COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN

WEEK 2

Model (raster, vector, 2D, 3D, render, animate, simulate, ...) a possible final project, and post it on your class page

GIMP

The first program to work with was Gimp. It is a easy to use and friendly program. Although I prefer to use photoshop to work and modify my images. I used GIMP to scale and resize them all. In order to do this, you have to click on the menu bar >image>scale image> and then set the image proportion, either in pixels, centimeters, inches, etc. For example I use as wide or maximum length, 1024 pixels.

DRAFTSIGHT

The second program I tested was Draftsight. It is a type of CAD program to draw in 2D. With this one I started to draw some pieces of the geodesic structure that I will use for the final project. I used basic commands, such as circle, arc (start, end, arrow), line and polyline.

DS - FILES

AUTOCAD

I also drew in AutoCAD. As an architect, this is a program that I mastered quite well, especially its version for 2D. I used it to draw the "golden ratio" that serves to construct the base icosahedron for the geodesic structure. The commands used were, polyline to draw the square, the circle to find the distance equidistant between the middle of one side and the vertex, in order to form the "golden rectangle".

CAD - FILES

ANTIMONY

To start 3D modeling my project, I try Antimony, but given the complexity of the geodesic, I realized that it would take a while not only to learn the program, but also to find a way to model the structure. At first, I tried to follow Niel's video tutorial, when I achieved the form that appears in the video I tried to generate a form on my own. I tried to follow Niel's video tutorial, when I achieved the form that appears in the video I started to generate a form on my own. I inserted a cube to which I assigned a rotational parameter of 45º, I also used a sphere and a torus. With them I started playing with commands like difference, repel and morph, until having an unknown shape, then I used Heightmap to generate a .png image.

SKETCHUP

After giving Antimony a try, I decided to use Sketchup, this is a friendly program quite simple to use. However, it is not a very precise program to work with arcs, circles and spheres. The advantage, is that there can be delineated a form through space. With this software, I constructed the icosahedron structure using the golden rectangles, then using it and using arcs, I was able to model a spherical triangle from a geodesic of frequency 4.

SKP - FILES

RHINOCEROS

Looking for more precise software, I started modeling the final project with Rhinoceros, it is a very versatile application that allowed me to do even two versions of my project. This program, works better with circles, surfaces an volumes. The interface allows me to view the object from up to four different perspectives. I repeated the steps and commands executed in previous software (AUTOCAD, DRAFTSIGHT, SKETCHUP) the line, the golden rectangle, the circle, the surface, the geodesic, the arc, the spherical triangle, etc.

Finally I think that every 3D modeling program has the possibility to achieve the same goal, everything depends on the time to master the tools, utilities and functionalities of each one of them.

xmottex@gmail.com