife and our two dogs.
