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3D Sketching Made Easy

3D Sketching Made Easy

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Thanks CBL, that was an excellent tip!

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Can you guys give some details? I don't want to register with forum.solidworks.com.

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

(OP)

Quote (Don Van Zile):


Not sure if this has ever been posted before but I thought it would be a nice tip.

We recently started doing a lot of complex welded frame structures and I love the weldment tools available.
So I started making 3D sketches of the frame structure and that was pretty neat. However, I find that the 3d sketching tends to be cumbersome, much harder to add relations to, and seems to be quite quirky and easily becomes overdefined. So, what I thought would be even easier, would be to start my frame as a simple modeled solid. Switch my view to wireframe mode, and filter edges mode. Start a new 3d sketch and 'window select' all the edges and hit convert entities. Delete the solid bodies and it's done..... a complete 3d sketch and easily parametric. All the while not having to deal with complex 3d sketches. What's great is that you can use this sketch geometry to create weldments.

Here is a simple example and screen pics.

Don
CSWP

https://forum.solidworks.com/forum/attachments/Frame%2DSolid%2EPNG
https://forum.solidworks.com/forum/attachments/Frame%2DSolid%2D1%2EPNG
https://forum.solidworks.com/forum/attachments/Frame%2DSolid%2D2%2EPNG

cheers

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Thanks CBL

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

dogarila, you should really think about logging on to the SW forum once in a while.  There is actually some useful information on there.  There's some scary stuff, too...like a picture of CBL!bigsmile

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

(OP)
rofl

cheers

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

(OP)
Dan,
That picture was the least scariest I had ... and I couldn't find a suitable Lorax look-alike. wink

cheers

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Nice portrait CBL! thumbsup2

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 06/08
ctopher's home (updated Apr 30, 2008)

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Uh, Oh...I feel like I've unmasked Batman!

I like the Lorax, since I feel like I have to make up words half the time to describe SW's issues anyway.smile

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

I agree with above.  Tricks I have learned with 3D sketching:

- Construction sketch(es) and curves are very helpful, almost a requirement.
- Really plan out first, even on paper, as curves can be confusing.
- visualize a 3D sketch as routing.
- start every 3D sketch with a straight line segment; this gets the 'routing' started in proper orientation and direction vector.
- dimension constraints really help and dimension as much as possible from coordinate system keeping dimensions in only one or two planar orientations.
- Spaceball or other 3D manipulator is almost a requirement.

In example quoted above I fail to see how this person's 3D sketch remains parametric after all underlying features are deleted; the technique seems to have you doing everything twice.

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Since we've wandered wide of CBL's original post, I'll throw a tip in that I picked up from Jeff.  When creating 3D sketches split your screen into 4 views.  You can switch between the views, and it helps keep everything going in the direction you want it to go.  Makes life a lot simpler sometimes.

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

(OP)
The features aren't deleted, just the body ... which creates a Body-Delete1 feature after the 3D sketch is created. That feature can then be suppressed to expose the original solid body for subsequent changes.

cheers

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

pierdesign:
Delete the solid bodies ("delete body" feature in the tree), not delete the features that created the solid body.  If the "delete body" feature comes after the 3D sketch in the tree, parametricicitiness is retained.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

(OP)
"parametricicitiness"  ... lol

cheers

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

"In example quoted above I fail to see how this person's 3D sketch remains parametric after all underlying features are deleted; the technique seems to have you doing everything twice."

He deletes the body, not the feature.  The DeleteBody feature comes after the 3D sketch, so the sketch is not losing any feature/edge references.

RE: 3D Sketching Made Easy

Guess I should refresh the page before replying:)

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