Computer-aided design

In the first week I thought about the idea for my final project - the idea of making a plant pot with a sensor that indicates the quality of the air

Now the second week is about computer aided design software and it is time to start drawing.

Here I will draw using different tools and environments.

I start by making some paper sketches of the shape of my vase, then I use the illustrator to draw in 2D to get some vector images of my drawing that will help me build the model in 3d, using the Rhinoceros software.

In the first week I thought about making a rectangular vase that was divided into two parts, the vase itself and a box with a zone to place the electronic compoenntes and a zone for the water of the plant.

I drew some ideas for the shape of the paper vase, however I wanted to do it in a simple way and thought about choosing the shape of a cube and a parallelepiped.

I decided to use the Abobe Illustrator program to sharpen my drawings from the pot, since it is a program that I usually use for some time.

You can see more about this drawing program here:

Illustrator

With the illustrator you can draw everything! Or at least that's what I believe.

You can create the shapes you want, using predefined shapes and changing them and coloring, or make your own neatness using the pencil tool or the vector pen, which you can find in the toolbar on the left.

On this site explains very well how to use the tools and start using the program:

Illustrator - beginner's Guide

Illustrator is a great program, there are several tools to explore. You can define the type of line you want in your drawing, delete, cut, join pieces, mix colors, have transparency and made of color in your drawings, write, among many other things.

I started by drawing with the vector pen the shape of the two cubes I wanted for my piece.

Then I used the coloring tools to paint each part of the cubes and give life to my layout / drawing.

I wanted to put a plant in my pot too. Draw and color a plant would still take some time, so I quickly downloaded a vectorized image of a plant from the internet and joined my scheme.

I also made a perspective of the 3 views - side view, top view, and left view of my pot.

Find the file here:

week2_plant.air Illlustrator file

And after that I felt ready to start drawing my idea directly in a 3D modeling program.

To make the 3D model of my object, I used the software Rhinoceros3D that works with surfaces, and allows to draw my product in detail and allows to apply the right measures to then have the technical drawing of my object.

To make a simple object, like mine, it is very easy to use the program Rhinoceros 3D.

You can start by creating objects like cubes, balls or draw surfaces and make a extrude.

In this program we work with measurements, which is good when the idea is to make a real-scale prototype from the model.

The program lets you see the 3dimensions and the views: front, back, up, down and sideways. Which in my opinion is very good to always realize what you are doing.

First, I created several sketches of ideas with 3D shapes to get to the concept of my final object.

In the next image we can see the model that I drew. Is a kind of 3 boxes placed on the side and on top of each other.

After modeling the vessel, one can render a render of the object to look like a more real object, and apply colors, textures, bump maps, lights, shadows and environments and background images, which make the object look almost like a photography.

In the program Rhinoceros it is possible to make the Render of our objects, there are two options:

Use RHINO RENDER - the rendering tool of the company Rhinoceros, which has somewhat limited functions and applications compared to other programs dedicated only to render.

Use V-RAY FOR RHINO - there is a plug-in for the Rhinoceros called V-ray that allows to render the object with detail and perfection. This plug-in is paid, find out more at: V-Ray render for Rhino

I decided to try applying some colors to my model from Rhinoceros, but I decided to use another program to render the - KEYSHOT to give some textures to the different parts of my object.

To begin with, I've applied simple textures, like wood and plastics, because I will certainly have to make more changes over time to my 3D model.

In the keyshot program in addition to giving textures and a background image to the model or project, to look more real.

The keyshot program in addition to being a great program for rendering an object and makes it look more like the real one. It is also possible to make small and simple animations with your object.

I did an animation of my product to show the various components that consisted of the box and how it mounts.

I did an animation of all the components slide down one after the other.

It was a simple animation :) See below