Bending Shapes in SketchUp with Flowify - SketchUp Plugin of the Week #11

This week's SketchUp Plugin of the Week (Flowify) allows you to bend shapes along quads.
♦DOWNLOAD FLOWIFY♦ extensions.sketchup.com/en/con...
♦SUPPORT ME♦ / thesketchupessentials
♦Courses♦ www.thesketchupessentials.com/...
♦Website♦ www.thesketchupessentials.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
When working in SketchUp, you’ll always find yourself in a situation where you need to be able to bend items a certain way to achieve the geometry you’re looking for. This week’s extension allows you to bend an object along a quad surface.
Plugin Name: Flowify
Plugin Developer: Anders L
How Much does it cost? Free!
Where do you get it?
You can get it by searching for flowify in the SketchUp extension warehouse.
Tool Functions
Basically, what this extension does is takes groups and components and bends them along any face.
This can be useful for any number of things, including creating custom stair rails, creating organic meshes, or just generally detailing shapes you’d otherwise struggle to create in SketchUp.
Using the extension is a 5 step process -
1. Create a target face as a group
2. Create a shape to act as a projection grid as a group.
3. Create two lines connecting your target shape to your projection grid as a group
4. Put those three groups in a group
5. Model the object you’d like to create on your projection grid as a group.
Once you’ve done these things, you can select your group of 3 objects and your object to modify, then select Flowify from the flowify menu.
I think I’m going to do away with the numerical rating system. It feels a little arbitrary and doesn’t feel 100% fair giving numerical scores to extensions that aren’t necessarily comparable. However, I do still want to talk a bit about the following sections.
Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think about this.
Usefulness/Functionality
This extension is great for creating complex shapes in SketchUp. However, it does take some lateral thinking to use sometimes, so it’s not always the right choice. When it is though, it can allow you to do things that would otherwise be very valuable.
Value
This is a free extension. Download and mess around with it to see what you can do!
Ease of Use/Documentation
There are several tutorial videos on the extension page in the Extension warehouse. However, I found them a little long and hard to follow, and struggled for a bit to figure out how this extension worked. I’m not sure if that’s an issue with me or with the instruction, but I found it a little non-intuitive.
Overall
This isn’t an extension you’re just going to use in your everyday modeling. However, it can become another tool in your toolbox for creating items you otherwise couldn’t in SketchUp. Like most extensions, if you learn how to use it, you’ll probably start seeing applications for it almost immediately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLEASE LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE
More SketchUp tutorials and resources at www.thesketchupessentials.com
Check Us Out On -
Twitter - / easysketchup
Facebook - / thesketchupessentials
Pinterest - / easysketchup

[@willembuiting]

Hi Justin. Still looking at this video every now and then. It is a powerful extension but a bit complicated. It lets you do things that Sketchup by itself cannot do. Great stuff !

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Hi Willem - Haven't done a flowify video in a while - I should think about some new ideas for it!

[@kpvhjjjbcffxxhhjkkk]

Sir thanks for making a vid like this you're such a life saver! The video is short and very straight forward which I like!

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Glad you liked it!

[@kirpon00]

GREAT tutorial as always!! Thanks!!

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Thanks very much!

[@mahad4816]

I wonder if i can use it to project a shape so to bend and wrap it around a targeted object 360°, such as a column.

[@mipe7755]

Good tut. Thanks a lot :D

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Thanks - glad you liked it!

[@ardelliadichfuller350]

is it possible to duplicate multiple components and still follow the curvature of the surface?

[@Dave-yl8rf]

This is just great. And I like the new ratings. Could you take a look at "Artisan"? At a first glance it seems as a better version of SubD

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Hi Kras - Artisan is on my list. It seems to work in a similar way to SubD, but while SubD really works best in conjunction with Vertex Tools, Artisan seems to have some of those built in. It also seems to use a slightly different smoothing equation. Thanks for watching!

[@aayushivasnik]

Can anyone please tell me how to make that shape at 1:01 I need to make balustrades for a spiral staircase :( Thank you the video Justin!

[@saeedalhadad1993]

شكرا جوستن واسالك كيف امزج بين سطحين متعامدين كلاهما مقوس ليكون عندي جسم ثلاثي الابعاد؟Thank you, Justin, and I ask you, how do I mix two perpendicular surfaces, both of which are curved, to have a three-dimensional object?

[@namle-jj8fj]

this video is better a thousand times bro

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Glad you liked it

[@enricoquitzau8877]

Hey Justin! First of all thanks for all your great tutorials! I watched all your Flowify videos but 'Impose Grid' is not working. I get no Grid on my Target Geometry. Nothing happens after clicking it. I think I did everything excatly like you! A lot of times even with the kind of same objects. I'm also using SKECHTUP PRO 2017 and I'm not a beginner but I really don't understand why its not working. In the Extension Warehouse you can see that Flowify is not supported for Sketch up 2017 but as I can see, you obviously use it in Sketch up 2017. Your latest Flowify vid is around 5 month old (but as you know, you already use sketch up 2017 there) did anything change? I get the message: this extension has not been marked as beeing compatible with your version of Sketch up. you may experience usability issues if you try to install this extension. Did you also get this message? After the insterllation it seems like it's working I mean it's there and it looks like in your videos. I really want to use flowify for a lots of projetcs.. Thank you very much!

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Hi Enrico - Usually when I can't get impose grid to work, it's because something's off with the way my geometry is grouped. I believe in this video, I show a workflow where you use the outliner to make sure everything is grouped properly - kzbin.info/www/bejne/iojPkoWwoL6iZq8 - maybe give that a try and see if it works? I know that Flowify works with SketchUp 2017, so try this and let me know if it helps. Thanks!

[@enricoquitzau8877]

It's working now. Thank you very much!

[@sohail3360]

i use 2016 sk and i install flowify plugin . i try alot but did not apply flowify .

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Gonna need more info than this...

[@anke6275]

Flowify doesn't work in Sketchup Make? I've tried 20 times.

[@pv5969]

I've tried and not had success - should I open up a new SketchUp and try with no other objects in the model space?

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Is your grouping right?

[@olcaybentley1521]

Hey Justin, I guess flowify is not working with more complicated hidden geometry. I have a curved face that I created with curviloft. It is kind of curving to all directions and the hidden geometry is creating non-uniform triangles. Impose grid tool doesn't work with this curved face- doesn't create any grids. Any ideas?

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Hmmm...are you sure you have it grouped properly? Like if you were to replace your curved face with a simpler face, would it work? As long as you have your groups set up right, I thought this would work for any shape...

[@olcaybentley1521]

hey, yes I have just tried another one to make sure. It worked for a curved face that I drew using arc on a box (then deleted the box) so the hidden geometry is made of straight lines. Then I tired the same grouping method on my geometry, it doesnt even give an error. My curved face also has 3 corners, almost like a stretched out triangle.Could that be the reason?

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Yep - that's your issue - flowify only works when your curved face has four corners - it describes that in the details of the extension download page - extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/flowify - sorry about that!

[@olcaybentley1521]

TheSketchUpEssentials ah, I should have read it all! Thanks for taking your time Justin

[@olcaybentley1521]

An update on this. It only works if the target face is quadface. After I turned my curve into 4 corners shape by slicing it, it still didnt work. Then I used Quadface tools to create quad geometry. It finally worked.Unfortunately it didnt create nice quads and my flowified shape doesnt stretch out nicely. I gave up!

[@supreethr1868]

i am deaf for architecture sketchup any training want learn that u give send more

[@Thesketchupessentials]

More tutorials every week! Thanks for watching!

[@ronymech]

I TRY THIS BUT IT SHOWS "INPUT ERROR: NOT ENOUGH INPUT " PLEASE HELP ME

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Try following the steps in this video - kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmWZdIKIgq2tfbM - let me know if that helps - generally that error indicates that your groups aren't set up right. Thanks!

[@ngocquangvloc9947]

"input error : not enough input flowify" help

[@Thesketchupessentials]

This means your geometry isn't grouped properly

[@masifing]

Impose grid is not happening at all dude!

[@Thesketchupessentials]

Your grouping is set up wrong then...