Hot Rod CAD Work :D

I'm learning Solid Thinking from Altair-this is a 30 minute generic 1930's grille shell built and quick rendered within Solid Thinking.
Hopefully Jones Foyer will pop on here and blow us all away...his flathead engine model is amazing. Also you may want to pop over to the Motorburg site-there's some good CAD Hot Rods over there too. All the best -Mark

 

ah there she be. Yeah it would be great to be able to use this in my model....

 

Some great stuff here! I'm familiar with Solidworks, but not proficient. Someday I hope to be, but not sure where to start, so if there are any books/tutorials or anything, I'd like to hear it. One of these days, I hope to pick the CAD guys brains at work.

 

You can probably find workbooks on Amazon. That's where I get my CATIA books.

 

Sure, what Autocad version do you have?

 

Ha! This thread is right up my alley.. I've been using Unigraphics in the automotive engineering business for about 15 years. I also have some Catia, Autocad, and other cad modeling software experience. I've been wanting to create a model of what I want my '51 Merc to look like for a long, long time. We have a laser scanner at the office for reverse engineering. I want to get a chopped Merc in there and scan the entire exterior surface... Anybody crazy enough to lend me your chopped '51 Mercury for the weekend? Does anybody want to share a step or iges file of a flathead model they've created?

 

I run an AutoCAD machine 10 hours a day for a construction company and now I'm desperately wishing we did any modeling or 3D of any kind. The supervisor is an old paper drafting guy and everything we do to push us ahead in technology is a battle.
Keep up the killer work guys, very inspiring, hopefully someday I can get into a little more than 2 dimensions.

 

Me too! I want one!

 

It'll take more than a file conversion. That's a very nice step file of that engine. It's a 21 part assembly. Reads great into Cimatron, which is the CAD/CAM system I sit in front of everyday.
Dwg doesn't handle many 3D entities. Untrimmed surfaces is about it, and certainly not assemblies. What you want is someone to do some drafting views of it, then dump that out as 2D Dwg for you. What views do you want? Top/front/side?

 

I actually want it for CATIA....

Is there a format that it could be converted to to work with that (iges?)

(man that IS a cool lookin motor)

 

Some great work you guys have out there!
Like some others I'm just getting started with Solidworks at home and having tough time finding free time to learn. As noted earlier there are some good tutorial books and even some web sites that have tutorials for free.

I love the perfect rendering done for the motor cycle frame, his web site is amazing.

Brain angus awhile back put together a chevy small block with other members adding stuff to make a great engine which can be down loaded for free from the hosting site.

The motor rendered up is also by I think two people one did the block while another person did the super charger and bird cage. The block is a 331 hemi some-what accurate and the super charger and bird cage are accurate from an actual unit.

I have some bits and pieces of car parts that I would be willing to share along with others also for stuff in return.

I also know that if you are a member of Sema you have access to cad files from all the major automotive companies and third parties but they guard that stuff and do not allow it into the general public.

Sorry for the long message but just read all the posts and tried to hit each one. Great work by the ones that posted their work!!!!

David

 

Your catia should be able to read that step file just fine. Make sure you got the file download and unzipped completely, the step is about 44MB.
If it won't read in, are you using catia4 or catia5? Different formats, but I can make you a direct file.
First - you have to stand up and raise one hand. Then repeat "cimatron rules, catia drools" 3 times. Then PM me, and I'll find a way to send a download link to you no problem.

(yes, I used to use catia )

I feel I should repeat that I did not model this file and hats off the the Hamber that did, it's beautiful. Just offerin to translate it for you.

 

It's V5. I just unzipped it and opened it from File->Open (Selected *.step file extension type) and then it opens. I can see the element tree but no motor....hmm

And yes. I stood up and said "cimatron rules, catia drools" 3 times. Got some strange looks from my co-workers. <j/k>

 

Gettin better. The aft rails need some refinement but I was going to bob those anyway.

 

3d surface modeler by trade....


car inspired CAD by boredom.

 

looks good what about the back of the frame

 

Well, if you're a hot rodder they probably all think youre strange already....

 

What? You mean how it's not connected or do you mean how it looks jagged and not smooth like a real Deuce frame?

It's in-work (plus i'm learning as I go ). I'll probably refine this a bit more later.

 

I teach 3ds Max at work..

some pretty cool models at turbo squid.. some of the authors are more "proud" of them than others. (but there are some freebees)

I've always enjoyed catching the students who download one of these models and tries to pass it off as his/ her own..

http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/In...ategoryid=20030&sort_column=A5&sort_order=asc

never the less neat stuff to see.

 

almost forgot to post this up.

a cool feature of inventor is the ability to reverse engineer parts..

i needed two of these latch plates which hold the rear lower gate up on a 40 ford woodie.



and luckily somebody put them up on ebay (and oriented the photo Just right (thank you sir!)

I was able to use the image (planted in the background of the inventor intervace as a template which I traced, allowing me to create this.


which inventor allowed me to develop this



which I later cut out with my plasma..

i figure this saved me the cost of the original latch plates..

 

That's pretty smart work there, Sawzall!

 

I've been using AutoCAD since release 10. I need to learn about the more advanced modeling software.

 

Wow Jeff, nice! I could use this approach for parts on the '32. Who makes this program?

How did you or the program compensate for the distortion in the photo?

 

I started on R13 back in '98 and pretty much kept up with the rev's until around 2003 (after I left college I couldn't seem to get my hands on pirated software anymore).

 

Hey Sawzall, I don't claim to know what I'm talking about, and I don't know if it affects the functionality of the part, but comparing the photos and the drawing shouldn't the tabs on the side be more triangular?

 

I did a few, since I was bored, pulled dimensions off of wescotts site. Still working on others.

 

eventually managed to convert the hemi cad file into something I could use in 3ds Max. exported from catia as a wrl file whatever that is then converted that using polytrans into a 3ds file which i could open in max took about an hour to convert and ended up with about 6000 seperate objects, every surface and fillet as a seperate object rendered it in max with some basic textures.. here is the result

 

You're making cars on a computer and can do anything you want, why aren't there bias plys on that roadster!?

 

coz i pinched them off the pop......your right will need to make a set of x plys.. will never get the real car finished at this rate

 

I dont know a thing about this stuff except I think its cool to look at. If you "build" your frame or car or whatever how do you use it for the actual build? I kind of got the hinges that were copied and somehow converted to a file that was put in to a computer controlled plasma cutter. Something much larger though like an entire chassis or car I dont understand how you convert to something real.