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Take the edge off: RoundCorner

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 Ruby Library Depot.
  • 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.
  • This Pushpull Bar post is helpful, too.
  • So is this video that Fredo6 made.
  • RoundCorner works on both Macs and PCs.
Installation
  1. Unzip the folder you downloaded.
  2. Move both things inside that folder (another folder called ROUNDCORNER_Dir_xx and a file called ZLoader_Roundcorner.rb) into your Plugins folder.
  3. Make sure you have the latest version of LibFredo6 installed, too (there should be a link to it on the same download page.) It contains things that all of Fredo6’s scripts need to work. Download and unzip it, then move its contents (a folder called LIBFREDO6_Dir_xx and a file called LibFredo6.rb) into your Plugins folder.
  4. Restart SketchUp.
  5. Choose View > Tool Palettes > Round Corner to activate the tool.
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.

Thanks for another great addition to the SketchUp universe, Fredo6.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

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11 comments :

Unknown said...

Creating boxes with sharp corners is what sketchup is good at, and this is usually great for buildings, but not for most products. Now with this plugin the door is opened for mechanical and product designers to flood in. Well recommended.

One small tip. Save your file before using this on complex geometry as it can hang. And as with most plugins, don't have the Outliner window open at the same time.

Amaury said...

Hola, amigo perdona que te moleste, pero no puedo o no se descargar el plugin, si me ayudaras te lo agradecería mucho

espero me responda, nos vemos.

Amaury said...

Hola

amigo de blooger, no he podido descargar el plugin de "RoundCorner script Ruby by Fredo6" quisiera saber si me puede auxiliar en esto ya que no veo la forma de descargarlo

espero resuelva mi duda. Nos vemos

James said...

I am making a desert map for a potential 3D game. Every time I try to use round corner to map sand dunes, the whole thing becomes a mess and doesnt make a bump on the ground. What am I doing wrong?

Ana Lucia said...

Hi! I can't seem to download the plugin. I'm Colombia and I'm not sure if that can be an issue.

What's wrong?

Thanks,

Ana Lucia

Murali Kaliyamoorthi said...

Any one send the link for roundcorner download link,

Unknown said...

I just purchased Sketchup 2013 which I love for all of my concepts at work, however I can not find another round corner tool. The problem I am having with this extension is on the Sketchup Start it kicks up an error stating

"Module RoundCorner requires Sketchup version greater than 5.0.160. Current Version is 13.0.3689"

Does anyone know a fix or patch for this?

M@

Unknown said...

Hi I am unable to install the Lib-fredo file and subsequently the plugin for roundcorner... I am getting an error inspite of following your instructions carefully
can you please help?

Unknown said...

same problem with Matt E, please fix it

Unknown said...

Same problem Than Matt E. Does anyone has the solution ?

Myzopia said...

Save your stuff in Sketchup V8 format then install Sketchup V8 and use roundcorner.