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Solidworks v ProEngineer v Catia etc

DBenz

New member
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I have need of drawing up historical non flying aircraft and wonder if I should use Rhino, or Catia V5 or Solidworks or autocad etc.<O:p></O:p>
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SW unlike autocad has parametric update ability I gather, this would be useful !.It must be easy and intuitive to learn. Can SW do the following or am I better off with ProEngineer or Catia ...I am a beginner to CAD, only experienced in 2D macromedia Freehand 9 and I did dabble with 3DsMax ?<O:p></O:p>

I am having to draw up an aircraft armed with some GA drawings giving datums, locations of fuselage frames, wing spar, rudder hinge line, thrust line, canopy leading and trailing edge, wheel hub positions etc, real skeletal stuff. Its enough to draw side view and plan view outlines except for fillets. I also have site photos and measurements of stiffener locations (needing the ability to measure around curves and across skins in a program to plot these, seeing that they are measured across the real subjects skin) and some original drawings of specific items e.g. one cockpit frame, fuselage frame stiffeners cross section, some flanges, torsion rods etc, engine bulkhead to name a few.

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Q1: Solidworks or Catia V5 or Autodesk Inventor seem to be about creating objects more so than laying out such basic shapes. Would it be able to start with the skeletal outline data mentioned above, enabling me to draw the outlines of the aircraft, over imported tiff images as I have done up till now in Freehand9 or as possible in autocad? I have one tiff image per layer and usually end up with perhaps 20 or so plans/layers locked into place. I can make the image see through applying colour to the lines to distinguish different plans if original is a b/w bitmap. Can it handle many tiffs as such ?

Q2: Could one then draw up the fuselage frame I have a plan of, and locate it into this aircraft outline shapeboth in side view and front view, it then appearing in end views as a consequence of this ?...i.e. does it generate the end view from other views ?
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Q3: How does it go about measuring across curved surfaces ? This is crucial as site measurements are over a skinned surface. Would I skin the structure I have drawn so as to allow it to measure over such ?

I have a certain amount of 'detective' work to do, items becoming clear as to their dimensions and location as further data comes to light. The automatic updating across the board of Parametric progs would appear useful in this.

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Q4: CanSW create skins of differing thickness where they are needed on the aircraft structure. Initially I would need to skin the structure to get the overall flow shape and check its ok, then break this down into the relevant skin thicknesses, wing leading edge for example thicker than rest of wing. How easy is this inSW versus the other progs ?

Q5: Can I skin the structure, measure and place internal ribs, or does skinning disallow further items placed underneath. I would need the skin so as to place the ribs, i.e. generate their curves and locations, is that possible to do ?

DBenz
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Edited by: DBenz
 

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