Rolando Maroño Vazquez
Week 2: Computer-aided design

The assignment this week was to do two designs, one in 2D and the other in 3D. In this week's lecture, Professor Neil gave us some softwares and how to use them for accomplishing the goals for this week. I decided to use some different tools in different softwares to test their capabilities and come with a couple of designs.

The first software I tried is Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to create some plattaforms that can be laser cut to create some geometric designs that can protect my house table from the water dripping from cold beberages. First I opened the Illustrator software and configure the page sizes.

I gave my file the name, geometric design. First I used the tool rectangle which is located in the left tool bar. Once you clicked the icon, and you click your blank page, a window will open asking you to introduce the height and width sizes for your rectangle.

 

I modified the sizes to 85 mm in both parameters to create a square.

After that I clicked in the line tool, in the left tool bar. That tool lets you create lines when you click and drag, it will apeear a gray window withe longitude of the line as well with the degree of inclination of the line. I'm exploring the tools before I start tracing some geometric designs to decorate my squares.

After that we need to create a new layer, so our background square wont be moved and it would be easier to move and alter our geometric design inside the background square. For doing this we go to our right tool bar, and we clicked in the second to last tool, which is named, layer.

Clicking in the layer tool, window will be open and it would appear only one label call layer 1. You must assure that next to the eye icon it should be a lock icon, if the square is empty, you must click on the empty square, the the lock will appear. With this, our background square will be locked into the first layer and won't receive changes. In the lower toll bar of the layer window, the second icon to the right part, is to create a new empty layer. You must click it.

Now we have two layers, we click over the second layer so it shines in light blue color. We are going to work the geometric design in this layer. Then we click in the line option and we do a single click inside our square. A window will open with the segment parameters. We select 7 mm in longitude and 0 degrees. This will give you and horizontal line, we'll keep clicking in the corners of the line and changin the degrees of the selection to 270, 180, 90. This will give you an square.

After that, we'll have a square. We made it line by line because we are going to do a cube, so we are going to need to cut out some part in order to respect the perspective. I tried to do it with the square tool and didn't make it work, but when I tried to do it line by line, I had success.

That's how the square should look finished. We copy it and paste it, then we move it in order to allign the center of the copied square with the down right vertex, so we can give it perspective.

 

When your squares are alligned, you need to draw line from vertex to vertex in order to draw the cube. The only two vertex that won't be connected are the ones we use to allign the squares. This time, the line will be drawn using the same tool but instead of giving one click, you will click and hold over one vertex and release over the other vertex.

Now we use the eraser tool to delete the down right corner from the first square in order to complete the perspective of the cube.

Now we copy the cube and paste it to create a mosaic.

So I copied cubes until I got a design that I liked.

Now I wanted to do round the corners for my background square. So you must go to the layers menu, click over the lock in the first layer to unlock it, now you can click over the square. you click over one of the vertex and it will appear a blue circle under it. You now must click it and hold it to make the corners round. I used a radius of 4.83 mm. You must repeat this in the 4 corners

I exported to .dxf file so I can cut it in laser.

Now, I wanted to cut them in laser. I decides that some sides of some cubes will be filled in order to make better the design, but those changes will be added in the SmartCarve software which is the one that we used to cut in laser. I will add some pictures of the parameters I used to cut in laser, and a picture of the final cut design.

Blue color: cut parameter

Green Color: etching parameters

Black color: Fill parameter

Here are some pictures of the process in the laser cutter and the final product.

You can download the illustrator file here.

You can download the dxf to laser cut here.

For the 3D design I decided to use TinkerCAD because it's really easy and fast to use. I want to do a 3D model of what my final project, the DLP printer may turn out to be.
This is the opening page, TinkerCAD is a software you can use online. You click in new design to create a new file. We start dragging the cube tool in the right bar, releasing it over the work plane, and modify the size.
Now we use the cilynder tool to create the Z axis of the DLP printer. We are going to drag and release over the workplane. Then we are going to modify the size.
Now we click group in the upper left bar.
Now we go to the upper right tool bar, we click and drag the tool Workplane, this will let us change the workplane so we can stack new figure to another side of the model. We are going to drag the tool over the end of our cylinders and we release it.
After the workplane is dragged, we can stack another box on top of the cylinders. Now we modify the sizes and flattene it.
We change the camera with the top left cube so we can see the under part of our red box. We change again the workplane but now we put it under the red box. We add another red box and modify the sizes to create a rectangle.
We create another red box and stack it to the latter one. We must flatten more this one because this one will serve as the plattaform in which the hardened resin will addher to.
We change our workplane again, now to the upper part of the large orange box. And we create another box on top of it. This one will be the basin holding the resins.
Now for making he hole in the basin, we left the workplane there, over the top of the large orange box. We create another box that will be smaller of the width than the red box and larger of height and we put it inside of the red box.
We clicked over the hole option. selecting the newer red box.
Now we press shift on our keyboard and select the firts red box. Then we go up to the group option on the top tool bar and click it.
Now we have our basin completed. We repeat the steps but now in the large orange box. After that we select everything and group it.

You can download the .Stl file here

And you can find a link to the tinkercad design file here