Equal Points of Distance with Meassure Tape Tool

[Randall Smith]

I am working on a wall that is 300ft long. The wall has fins that are exactly 24 inches apart and the fins are 4 inches wide. The fins extend out from the wall 18 inches.

Is there a way with the measure tape tool to tell it to snap a guide line or mark every 24 inches the entire length of the wall in one or two commands. This would be 150 lines per edge for a total of 300 edges, This would take forever and there are more of these fins at the airport I am creating.

I am including a example of what I am talking about.

Thanks
Randy

 

[Dave_W]

You might find this YouTube video about copies and arrays helpful.

 

[=rk=]

You can use the divide line command to create any number of segments, in your case, you'd want 150 segments. Then your fin would snap to each end point, but I'd only do one or two, you know about the grouping function, where collections of polygons can be made to not interact with other polygons? So I would set maybe two of these fins that are already grouped, copy/paste in place that pair, slide the copied two to the next end points, copy/ paste in place those four and like the VO5 commercial, so on and so on and so on...

To divide a line, select it with the cursor, right click to "divide line," then as you move the mouse left or right, the number of segments are defined by red dots and a numeric value in the lower right hand corner. Move the mouse until the number in the window is 150, release the right click, or left click to set it, I forget which - and you're good to go.

 

[GaryGB]

Hi Randy:

IMHO, use the Tape Measure to place a Construction / Guide line at 2 Ft. and 4 Ft. from the left Edge of a wall.

Group one of your 4" x 18" x 20 Ft. fins and Move it onto the Construction / Guide line at 2 Ft. from the left Edge of a wall.

[EDITED]

With the Move Tool, Select that Grouped fin, then press and release the <Ctrl> key (watch for "+" symbol next to the cursor)

With the Move Tool, left Click+Hold, then drag (a copy of) the fin onto the Construction / Guide line at 4 Ft. from the left Edge of a wall.

Immediately type: x32 (or however many times you want the fin copied and moved 2 Ft. towards the Right); press <Enter> key.


NOTE: You can Erase extra fins if the specified number of copies is wrong, as these should be Copies of a "Grouped" object and not copies of a 'Component'.


Otherwise, there are a few Sketchup plugins which can iterate to convert 'Components' into unique Geometry "Grouped" 3D objects prior to Export:

https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=make_all_unique

https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=Make_Components


...and for the occasional maddening goof of applying a Material to the 'exterior' of a Group or Component with the Paint Bucket Tool in Sketchup:

https://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=Remove_CG_mat

[END_EDIT]



You should now have Copied and Moved your fin a specified number of times via the Array feature in Sketchup.

After editing fin length above doors, Explode all the fins so that they Intersect with- / "Weld" onto- the wall geometry to avoid 'flickering'.


I hope this helps with learning another practical way to use the Array option.

Attached is a ('quick-and-dirty') 3D model of the UND Aerospace building mapped with your image and a Google Earth image as a test.

GaryGB