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Computer-aided Design

The aims for this week were to:

1. Model (draw, render, animate, simulate...) a possible final project

2. Post it onto the class page with original 2D and 3D files.

Inkscape:

My first issue was getting it to run on the Mac OS. After discovering the need for XQuartz I went to the Inkscape FAQ pages about using Inkscape on the Mac. To my delight I found some of last weeks joys (code). I had to search the internet for a fix, after Inkscape refused to fire. Here are the instructions provided by blog commentater, Tatzl (Thomas).

* In the folder Applications I opened the Package Contents

of Inkscape (ctrl click with the mouse)

* In this folder I opened MacOS

* Then I did a control click on Inkscape. In the menu

appearing I selected Open with

* The application appearing is Terminal, which I

selected. After that Inkscape opened.

I am running MacOS 10.10.5

Illustrator:

I'm not new to Illustrator, but it still took a wee while to find my way around using the creative cloud. I found and used Symbols to make the equivalent to the Inkscape clones.

Gimp:

Gimp took some getting used to. I watched some tutorials to get myself familiar with the layout. It's not as fancy as Photoshop, but it is open source and uncluttered. I used the raster drawing tools to develop the aesthetic of my project a bit more. An interesting tool in Gimp is the vector path tool.

Freecad:

I experienced a few crashes, which my FabLab team mentioned might be due to insufficient RAM on my machine. I found extensive literature and video tutorials, which helped me with the basics, such as how to use the mouse and/or touch pad. Then I learned how the system used modules called Workbenches. I began with the Workbench Draft, became familiar by watching some YouTube clips and reading the Freecad wiki.

Rhino:

I spent some time (lots of time) trying to get the Boolean tools to work properly. I tried every troubleshooting trick in the book. After a couple of hours of frustration, I watched a tutorial about the same operation in Freecad, and had it happening in Freecad without issue. I used the Workbenches Part and Part Design to do that. Moving from Freehand to Rhino and back increased my awareness of Freecad's capabilities.

I began working with primitives in Freecad Workbench Parts, where I made an embarrassing, very primitive 3D project model.

.FCStd FreeCAD Standard file format.

The Freecad file is explained on the Freecad wiki as being a standard zip file, that can be unpacked using standard zip tools.