Take the edge off: The RoundCorner plugin for SketchUp
Rounding off sharp corners – especially in two directions – has always been a major pain. Multiple Follow Me operations, copying, flipping, moving... Life is simply too short for such tediousness.
Enter the RoundCorner Ruby script by Fredo6. You activate the tool, pick the edges you want to round (or fillet), specify a couple of parameters, and hit Enter. Really great tools are ones that save hours of nitpicky, repetitive work; by this definition, RoundCorner is an all-star.
How it works
RoundCorner is a simple tool with a few (sort of) complicated settings. At its simplest, here’s what it does:
Click on an icon in the Round Corner toolbar to activate one of the “modes”: Round, Sharp or Bevel.
RoundCorner can make rounded edges with round or sharp corners. It can also make bevels (far right).
Pick the edges you want to round by clicking them. Click again to deselect an edge. You can also click a face to select all of its edges, or a vertex (where endpoints meet) to select its connected edges.
Pick edges, faces or vertices.
Press Tab on your keyboard to bring up the Parameters dialog box. Enter an offset distance and the number of facets (segments) your new rounded edges should have. Click OK to close the dialog box.
Use the Parameters dialog box to specify an offset and a number of sides. Using a small number of sides yields more usable models.
Increasing the number of sides on your rounded corners increases your face count exponentially.
When you're ready, click somewhere in empty space to run the script.
So many settings
There are plenty of settings in the toolbar that appears in your modeling window when you activate one of the tools; take a look at the plugin’s handy documentation to see what everything does (Tools > Fredo6 Collection > RoundCorner > Documentation...)
Details, details
- You can download RoundCorner (as well as all of Fredo6's other plugins) from the SketchUcation Plugin Store.
- Fredo6 makes his plug-ins available as donationware, meaning that they're free to download and use, but that payment is always gladly accepted. I highly encourage you to support his efforts.
- This SketchUcation thread provides good discussion and examples.
- So is this video that Fredo6 made.
- RoundCorner works on both Macs and PCs.
Examples
Some things I’ve made in the short time I’ve been using RoundCorner:
I started with a boxy sofa I made awhile ago, then used RoundCorner to soften it up.
RoundCorner can handle fillets, too -- even round, uneven ones.
Rounding off the upper edges of 3D text makes it look at lot better.
I used RoundCorner an awful lot for this ship. It shoots flowers, in case you're wondering.
If you aren’t a current SketchUp subscriber, try out the workflow using our free trial.
View our Extension Inspection to get some more info on this great extension. Thanks for another great addition to the SketchUp universe, Fredo6!
Update: Checkout Fredo6's most up-to-date extension with even more capabilities, FredoCorner.