SolidWorks® Surfacing and Complex Shape Modeling Bible

Chapter 16. Modeling a Trowel

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Modeling the handle

• Modeling the scoop

The part used in this chapter is a part that I had an industrial designer draw up for me. I wanted to show some examples of working from hand sketch data just to get a range of realistic data types. If you already do work like this, you are probably familiar with techniques for dealing with this kind of data. If you are new to this kind of work, working from hand sketches is somewhat less precise than using other types of initial data such as digitized 3D data, imported data, or dimensional data.

Some of the techniques on display in this chapter are layout sketches, sketch images, blending a sharp edge into a smooth face, capping off the end of a handle, and some hybrid modeling techniques.

In this example, I am not assessing the shape, manufacturability, process, or cost of the product; I am only concerned with interpreting the shape communicated in the sketches. You often cannot follow sketches like this exactly because they are drawn freehand and may not line up exactly when arranged next to one another. For this reason, I use the word interpreted when talking about tracing or otherwise copying the shapes rather than something more precise.

Figure 16.1 shows the sketches that I used to build this part.

This walk–through does not give all of the explicit steps needed to create the model. By this point in an advanced book, I am assuming you know a few things. One of the things you need to know, which ...