Not that simple

My task for the day included creating 3D models of a display case that I could recolor according to areas in the museum.

Hoo boy.

That is not as easy as it bloody sounds.

Especially when you consider that our display cases are all different sizes. And the sizes make no sense.

Take the one that is 2' 9 3/4" square.

I tried measuring it in metric, but it's obviously supposed to be in english units because those are marginally neater. It isn't compensating for the edge bevel so the plexi was easier to cut--the edge bevel is .75". What maniac made this? It's 2'7.75" tall. Why?! why?! Did somebody have a really slapdash ruler? How do? And why aren't any of them identical? They don't look like something we could have made here, so they were obviously meant to be manufactured this way.

I...

I don't understand.

Display Case D--we have A-H. I'm only using letters because one was labeled E and another F.

I'm thinking of modeling all of them out of spite, since I spent all morning trying to get the plugin that lets me make rounded edges work. Also so I can be damn sure that nobody else at PARI can recreate these things without considerable headache. Again. Out of spite for SketchUp. 

Why doesn't sketchup have native support for chamfers, bevels, and rounded edges? Isn't that a tool almost essential for CAD? Whatever. The plugin is called RoundCorner by LibFredo6, if you want to use sketchup for the same. Expect the installation to be Incredibly Frustrating, and it's not terribly user friendly, but it works approximately like the Follow Me tool. Have fun and gods be with you if you try this.

Display case G. They're going much faster now I know how to do them.

After this, I need to go measure the ATS-6 and photograph it from all sides so I can model it, which promises to be a slightly more involved process--I'll need to get very flat photos of it so I can use the images as textures, so I don't need to worry about modeling the more complex interior geometries of the thing. I'm getting pretty good at this modeling stuff, yeah? You'd think I'd have learned "modelling" has two l's in by now...

Display case E is fairly small

They are all the same height, though I may need to go back and revise display case D slightly since it was the first one I did--don't ask me why, per say. It just was. I'll redo the map in accordance with some colour scheme or other (I pinned a handful to Pinterest, things that included "Pari Carpet Gold" mostly) and dye the cases to match. Because a museum populated with large pastel display cases....yeahno. 

An ATS-6, by the way, has a base about 4'5" square and is about 6'5" tall. And this is a 3D model of the gallery, as it is right now, compared with a photo from earlier in the summer: 

The ATS-6 model is mostly incomplete, because I only have so much time, but I added a little detailing so it wasn't just a big box...

The angles aren't precisely the same, and I didn't get the ceiling height quite right in this iteration of the room model (I corrected it in the ideal gallery model) and the ceiling was left out for ease-of-use...

But you get the idea.