Week | 3
Computer-aided Design
How I’m making a 3D model for my project.
31 January 2018 15:39:
This week’s assignment will be to model a possible final project and post it on our class page, so I’ve decided to have a look at the 3D modelling software I would choose amongst the many available, prior to our class.
I use Photoshop often and I have used TinkerCad and SketchUp some time ago to quickly sketch objects and it worked well as a simple sketch maker, but they’re really not the best 3D tools for all the features we’ll need throughout Fab Lab.
Amongst the ones researched, my finalists were Blender, Fusion 360 and Solidworks/Onshape.
Coming from the post-production “world”, Blender would sound like the best option, but its UI and UX aren’t really friendly and though I love the “community” approach from it I won’t really need to do realistic renders, animations, etc.
Between Solidworks and Fusion 360, I though Fusion was more of a robust choice. It has a bigger company behind (Autodesk), so, whatever knowledge I’d gather by using it, had better chances of being valuable in the future, with a high chance that the software would continue to exist and be improved for many years to come.
I’ve downloaded a 30-day trial version and started using Fusion. First impressions are that the interface is very intuitive and full of tips and helpful explanations for beginners.
So, as a recap:
Based on some really quick sketches I did early last week:
I’ve made this very basic layout with Photoshop:
Since I had to quickly prototype an image that would explain my idea, I’ve used the image of a well-known portable drive from Lacie as a starting point and added some text and shapes (buttons, icons, window) with some simple emboss and drop shadow effects to make it look “3D”.
And within one hour playing with Fusion, this is the model I’ve reached based on the 1st sketch I did last week on Photoshop:
The model was created basically in the sketch mode, by mostly drawing squares in the size I wanted and then extruding them to the height I felt that would be needed for the components to fit nicely. I’ve also added fillets to round the edges.
This is really just an idea of an enclosure, which is by no means functional, as there are no proper cavities or dimensions. I’m planning as a next step to follow this tutorial to do the actual model for 3D printing, but I still lack plenty of information about the components, which ultimately, dictate the model of the enclosure.
So, I guess I’m going to stick with Fusion 360 for the 3D prototyping. In order to also try SketchFab, I’ve saved the body of the model as an STL (tutorial here) and uploaded to SkecthFab:
6 February 2018 17:04:
I have spent the last couple of days getting familiarised with Fusion 360, so that I could model not just a prototype but the actual enclosure for my project. The problem is that most of the components haven’t been chosen yet, therefore, the measurements aren’t yet precise at this stage. I am still not sure what display or micro-controller I will end up using, so it’s really hard to finalise an enclosure without that info.
In order to advance a bit on the “usability perspective” I have made another sketch, with some pre-defined dimensions and a “lego prototype”, so that I could evaluate proportions, size of buttons and overall look and feel:
So that I could evolve and to practice the 3D software, I had to make some assumptions and the main one had to do with the choice of the display, due to its overall size within the device. I believe the best display to use would be an e-paper style, as it’s thin, light, requires no backlight, works well under sunny conditions (assuming most of these terminals would be placed on streets) and requires almost no power to maintain an image.
The one I’m looking at (and the one I based my model upon) is this one here, a 7.5 inch with an embedded controller for Raspberry PI .
It’s interesting to realise how much information you have to collect and decisions you have to make before you can actually start to model the enclosure. As an example, the electronic components that go inside the enclosure will need to be securely mounted there, what makes you need to have their exact dimensions, so that you can plan space and model the pilot holes for the screws to be fixed upon. A lot of dependencies here…
So, here’s a rendered image of the model’s current stage, considering that I depend on the choice of the components in order to evolve. This model was designed with all the info I have assumed at the moment, from displays to screws:
Here are the updated models on Sketchfab:
Front
Back Lid
Some very helpful tutorials I have used to do the model above were: This one to design the overall parametric enclosure, this one for creating the button cavities and this one for the rendering.
Update: I have stayed late last night and made some minor improvements on the model, like adding a logo, changing the tone of the yellow and adding the push-buttons. I have downloaded the button switches from Pinshape and chose the buttons palette below.
And here’s the latest render:
A couple of videos showing the steps to model the two prototypes in Fusion: