dave flint Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I've had a look on here at the various threads on here for beginners, and they all seem to fizzle out when people get going..... I am keen to have a go at 3D and fancy doing blackpool works tram 754 - one of their really boxy ones. Even so, there are enough curved bits on it to create problems. I've had a good long play on Sketchup, but find it extremely frustrating as I can't see a way to get accurate shapes, and curves seem to be impossible to get right. i also find that it doesn't butt objects up properly, doesn't seem to want to push/pull curved parts accurately - in short I feel I'm just wasting my time on it. Is there anything simple to use and yet powerful wnough to get an accurate shape developed ? Ime tempted by the TurboCAD software, but not many on here seem to use it. A course is out of the question due to shift work, so its me, the software and any written help I can find... Also, when drawing up a model, how do you compensate for the thickness of the material ? If I make a box shape, say 40mm x 150mm x70mm, are these external or internal dimensions ? Any help would be much appreciated Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alibuchan Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 I have found the curve thing an issue too! Not worked out how to do them nicely yet. Those would be the external dimensions. It does take some practice to get things right or even half way there but the more that you sit and play with sketchup the better you will get at it. Best thing is to have a go with things you don't really want at first, then when you start with the tram you won't get royally pi$$ed off with it and stop doing it. I have got a wagon I'm working on at the moment that is getting me annoyed so I stop and move on to another (easier but bigger) thing to chill me out then go back to it. It took me about 3 weeks each time to draw the first few things that I did. Once I stared drawing the wagon I wanted to print it was easy and got it done in 3 days (over an empty weekend with only the football and F1 to occupy my time). Keep going you will work out how to do things eventually. Alistair Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etched Pixels Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 If you draw a cube its solid and the outside of the cube is the outside of the material. If you want wall thickness and a hollow then you need to draw the hollow too and do the wall thickness, at least with the more basic apps (and in fact it turns out you need good control of wall thickness anyway to do much stuff) Fancy curves are hard, 3D subtle curved surfaces are nigh on impossible with Sketchup but there are extensions that may help. Start with simple stuff - small simple stuff is also cheaper than big simple stuff 8) Alan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andygif Posted May 22, 2013 Share Posted May 22, 2013 there are plenty of instructional vids on you tube for the various CAD/CAM packages out there. I started off with using tinkercad (till they went out of business), then i moved on to using autocad 123d wich was quite good to learn the basics. Moved on again now to AutoCAD Inventor, ok its a year or two out of date but it does what i need it too and it was "cough" free under a student licence. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
New_Expensive_Teeth Posted May 26, 2013 Share Posted May 26, 2013 If you are familiar with Pro/Engineer you might want to try PTC Creo Elements/Direct Modelling Express 4.0, it has a 60 part limit to any assemblies you make, but it is completely free. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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