Problem with scaling a project in SU and using the Cutlist plugin

Steven Pairo

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I created a drawing of a desk clock in SU ver 6 and then used the scale tool to enlarge it based upon one of the dimensions, to a mantle sized clock and then saved it as a new file. I was experimenting with the cutlist plugin and used the mantle clock to try my first attempt at a cutlist. The list generated ok, I was able to read it, access it, no problem. However I noticed that the dimensions were not correct and upon further review I realized that the dimensions in the cutlist were the exact dimensions of the desk clock prior to it being scaled up.

Has anyone else experienced this, is there some procedure to avoid this?

SteveP.
 
Normal operation, I'm afraid. The definitions of the components retain the original dimensions even after you've scaled them. The plugin is just reading the definitions.

You'll notice if you drag in one of the components from the In Model library that it comes in as the original size.

One thing you could do sale the component when it is open for editing. I believe the definition will get updated then.
 
Thanks

Thanks for the input. I had a gut feeling that the answer would be along those lines. Kinda makes scaling a design a pain. Oh well.

SteveP.
 
I guess considering we're using SketchUp in a way that it wasn't intended to be used, it could be looked upon as a small problem.

Depending upon the project, you might find it better to resize rather than rescale components. For example, suppose you want to add 24" to a 36" long table. Rather than scaling the aprons and top to increase their length. Open the components and select the entities at one end. Use the Move tool to move them the 24". Then move the legs and other parts across the end of the table. If you had drawn the joinery on the aprons or added any edge detail to the top, scaling would distort those things. In fact scaling would also distort the table's legs and other parts as well.
 
I agree that this is not a huge problem. I did keep in mind the distortion problems that come along with scaling. This design didn't have any features that distorted when I scaled it. I had a feeling that it would scale well but I was nontheless prepared to redraw it once I liked the major dimensions. As it turned out, I did not have to. I cannot imagine too many more situations where I would simply scale an entire design.

SteveP.
 
Here's kind of an interesting visual of a problem related to scaling components. Not quite the same thing as what you were running into.

A fellow drew John White's New Fangled Bench awhile ago. He drew a board and made it a component. Then he copied and scaled it to make the other boards in the bench. It looks nice enough until you start editing it. In the attached image, I opened the near leg component for editing and drew a circle on the face. Notice the ellipses that appeared on the related components. BTW, I rotated the stretcher so you could see the corresponding face.

This would also result in a cutlist that shows all of the pieces as the same size when in the model, they don't appear to be.

Copying the component to use for other parts of the model is alright but if those other parts would be a different size, you need to remember to make them unique and resize the new component while it is open for editing.

de838766.jpg
 
Dave
Do you have a link for the latest version of the plugin for Cutlist? I had it on my old machine before the hard drive went. Now that I've got SU7 and Cutlist re-installed on the new machine I'd like to try using the plugin.
 
You know ... all this scaling talk has me wondering if some of these challenges could be tackled with the new dynamic components feature in SU7.

Say ... one with a tenon on each end. One with a tenon on one end. One with a mortise on both ends. That kind of thing ... or maybe someone will come up with a single "Board" dynamic component that would let you configure each ... yeah that gets hairy quick.

I have avoided playing with SU7 Pro's trial because I'm sure I'd love making dynamic components and have to buy it :p
 
Jason, the problem with Dynamic Components regarding that sort of thing is that changes in size are done by scaling. So if you have a rail component with a tenon on each end and you add 15% to its length through a DC parameter, the tenons get 15% longer, too. The fix is to make the rail as three components nested inside. There'd be a center component and a component at each end with a tenon. Then, in the creation of the control for changing the rail's length, you would scale the center section and move one of the tenon components.

That could all be made to look alright and if you didn't care for using the CutList plugin, you'd probably be fine. The CutList plugin will drill to the lowest level for components so you'll get three components listed for the parts of the rail and none of them would be the actual isze of the component.

there is a report function built into SU7 which would generate a file that lists components. You could probably massage the data from that report and add some math to get a cutlist but I suspect you'd have to spend a fair amount of time massaging the report for each model to get useful cutlists.

The time spent making the Dynamic Components and then working with the export report may be more than just editing the components the old way.
 
I could have sworn i saw some video where scaling a dynamic component caused only specific dimensions of that component to resize. Maybe I was daydreaming of a perfect SketchUp world? :p
 
Well, doing what I suggest would make it appear that the rail component for example would change in size properly. With the seam lines hidden, you would see what was happening.

Remember its still scaling though.

An alternative would be to limit the size choices and then, instead of scaling parts that have to change dimension, you hide one and show another. I did that sort of thing with a dining table but it is only available in three sizes. The problem is, every different sized part has to be added to the Dynamic Component (it's a bunch of nested components in that case) and you have to set up the ones that move, too.

It's got its uses but I think it is of limited practicality for most woodworkers.
 
Oh i think i remember what i saw ... it was the picket fence video you had shown. It got scaled and the number of pickets (rather than the width of each) was changed to keep all the pickets a fixed dimension. I think that's what I drew my conclusions from.

I thought for sure you could draw up, say, a desk with it's various components, and effectively make only a few pieces of each of it's consituent components "stretch" when the whole thing got scaled by using dynamic components somehow. I'm not sure what I based that leap on at the time, but now that I've spelled it all out it seems like a much larger leap than I thought. Didn't your table do something similar?
 
Yeah, the picket fence is a bit deceiving. If you notice as you change its length, the pickets scale for a moment. Then as the fence is redrawn, they go back to the proper, unscaled size but the number of pickets increases or decreases.

My table behaves a little differently. The user input is to select the table length. The current table top component gets replaced with the correct size as does the stretcher between the legs. The leg assembly at one end gets moved accordingly. If you were to unhide all of the components in the table it would be a bit of a mess. This also results in the file size for the table being larger than it really ought to be considering.
 
Good question.

On the other hand, if you give your components names that include words such as "sheet" or "tube", you can use the cutlist plugin to easily pick out the information you'd need to price the materials. I'm not sure you can get a direct linear dimension for tube stock but youcan get the square feet of your sheet stuff.

Or are you going to cast this? I think there's a plugin that could figure out the volume for you.
 
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