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turning a wire-frame into a solid part

cro.fabrication

New member
I'm curious if it's possible to draw a wire frame on multiple planes and have Solidworks 3 dimensionally spline them together to form a solid shell?

Also, in attacking things from a different angle, how can one create a multiple plane wire frame from a 3d part?

I am very new to Solidworks, but seem to be picking it up at a decent pace. I am running 2006, but 2007 is available to play with if necessary.

Thanks!

Chris Orth
 
Chris, why are you using wireframe? Is this an autocad question?


If you have a wireframe sketch you can extrude that 2D section to create any such solid.


Steve
 
Chris, Steve is right if you have simple 2-D wireframes. In that case it is easier to just use normal methods to create the part, but I have found that if you have complex shapes with blending curves starting with the wireframe is best. Creating fillets does not always achieve the desired goals. The way I have accomplished what you are talking about is using surfaces. I create the wireframe and then use surfaces to "skin" the frame. When I have covered the entire object I knit it together and form a solid. I have found that I get better control of lofting and sweeping under the surface menu then under the solid menu.


On your multiplne wire frame, you start by creating all the planes you feel will be necessary for your wireframe. Then you create a 3d sketch and draw your wire frame. While in a 3d-sketch you can choose different planes to draw on and mate the entities to that. I prefer to create as many individual 2D sketche as I can on the required planes and only Use the 3d sketch for complex curve lines to connect the 2-d Sketches.


I hope this helps. I can try and explain it better if you need.


Shawn
 
Thanks Steve and Shawn. I am trying to do the more complex curves and it seems this is the way to go. I have figured out (basically) how to get the wireframe going, but am having difficulty creating the skin. By 'difficulty' I mean no luck what so ever. There is something I am missing. What tool exactly are you using in the Surface menu? I've made a few simple shapes on parallel planes and connected them with a few lines on planes perpendicular to the ones mentioned before, a simple trial run. I'm most likely just trying to use the tools backwards or something
smiley32.gif


I'm in the process of trying to hunt down a tutor in return for metal shaping and machine shop use and training, but so far no luck hunting any pros down.

Sorry about the delay in reply, my interweb was down for a few days.
 
I also use the loft feature in surface. I try and make my wireframe have intersections that create areas with four sides. I then use two sides as the loft profiles and then the other two sides as the guide curves. This creates a lot more entries in the feature manager tree but when I was trying to get a complex curved surface to work it helped.


Another thing that can be helpful is to run surfaces over all the areas that you can do easily and then use the filled surface to clean up the rest.


I should also mention that our company is still stuck with sw2004 so there may be advanced tools in later versions that I have not learned about yet.


Shawn
 

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