cad

Has any1 treid to create their own car in a cad program? i tried to but it was mad hard so i quti and went swimmin.

no future engineer here:rolleyes:

yeah, it can be very difficult. I assume you were just trying to do a representative model of the exterior surfaces, and not a detailed model including all of the components? As far as CAD packages for surfacing go, Unigraphics is my favorite. For a pretty sketch of a vehicle exterior, the software called Alias pretty much kicks A**.

I use AutoCAD R2002 a lot. Pro-E ownz Autocad for free though.

I use AutoCAD 2002 too, its really good if u want really accurate stuff, but i don't use it too much for modelling complex objects(cars, people)... Autocad is more for drawing buildings and mechnical stuff(e.g., engines, gears).. Normally, I would draw whatever I can do easily in Autocad, save as *.3ds then go to 3dMax and do texturing and touchup work.

Pro-E is pretty good, but its surfacing capabilities leave much to be desired. UG is the best I've seen for surfacing, although I've heard that Ideas (SDRC) is similar. Pro-E is great for engine design, and I've heard Ideas is too.

I haven't used Autocad since college (v11? v12?), and I REALLY didn't like it back then. I'm sure it's great for 2-d. The version I used last didn't have a solid modeling capability at all, it was strictly 2-d.

In my opinion, Pro-E, Ideas, and UG are by far the best for solid modeling. I've never used Ideas, but some of my ex-coworkers who had were always raving about it, and wishing they had it instead of UG. I prefer UG over Pro-E, but I've been using only Pro for about 2.5 years now, and it'd take me a while to get back into the UG thing.

When I worked in body design at a truck company, the way body panels and most other class-A surfaces were designed was as follows:

* A designer (artist type) would either sketch the part in Alias or model it in clay.
* If a clay part was made, the designer could either sketch it in Alias (small parts) or have it scanned in as a point cloud (most big parts, some small parts).
* If the part was sketched in Alias, an IGES file (or point cloud) could be exported, which could be imported into Unigraphics. If a clay model was scanned, the point cloud would be imported.
* Using UG, the engineer would create splines and then surfaces to approximate the shape of the point cloud, and use these surfaces to trim material from a solid primitive (or thicken the surfaces for a sheet metal part)
* the engineer would then "flesh out" the rest of the design for manufacturing, etc., make drawings, talk to suppliers, and so on.

It's pretty cool to see a full-size semi truck (ie sleeper cab) made out of clay.

Ah, yes the merging of AutoCAD and 3d Studio is wonderfull. I really enjoy 3d Studio, but I don't have the time or patience right now to more fully use it. The real engineering courses and work kinda jutt into my spare time. I have a lot of respect for 3d Studio, though. It has many real uses, at first i thought it was just an artsy-fartsy program.

I'm taking graphic engineering in my first year starting in September, so i guess i'll have to learn, but for now, all but the simplest CAD totally mystifies me. It's not a simple program.