How to create organic shapes with native tools in SketchUp - Skill Builder 

Glad we could help!

Paul Lee Thanks! Every time I model something like this, I refine my methods (aka make up another way to do it).

Thanks for noticing!

Andrew Froude Love the idea! Thank you!

Been doing it for years. Works with airfoils and can even be engineered to have wings with complex plan forms or twist.Useful for boat hulls too.

I'm thinkin' make a center line when you're making the shapes to begin with and then use them to align the pieces. Would that work?

i would love to know too!

Aaron sort-of addressed this at the end of the video: doing it your way is possible, and probably faster, but ends up with a mesh which is less dense / detailed, so the end result might not have curves which are as smooth. It really depends on your needs.

@@toddhoatson5758 Got it! Thank you!

I would probably model it as a solid, then use Solid Tools to union the two groups together.

I've done it making the fuel ap and then just pushing it in.

I don't know of any free tool that will create smooth geometry, as both SubD and Artisan are paid for extensions.

@@AaronMakingStuff What about QuadFace Tools by ThomThom?

@@gusbert QuadFaceTools is a set of tools for selecting and creating quaded geometry. It does not actually do the organic part (the subdivision). It is a great toolset to have along side SubD, but, by itself, really is not an organic modeling solution.

@@AaronMakingStuff Good point Aaron, I stand corrected. On a connected note, let's suppose I am tracing a curved object like in your video, but only using the line tool. As you move along the outline, SU insists on inferencing axis and endpoints as usual. However, in this case I actually want to turn this snap off, so I can make small deviations. Is this possible?

Lawrence Cuthbert I generally use the arc tool or the bezier extension to draw shapes like this. To avoid “over inferencing” I generally just zoom in closer... close enough that the point on the reference image is closer to your cursor than the inferences point.

A great question for our forum (forums.sketchup.com)! Over there you can post images and give a detailed example of what you want to model... something that is difficult to do in RU-vid comments!

Agreed... This is like 30 minutes to make one organic shaped object that isn't really even following tight parameters after smoothing is applied.

Controll

That’s exactly what I was thinking. Solid tools intersections would accomplish this much more efficiently I’d imagine.