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Whenever I draw a circle in Sketchup it seems to be made up from 20 straight elements connected together. Can I increase the number of elements used to improve the accuracy of the circle?

4 Answers 4

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From here:

when you first draw a circle, type "48s [ENTER]" for 48 sides. or click on the circle and open the Entity Info dialog box. You can not change the divisions once you pull it to a cylinder though.

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  • That link no longer appears to be a source.
    – fixer1234
    Dec 26, 2015 at 3:19
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Try the 90s rule...

Create a circle by entering 1.0" and press return. Now type 90s & press return. You have created a circle with a diameter of 2", and told Sketchup you want 90 sides. This turns it into a complete circle. You should see the difference. Once you do this, all other circles will have 90 sides, within your current project, regardless of size. It has a memory.

If you export into CAD, you will want to do this 90s with all circles. Otherwise, your CAD (BobCAD) program will likely not recognize it as a circle. This is important for any drill routines, as you will want to place a center dot inside each circle, to specify the drill's (geometry) center location(s).

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The "circle" is actually a polygon, and yes, you can specify a higher number of sides. You can type the number value (i.e., number of sides), immediately followed by the letter "s", as in 360s or 1000s, and then hit Enter. While Steve Clayton notes that 90 may be enough sides for even CAD programs to recognize it as a "circle", 360 and above will really represent a really good "circle".

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The "circle" tool is deceiving, as it's actually a polygon.

The default "circle" is an icositetragon, a 24 sided shape.

The "polygon" tool is the same thing, except the default is 6s, a hexagon, extrudes to a flat-shaded polyhedron, and has a circumscribed "circle" around it that's actually a 72s heptacontadigon. Could've used the 999s or 1000s circumscribed "circle".

To change the resolution of the "circle", type in the number of sides, 360s, 384s or up to 999s and hit "Enter".

SketchUp used to allow up to 1000s in 2016, but they downgraded it so that it only allows up to 999s.

1000s is a chiliagon, so now the best "circle" is an enneacosienneacontaenneagon(999s). Even if you weren't to tell the difference, it's not the same shape.

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