Page 1 of 1

How to draw (and render) Power Lines (circuits)

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:46 am
by reffo
HI; I big problem.

I have to draw in a houe the electic circuits
(you know..the electric wire from the bulb to the switch)

but not using a small extruded circle along a line, (to difficult in a render)


Like in the exemple.. making simple line not a pipe

thanks a lot

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:55 am
by Kram1032
You want to make a line as thick as an edge?
sorry, the only way is to make a very thing pipe. Indigo doesn't support Edge rendering ;)

yep::

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:00 am
by reffo
Thick as an edge,,
that's because, making circuits, and drawing 90 degreee angle it's wary difficult.. expetially with the extrude.

thanks anyway

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:26 am
by Kram1032
you can use the spin functions to rotate around edges ;)

Well... as thin as an edge... - there's one problem:
Indigo actually renders edges... But edges are infinitely thin. So there's no chance that they'd ever get hit by a light ray ;)
No way, you'd ever see them.
There's one last way: you could extrude the edges *after* shaping them correctly ;)
This way, you could get both flat planes or cables with extremely thin volume.

The best way still is to directly use tubes and go around edges with the spin function in my opinion ;)

Edit: Oh wait, nonsense, sorry: You're using SketchUp... I dunno, how to do it, there, if at all...

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:39 am
by crojack
Draw the line (wire), than create a very small circle at one end of the line, than select all of the line and use the Follow Me tool. It will make all the corners and everything, super easy, one of my favorite tools in skp!

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:44 am
by Kram1032
Now, that sounds nice :)

Oh, lol, yeah... Same in Blender more or less... I just never think about that feature ^^ (It's a bit more fiddling to get there, though...)