Week2. Computer Aided design¶
Assignments of the week¶
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Exploring on 2D designing tools and explaining how to convert raster image to vector image.
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Exploring on 3D designing and modeling tools including rendering, animation and simulation.
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learning how to do video and Image compression using freely available softwares.
2D design¶
2D design are any mechanical drawings or images with only two dimensions. For example rectangle or a square can be called as 2D design because they are having only 2 dimensions that is length and breadth. (length x breadth)
There are numerous kind of 2D softwares which are available and I had decided to use Inkscape and Gimp as I am quite comfortable and familiar with both of them.
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Inkscape¶
Firstly I downloaded the Inkscape
*The image above shows steps of downloading inkscape*
After downloading and installing inkscape, I started to work on importing 2D designs which I had downloaded from google and started editting the images. Inkscape can support any kinds of 2D images with formats such as PNG, JPG, DXF, PDF, SVG etc…
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Raster and Vector image¶
There are two kinds of images one is known as Raster image and the other one is known as vector image. The one which we download from the google are usually Raster image and we should keep in mind that it should be always converted to Vector image before we engrave or cut in the laser machine.
In addition to that Raster Image is not so clear, it looks so blur when we zoom it, because it’s resolution is not high because of pixels. On the other hand Vector image is so clear because they are made out of lines. So in order to convert Raster image into Vector image we use the feature known as Trace bitmap in the inkscape.
*The above image has been downloaded from google*
I downloaded one image from the google and opened new document in inkscape and from files, I imported that image which I had already downloaded.
*The image above shows steps of importing images into inkscape*
After that I had changed the width and height of the image as per our requirements. Followed by that I opened the “document properties” by hovering down in the files which is present on the menu bar and adjusted the canvas size, units and scale.
Since we can’t process directly with the raster image for laser cutting so for that reason I had converted image into vector by bitmap tracing. Firstly I clicked on the path on the menu and then clicked on trace bitmap option. After that new inferface will appear at the side of the page and from there we can update preview and apply and hence we can separate out the vector image from the raster image by clicking and dragging it out.
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Gimp¶
Gimp is also an open source software which provides various designing tools that can be used for 2D designing. like Inkscape Gimp can also be used for editting raster images where we can crop, rotate, resize and adjust colour leves of the images.
Steps of downloading Gimp
After I finish downloading the gimp, I opened gimp and start editting my own image.
*The image above shows how to import image from local in gimp*
After I finish importing image I just clicked on Image-> Mode-> Grayscale
And next I clicked on Colours-> brightness-contrast and adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image.
Then what I did next was I just clicked on Filters-> Distorts-> News paper print and I set the parameters of news print by adjusting their values and clicked ok.
Finally I am done with image processing in Gimp before I go for laser engraving and cutting in the machine.
3D design¶
3D design are any mechanical drawings or models with three dimensions. For example cuboid or a cube can be called as 3D design because they are having three dimensions that are length, breadth and height (length x breadth x height).
There are different types of 3D softwares which are available like;
Not only that there are even more 3D designing softwares which I didn’t mentioned in the list and from all of them I am quite comfortable with Fusion 360 and Tinkercad. In addition to that we were even taught how to use blender software which I found very hard and I also explored on how to use Freecad software which is freely available.
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Blender¶
Steps of downloading Blender
Since this is my first time using blender I was not that much familiar and comfortable to use the software.
This are some of the take away from the blender software class and from there I had learned some of the key points that we can press shift key + A to add comment. Not only that we can even transform our model by entering some of those keys as G for moving, S for scaling and R for rotating.
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Fusion 360¶
To download this software, the link has been already provided above and as of now I am using the student version of fusion 360 which has certain limitation while using and only with licence key or which is paid version allows us to work with full sources and with out any limitations.
Steps of downloading fusion 360
As the steps of downloading fusion 360 is quite long, it requires extra patience while downloading it.
After I am done with downloading and installing the software in my computer, I started exploring more though I was having basic knowledges on using fusion 360. As I was interested to create simple animation I had gone through this tutorial to gain more ideas and tricks. So after that I started designing a simple box with lid which can be open and close.
For that I opened the fusion 360 and then created a new sketch after selecting the plane and extruded my design as per the dimension required.
After that I created sketch and selected one side of the body and constructed a construction line and drawn three circles with different diameter.
After finish drawing circle I selected midplane after hovering down through the construct icon on the menu bar and selected on top and bottom plane and splitting tool was created on the body.
Then I clicked on split body and selected on splitting tool option and the body was splitted into two half and renamed both bodies as top and bottom.
After that I hid each part of the body and started making the knuckle and pin of the box by selecting the sketch and extruding it.
After I fininsh making knuckle on both sides, I selected the whole body and inner shell of 3 mm was created which means to make hollow inside which actually looks like a box.
In order to create the motion link in between the top and pin of knuckle I created components by selecting the both bodies (top and bottom). After that I selected the joint and selected pin and knuckle cover which finally allowed me to set the angle to which the lid can revolute.
Finally the video below shows how I created the box lid to open and close black after assgning the type of joints and angle of rotation and since my video was bit longer so I had used Clideo free online video splitter to split my video and make it shorter.
After I learned how to do simple animation using fusion 360, I tried creating body of my project and decided to add motion link in it where my main idea is to make the lid to get open and close automatically.
For that I opened fusion 360 and created sketch by selecting one of the plane and provided dimensions of length and breadth.
And then I click on finish sketch and extruded my model as per the dimension that I am planning to fabricate.
Then I clicked on construct from the tool bar and selected the mid plane of the and selected top and bottom plane.
After that I operated split body command by selecting it from the tool bar which made my body get separated into two halves.
Since my body was solid so in order to make it hollow from inside, I had run the shell command from the tool bar after selecting the whole body.
After that I had run the command press and pull from the tool bar and adjusted the height of both top and bottom of the object.
Then I selected the assemble option from the tool bar and the joint both the components by selecting the edges of the components.
Finally I applied the revolute joint and set the angle of inclination of the lid.
Video compressison and Image compression tool¶
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FFmpeg¶
For compressing videos I downloaded FFmpeg and installed in my computer. To install ffmpeg I had referred this tutorial.
After that I opened window terminal and typed ffmpeg and found that I had not editted the system environment variables path for ffmpeg. So for that purpose I followed some of the steps mentioned below;
Then I tried to compress video using ffmpeg and noticed that the size of video has reduced compare to my intial video. The code which I used to compress video is mentioned below which I got after referring this tutorial.
ffmpeg -i "test.mp4" -c:v libx264 -b:v 1.5m -c:a aac -b:a 128k "out.mp4"
Steps to compress video¶
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Open the window terminal and type the code ffmpeg -i “test.mp4” -c:v libx264 -b:v 1.5m -c:a aac -b:a 128k “out.mp4”
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Rename the input and out put video file name and press enter.
- Wait for some time untill you see that the new file with out put name has been displayed and ffmpeg programs gets ended. Finally you will get new compressed video.
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XNConvert¶
For compressing images while documenting I had used XNConvert. First off all I downloaded the software.
Steps of downloading XNConvert and compressing image
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Download and install the XNConvert in your computer
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Open the XNconvert and add images that you want to compress.
- Go to Action tab on navigation bar and adjust the width and height of the image.
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Go to output tab on navigation bar and give loction where you want to safe the compressed image and also mention file format.
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Lastly click on convert option for processing images which is found on the bottom right corner of Xnconvert window and the image will be compressed in our destination folder.
For taking screenshot of the images while documenting, I downloaded flameshot because it is very user friendly and we can work with various tools like circle, rectangle and arrows. Not only that we can even blur our document and even do labeling on the images and save the editted file.
For making collage of images for documentation I downloaded Photo Collage Maker & Montage Creator.
