CAD: How difficult is it for a beginner, and how do I get started?

[DanielW]

Solidworks 2014 rendering.....think you'll agree its worth rendering rather than shading.

https://www.solidworks.com/beta/documents/2014-ed-hawkins-round-4-2nd.jpg

 

[Wedg1e]

Solidworks 2014 rendering.....think you'll agree its worth rendering rather than shading.

https://www.solidworks.com/beta/documents/2014-ed-hawkins-round-4-2nd.jpg

Christ, my computer melts just trying to show that picture

 

[Rocketman]

Solidworks 2014 rendering.....think you'll agree its worth rendering rather than shading.

https://www.solidworks.com/beta/documents/2014-ed-hawkins-round-4-2nd.jpg

Next time someone asks what a tool design looks like/how it works I will spend ages messing around making a photo realistic rendering.

I think people are getting very mixed up here between presentations by graphics departments and design work.

 

[daleyd]

I'd love to see them wedgie, i have a small collection of brass cases from pistol and rifle rounds. A favourite of mine being obscure heavy british game rounds, the old nitro express cartridges used in africa and india. I have a couple of 40mm bofors cases and i have my eye on a british 5 pounder shell case in a charity shop.

I have a complete 4.5inch mk8 case in my living room with some decorative twigs in, another cut down as an ashtray type of thing, and a couple of 3 pounder cases as pen holders.

 

[DanielW]

De ting is......

If someone comes to you and says design me a 'left hand spanner' you can show them a shady spanner and they will probaly say hmmm! show them the rendered spanner and they will probably give you a choice word.

 

[BrokenBiker]

Are you getting caught up in how AutoCAD worked?

You can in any reasonable 3D software apply a colour and shade up in no more time than it takes to go to wire frame.
View attachment 73534
I could have added material texture + steel colour and it wouldn't have taken anymore noticeable time to shade. But it's not really rendering.

When rendering is talked about these days it's usually in the context of photo realistic which is something totally different. In fact Solidworks standard doesn't even have photo realistic rendering in

i wouldnt be able to send that that image to someone that wanted work done though, i used to use the render tool to save an image to email it away, or if they wanted to see how something would work i would use a free recording program i have to save a video of it being animated

 

[Rocketman]

i wouldnt be able to send that that image to someone that wanted work done though, i used to use the render tool to save an image to email it away, or if they wanted to see how something would work i would use a free recording program i have to save a video of it being animated

Animation and rendering are totally different things?

Firstly by and large the people who do the renderings are in graphics departments - they don't do the engineering modelling.
Often they won't use the software that the models were done on but use specialist graphics software.

Secondly working with engineers between company to company they use the solid/surface models. If you need to point something out on jpeg or what ever they just use the shaded model.

Now rendered pictures and animations will be nice for certain situations but you need to be careful because doing them could make you look like a total idiot wasting time. Put it this way there will never been a point at which I would ever be able to justify doing a rendering for a injection mould tool other than an image for my website. Some of the tool are very complex with many moving parts/hydraulics but rendering is still a pointless task.

 

[ronan]

What platform 32 or 64bit processor and windows version was it?

Can't remember its that long ago dan, but afaik it was 64 bit.

 

[DanielW]

Animation and rendering are totally different things?

Firstly by and large the people who do the renderings are in graphics departments - they don't do the engineering modelling.
Often they won't use the software that the models were done on but use specialist graphics software.

Secondly working with engineers between company to company they use the solid/surface models. If you need to point something out on jpeg or what ever they just use the shaded model.

Now rendered pictures and animations will be nice for certain situations but you need to be careful because doing them could make you look like a total idiot wasting time. Put it this way there will never been a point at which I would ever be able to justify doing a rendering for a injection mould tool other than an image for my website. Some of the tool are very complex with many moving parts/hydraulics but rendering is still a pointless task.

What have you got against renedering,why's it a pointless task, RM ? you seem to hate it for some reason,not wishing to cause a scene like.
You either render an object or you don't down to the person who's using cad.

Personnaly i think rendering gives it an edge better than the flat and if your computer has enough beef to complete the task of renedering it then you have the best of both worlds ie shaded object and rendered object.

 

[DanielW]

Can't remember its that long ago dan, but afaik it was 64 bit.

no problem but windows xp would have worked in 32bit even if you had a 64bit processor....perhaps this is why it was sluggish?

 

[Wedg1e]

I can see where the man of rockets is coming from: it's perfectly feasible to design an entire machine and send the drawings for production without ever having to render something that will help pre-pubescents stick the pages of Evotasticjapcar or WhatafastbikeIhaven'tgot together.
I myself am perfectly content to furnish our prospective clients with proposal drawings that look like the wireframes out of 3D Tanks or Elite, and they in turn are happy to furnish us with orders 'cos we charge less than the next man and his glossy rendered sculptures

 

[graffian]

no problem but windows xp would have worked in 32bit even if you had a 64bit processor....perhaps this is why it was sluggish?

I run solidworks on a laptop, I bought it secondhand in 2008, it's a dell M50 with 512mb[the motherboard slots are shagged and it wont take anymore].
I drew a motorbike gearbox on it and can animate it. My computer is much faster but that was up to date 2008;-)

I have to agree with the above on th erendering, if you have to much time on your hands then go ahead, otherwise the shaded pic looks great if you want to show someone.

A Quadro card is nice, the display is much smoother and if you did pic a material[which I tend not to] it looks completely different to a non Quadro image.

 

[ronan]

Ever since i started using solidworks i loved the fact you could make working assemblies and model complete mechanisms. I still get a kick out of doing them. This engine isn't my work obviously, but its the sort of thing that shows how far things have come since the old white lines on black background of autocad etc.

P.s. I thought pushrod engines had gone out decades ago ?

 

[Wedg1e]

I'd love to see them wedgie, i have a small collection of brass cases from pistol and rifle rounds. A favourite of mine being obscure heavy british game rounds, the old nitro express cartridges used in africa and india. I have a couple of 40mm bofors cases and i have my eye on a british 5 pounder shell case in a charity shop.

4.5" shell case, office radiator for scale - the case is about 700mm tall...

End view...

Dart from an APDS round... wouldn't fancy getting this through yer letterbox:

Pic deleted in case I upset the owners!

Turns out all the other hardware has been stashed in a secure location that I can't access after hours

 

[ronan]

Lovely wedg1e, thanks for the piccys. You would want your ear muffs on when those rounds started going off !

 

[Wedg1e]

You know they say that somewhere there's a bullet with your name on it...?
Well I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on it...

 

[graffian]

I was just looking for the pics of my shell. it's not as big as the one above, but it might have seen action at the Somme..
I bought it when I was 6 or 7, for sixpence in the junk shop in Guildford. I can remember going home and my mum asking why
I wanted a shell;-)
I just remembered I was using it the other day to test the airbrush when I was re-lettering a frame.
It's the thing with kraft paper wrapped around it. I looked it up a few months ago to see what and where it was used, It could do with sitting in paint stripper, I used to stick waste rags with paint on in it;-)

 

[Wedg1e]

I can remember going home and my mum asking why
I wanted a shell;-)

My brother used to collect stamps (he's an archivist now, can you detect a theme) and used to rummage around a local flea market for old letters etc... apparently stamps are worth more if they're still stuck to Uncle Albert's letter from the front, or Aunt Mabel's missive saying she's had all her teeth taken out and a new gas cooker put in
Anyway one day he'd acquired some letters that were written in French and was upstairs trying to translate them to see whether state secrets were being traded or whether Tiddles had had kittens, so when my mother asked me where bro was I replied that he was upstairs with some French letters.
"What on earth does your brother want with French letters?", she asked... as my dad spat his coffee all over the kitchen.

Anyway... sorry, back to the CAD

 

[Rocketman]

What have you got against renedering,why's it a pointless task, RM ? you seem to hate it for some reason,not wishing to cause a scene like.
You either render an object or you don't down to the person who's using cad.

Personnaly i think rendering gives it an edge better than the flat and if your computer has enough beef to complete the task of renedering it then you have the best of both worlds ie shaded object and rendered object.

No Problem mate. I haven't got anything against rendering and it has it's place for sure but between engineers/manufacturers it is quite limited on any real use IMO and never really see it happen.

 

[Rocketman]

Anyway... sorry, back to the CAD

One of my first jobs when I started up on my own was to design a injection mould for a moulding to hold tank shells.

Hold on we are back to shells