Hello everyone,
Today something exiting and extraordinary for all fanatic of Sketchup and especially for those who love to build organic and non-linear structures.
This plugin will throw you from your seat !!! 😉
You can download it here: Software download page
It allows you to span membrane-like surfaces between any kind of edges* in closed loop and then…
BLOW THEM UP !!!
*some restrictions apply: Lines can not overlap!
There are 6 buttons in a toolbar:
- Skin – allow you to create a surface (look below how).
- X/Y – allows you to stress the surface between X or Y direction.
- Bub – allows you to blow up a surface in both directions.
- Play – allow you to resume modification process after Stop.
- Stop – allow you to stop live modification process.
- Help – it’s a link to a developer website.
I created small tutorial explaining how to create a surface:
and an explanation what impact have X/Y Ratio on the membrane:
It’s definitely an inexhaustible source of ideas for creative people. Moreover after you create a structure, after you play with it, you can modify it with other Sketchup tools and plugins and still be able again to blow it or tense it up!
Here you can see how behaves a previous surface after inflating it, moving half of it and deleting some faces:
TIP: You can blow up a surface using ether positive (+) or negative (-) values. Positive values will blow up a surface from a back side of faces. Negative from it front side.
What will happened when reverse normals only on a part of a created surface?
EXPERIMENT!!! 🙂
GREAT tutorial 🙂
I am a newbie to sketchup and hope u can help me with this question…
After I create a soap skin bubble surface, how do I attach it another 3d object so the entire thing is a single 3d entity with volume?
I have tried moving the surface so the points line up, but sketchup still thinks it is separate objects 🙁
thanks !!
After the surface is created the object is a group. You have two options: 1. Double click and enter the group to edit it or 2.Explode the group (from right click menu). Is it what you need?
Cannot install the program on PRO 2013.
I’ve downloaded the plugin and it seems to show up in the extensions and the tool bar is visible and usable. However, the plugin doesn’t seem to do what it’s supposed to do. The skin button let’s me divide a face but after that no matter what I seem to do it won’t inflate or deflate the face. I’ve tried to make the wire a group, I’ve selected all sides, I’ve made sure the wire frame is closed but I just can’t seem to make anything work. I can’t seem to find any tutorials anywhere which makes me think there may not be much demand for this plugin. Any advice?
Sorry. I’ve just tested this year plugin with the newest Sketchup 2013 and it works well for me. I hope you found a solution.
klartlands@yahoo.com,
i have a similar problem as described previously no matter what i do the bubble will not blow up. What could have gone wrong?
Hi. Are you sure you have a versioncompatible with your SketchUp? I can see the latest version can be found here. https://extensions.sketchup.com/extension/c8d49537-51db-40a7-ac0e-474a244eb525/soap-skin-bubble