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Old 01-05-2006, 04:31 PM   #1
AEC DESIGN
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Lightbulb From Paper to Pavement (article 1)

Hello to all, alow me to intoduce myself. My name is Steve, im from Fredericton New Brunswick Canada,
This will be the first of many "paper to Pavement" articles covering anything from concept sketching, to the engineering behind automotive design, enjoy!.

"From Paper to Pavement" Article 1
By Steve Earl,

What is a concept? Is it the latest design by Lexus, or ferrari. No!, well it dosen't have to be. A concept can be a scribble on a piece of paper, or the simple dream of a perfect Sports car.
But how is it that someone transforms a sketch on a piece of paper to a Full working One-off or production car. This process is one of the hardest tasks that i have ever performed, and this is how i did it.
The most frustrating thing about trying to create a concept is imagining the conept in your mind. This is a must in order to put it on paper. My concept did not apear in my head as a full car, my car was a dream. It was slender, apealing, and altogether a work of art. It came to me in pieces, first apearing as a shadow down the long dark road in which i travell every day. Then, over time it slowy started to take form. After much thinking and many quick and dirty sketches, I sat down, turned on my music, and got drawing.
It was about three houres later, I had gone through almost an entire sketch book of about one hundred pages. I then had something i could call a respectible drawing that reflecting the image i had dreampt about for months.
Concept drawing is not easy, you have to understand things like perspective, conversion points, horizon line, elipses, ect... These elements of your drawings will change depending on the view you are drawing in. The angle at which you want to view your car in is important because it reflects the different features of the car you want to view in that particular drawing. These features, along with the over all shape of the car is what defines it and makes it unique.
Reader: "But Steve!, i can't draw worth shit", If this is you, than thats ok, I was once there. But if you pick up a couple books on drawing, sketching techniques, Automotive sketching, and lots of practice, you wont be in that boat any longer.
So, I have a stupid little drawing of a car that i drew up in a few houres, whats next, this is where it gets fun. There are so many things to consider when transforming your concept drawings into a realistic Design. First let me discuss the layout of the car, i want you to think about the following; what kind of car is it, where is the engine, how many seats are there, how big are the wheels going to be, whats your wheels base, length, width, hight, blah blah blah blah. I could go on and on with things you need to consider, but im going to discuss the things i feel are most important.
In my design i knew alot of these right of the start line, it was going to be a Mid engine, rear wheel drive, 2 seater sports car. I wanted a wheel base of about 105 inches, a hight of about 45 inches, and a width of about 80 inches. These dimensions where based on performance handling, i wanted a good sized wheel base with a large track width.
Now that i knew the basic layout of the car i could adjust my drawing if necessary, then start drawing side and top views with a bit more detail . Once i had a good side view with accurate dimensions i could then draw more detailed perspective drawings.
After about one week, and about two and a half garbage cans full of crumpled up paper, I had good drawings of the side, top, front, and back, as well as many good drawings in different perspectives, the next step is where it gets a little technical. I first scaned my four drawings that where in the 2D perspectives, and layed them out in AutoCad. I then over time developed very accurate CAD drawings in the side, top, front, and back view. Once i had these views I then started to think about three major factors, engine and engine components, ergonomics, and aerodynamics.
For those of you who dont know what ergonomics is its "the scientific study of people and their working conditions", what the hell does that mean? It means its the study of how peaple move and function in an enviroment, in our case the environent is our car. We have to take into consideration how our driver and passenger will funcion in our car, as well as how they (mainly the driver) will be able to see out of the car.
Since this is a Sports car, i also took aerodynamics into consideration. I read many books on this subject, and was able to slightly modify my design to reduce drag and increase downforce.
I also wanted to think about where the engine needs to be in the car, This car is going to house a 3.2 litre V6 with a 5 speed transmission facing the rear, so the engine needed to be behind the rear wheels. I though about where the firewall needed to be and positioned the drivers cabin accordingly. After these issued, as well as a few other were addresed, i had very accurate and funcional CAD drawings of the car.

In my next article i will discuss the next step, and that is to creat a 3D model of the car in a program call "Alias Studio Tools 12" as well as 3D rendering, aerodynamic testing, and structural strength testing.

Cheack back on this forum for My next article.

Steve Earl
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