Discover how to create intricate three-dimensional topographies using the line tool, move command, and sandbox toolbar. Learn how to add detail, manipulate individual points, and apply material image to a 3D toposurface using SketchUp, a 3D modeling software program.
Key Insights
- The article guides through the process of creating a 3D topography using SketchUp, beginning with the use of the line tool and orbit to split a face into two parts which can be elevated using the move command.
- It explains how to add detail to the model by using the sandbox toolbar, which helps in creating new top points in triangles and manipulating these points to add new elevations or valleys.
- Finally, it discusses how to apply a material image to the 3D topography, which involves using the select tool, soften edges dialog box, and projected material to paint the model, creating a detailed topographical surface.
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let's begin to build our three-dimensional topography. If I go to my line tool and orbit around and draw a line from here to here and split my face into two parts, you can see that I have two separate faces. Now if I go to my move command and move up this point only, you can see that I'm starting to auto fold this face.
You can also see that when I create my three-dimensional face, my image texture begins to get distorted and not match up. So for now, let's close our components dialog box. I'm in open materials and let's select the default material button here and paint this face and this face our default texture, so we don't mess up some of that material distortion.
Going back to my line tool, let's draw an additional line from here to over here. And then going to my move tool, I will click on this line and then dragging up in the blue direction, I can toggle auto fold by clicking ALT. And now you can see that I'm starting to create a hill up in this corner up here.
We can go by using our line tool and using auto fold to generate some topography. However, using the sandbox toolbar makes this even easier. If I go up to my sandbox toolbar, I will see an option called add edges to a selection of triangular faces.
This is the add detail button. So I will click this. If I go into one of the triangles, you will see the cursor changed to three arrows pointing to each other.
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And I have a blue diamond, which means my on face inference is snapping. When I click in one of these triangles, you will see that I have created a new top point in the middle of that triangle and dragging up and down. I can add new elevation or valleys.
I will add this up just slightly. Just like this to create a nice hill. You can also click on an edge or a point to create a valley or a hill as well.
I will do one over here so you can see what that does. Also, you can play and manipulate individual points to kind of make some adjustments to your model. If I slightly pan over to the left, you can see we have this nice face.
If I wish to click inside here to generate triangulations to manipulate my topography, you'll get a warning sign. And this warning basically says that you must select a triangular face and edge or a vertex connecting the triangles to use this tool. Because this plane is five-sided, I'm not able to do that.
So what I would have to do is go to my line tool and create triangles from the shape. So I connect from this point to this point and from this to this point. And now I have three triangles.
Now if I was to go back to my add detail tool, for example over here, I can create a valley at this point. SketchUp will generate spaces that have more than three edges, but the sandbox toolbar does not like working with those faces. Then it also will move this corner up as well to create a nice kind of hill in this corner.
If I was to draw a line from say this point to this point, I have created a triangle. However, I now create a four-sided trapezoid as well as a four-sided shape over here. If I try to use the add detail button on any of these faces, you can see that I'll get that same warning sign.
Make sure you are extra careful when generating a triangulated toposurface by hand. The last tool that I want to look at for generating our toposurface by hand is the flip edge tool, which is located right here. Let's click this.
When I select the flip edge tool, you can see in my tool tips down below it says select an edge on a mesh to flip. That means that I am only able to select triangles that are within four sides. For example, this one or this one.
This one is one, two, three, four, so I'm able to flip this around or this one. I am not able to flip and these other edges because these all have three sides. This is a nice tool to kind of reorganize the angle of some of these geometries.
Now let's apply our material image to this 3D toposurface. I will go to my select tool and triple click my toposurface and let's go to soften edges dialog box. I can slide my slider over making sure that I have both smooth normals in soft and coplanar until I have a nice smooth surface.
If I go to my materials in model into this site plan and paint this, you can see that it's not the correct orientation is fragmented in different areas, so we will need to use a projected material. So I will undo this. Let's create a rectangle on top of this to match the same size that we can use a projected surface.
So I will go to my rectangle tool, hover over this corner right here and then move up in the blue as it's inferring that blue axis and then draw your rectangle up in space. We want this to be 180 feet comma 150 feet enter and then clicking our material site plan. We can paint this surface and then go into our select tool.
We can right click texture projected and then clicking our paint bucket tool holding down ALT for eyedropper. We can select this material and then paint and then let's triple click this material, this object and delete. Now you can see we created a nice material on this topographical surface.
Building a toposurface like this using only an image as reference is a very crude way to build toposurface. In the next video we will build a toposurface a slightly different and more accurate way using the sandbox tools. I will see you in the next video.
