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  #11  
Old 06-21-2016, 07:29 AM
jleslie48 jleslie48 is offline
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well its very do-able, but it does require a bit of trial and terror. Where exactly are the "logical break points" is a learning experience and AC3D will crash if you try and make a convex surface with "bad vertex's". What a bad vertex is exactly, I'm not sure, but I've ran into them several times :( having a vertex not attached to the object is definitely one of them, and too many vertex's is also an issue, but for the most part, the crash can be avoided.

The convex tool on vertex's is key to this working. the other procedure I use to make things work is what I call "flattening the vertexes" When you grab what you think is say a section of vertex's, you notice that a particular side won't be flat because the vertex's are not in a single plane. You really need to have all the vertex's in a single plane to make a nice "box" cutout.

You want to do this before you make the convex section, but to demonstrate the procedure, I'll do it afterwards to straighten out a boxed section. You really want to do this before you box out the convex section so the mating pairs of sections meet up properly.

1) so in the first pic, you'll see the uneven edge as a result of the vertex's not lined up.

2) switching to vertex mode, and turning on the select through, I grab all the points of the edge. also note that the containing field of all the vertexs is 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional (all three dimensions have a value, see the red circle.)

3) so here is the "trick" I resize the shape ONLY in the small field, the one that should be zero to make the points lie in a single plane. I keep the exact values for the other two dimensions.

4) once you click on the resize, you have a flat vertical surface for the cut. much easier to unfold and then later build out of paper. 3d software is really not designed for this kind of procedure or else it would do a better job of aligning the vertex's in the first place, but at least you can fix it reasonably easily.
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3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_11.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_12.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_13.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_14.jpg  
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  #12  
Old 06-21-2016, 07:34 AM
jleslie48 jleslie48 is offline
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Here are some more views of the WIP on the container ship, I also was able to skin it.

With lessons learned I decided to also tackle the Maersk hull and this time including the below the water line.
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3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_21.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_22.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_23twin_screw.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_24maersk.jpg  
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  #13  
Old 06-21-2016, 08:38 AM
jleslie48 jleslie48 is offline
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A followup on the results of making the flattening the side for the box out. here is the unfolding with first the unflattened hull section, and then the flattened one. you can see how pepakura handled the flattened side so much better.
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3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_15.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_16.jpg  
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  #14  
Old 06-21-2016, 05:01 PM
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Mike1158 Mike1158 is offline
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To be honest and from experience, the majority of sketchup models are just badly made full stop. I create 3d renders and have stopped using the warehouse for sourcing models quickly, I end up spending more time fixing them than I would making from scratch. Also allow for the fact that sketchup will routinely create multiple copies of facets and groups/components and you have the CAD equivalent of bloatware in an instant. THEN you have to allow for the average user NOT purging the models they upload and you have a pointless exercise. Not worth the points.
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  #15  
Old 06-21-2016, 06:35 PM
jleslie48 jleslie48 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike1158 View Post
I end up spending more time fixing them than I would making from scratch.
I have had zero luck/skill making a decent ship hull or airplane fuselage in 3d software.
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  #16  
Old 06-22-2016, 07:00 PM
jleslie48 jleslie48 is offline
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going faster now. tried another hull, and the china shipping line is ready for alpha testing.
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3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_30unfold.jpg   3d warehouse sketchup to paper model, container ship-ss_31_annamaersk.jpg  
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  #17  
Old 07-21-2018, 07:08 AM
Foute Man Foute Man is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jleslie48 View Post
The problem with 3d models online is that they don't have respect for paper modellers. We need models with polygon counts of less than 100, and they don't think twice about thousands and thousands.

3d warehouse has a whole host of models that I'd love to make out of paper, but its a challenge to convert them to a 3d model that can be built. Here is the way I'm doing it.

first I find the model I like, open it up in sketchup and export it as a 3d .dae file that my AC3D software can read. From there I can export a .3ds file that pepakura can read, but alas unfolding a model with two many polygons yields useless results:
used to do some flightsimming and tried to make sceneries and 3d objects. there are several handy tools in the flightsim community for diy editing/modding.
have you ever tried the program Modelconverterx, it's a freeware tool, used for the Microsoft Flightsims and other sims. it allows you to import and export various types of 3d files. you can make/edit and export various LOD (Level Of Detail) models.
could spare you some time and effort

here's the link to the tool: ModelconverterX

hope it's usefull and makes sense, no native english speaker and unfamiliar with some "jargon"

ps: a lot of skp models are double faced (double parts), i used to use a program called deep exploratiion to view skp files and it was possible to load double faces as single seperate layers, and eventually delete polygons/faces that weren't needed (and so reduce the number of polygons)

Last edited by Foute Man; 07-21-2018 at 07:41 AM.
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  #18  
Old 07-21-2018, 12:06 PM
jleslie48 jleslie48 is offline
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I'll take a look at tool: ModelconverterX Thanks!
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