Frame a picture in SketchUp
This is really not a SketchUp tutorial as there are more than enough tutorials on using SketchUp’s Follow Me tool. Rather, this is a reflection of a “Hey, that’s cool” moment that I had this morning.
I have a small piece of scroll saw art that I wanted to frame. My vision was to do something simple, mostly of maple but with a thin inner border of padauk. I wondered what they would look like and so I was doodling in SketchUp, looking at proportions. Then it occurred to me that I could do what follows:
I drew a rectangle the size of the piece.
Then I drew a little square that was bigger than the cross-section of the frame I was contemplating. On it I drew rectangles to represent the padauk and maple portions of the frame.
I rounded off the padauk profile and removed the parts of the square that wouldn’t be part of the frame…
Then came the magic of SketchUp. I clicked on the large rectangle, selecting it as the path for the FollowMe tool and then, with the FollowMe tool, I clicked on my profile. I still get giddy when I see FollowMe do its thing as it projected my profile around the rectangle. Instant picture frame was the result and I used the paint can tool to color in maple and padauk.
But the real reason I’ve posted this is that I then thought, “why not stick the art into the frame and take a look. I took a quick photo, which I admit was not the best and SketchUp obliged, letting me drag the photo into the frame.
Pretty cool, isn’t it? I was pleased with this frame around the art and so I’m heading off to cut wood. When I turn this virtual frame into a real one I’ll let you know.
Cheers — Larry
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