In Part 1 of this series, I left off with a fireplace mantel. SketchUp’s Follow Me tool was used to drive the mantel profile along the top of the fireplace. But there are some missing faces in the back corners:
So I’m starting back at this point – a fireplace with a 2D face against the wall. This 2D face is the mantel profile.
To avoid breaks, the profile face should be a group.
Now here’s how to use Follow Me with a group. First, select the path: the three edges shown below.
Choose Tools / Follow Me.
Right-click on the group and choose Edit Group.
With the group open, there’s just one face to click on – the profile face. Click this face . . .
. . . and Follow Me drives the face around, still within the group.
To close the group, you can click anywhere outside the group, or right-click in blank space and choose Close Group. Now I have a nice fireplace with its equally nice – and unbroken – mantel along the top.
This is great, but in practice, everything should be a group (or component). So we’ll have one more post on this: Part 3 will show how to use Follow Me with edges that are already inside a group.