I’m trying to evaluate Shapr3D as my main tool for creating very simple meshes. I have used Blender before, but do not like the experience there (e.g. absence of the history is just killing me). I watched some tutorials and tried to build some simple “non-artistic” models out of sketches. What I do not understand so far, is how to recreate a topology of a mesh if I know it. For example, let’s say I would like to repeat the following mesh perfectly: https://www.fab.com/listings/8e00d56a-43be-4b83-a29e-ff83bd8778fd.
I’m ok with having probably different topology, but I would like to repeat the shape. Tried to play with extrusions, booleans and fillets but wasn’t able to recreate the model. It’s worth to mention that I am very beginner in a field . Could you please help me with that?
You will need some measurements of the object you‘re trying to create, then extrude it Form a sketch and then use some chamfer on it. Otherwise, Shapr3d isn‘t made for mesh modeling, just like Fusion360. If you want to work with meshes, you might have to switch to a different CAD Software. But creating this star will be ver fast from the sketch, it could be done in 5 minutes. Good luck!
If you play around with simple Shapes (Elipses, Circles) and then loft between the rotated sketches you can produce fairly similar effects.
You model half of a point with three sketches.
Loft between two using the third as the loft path.
Then mirror the body to make a full point.
Rotate tool with ‘copy’ by 72 degrees to produce 5 points.
Boolean all five.
Fillet edges to smooth.
This is not exact because you do not get the flat face like a balloon, but it will give you ‘food for thought’.
The sketch picture shows the three sketches, one elipse, one circle, and one spline.
Instead of the circle, you could hand draw a spline that will give a much flatter effect on the top and bottom surface of the star.
Here is a quick render as well.
Don’t be deterred, when looking at the whole thing.
When you view and object from different angles you can often see simple shapes that exist. After that you then use CAD tools to join these simple shapes together to achieve the final goal.
There are other long term users of Shapr on the forum, who will give tips on how to smooth out shapes better than I can.
Thank you very much for your explanation, screenshots and advise! It is beautiful how you were able to turn, basically, math to the exact effect I was looking for!
My pleasure, it does not take too long to create this effect in Shapr3d.
Although this is not an exact reproduction of the Nintendo star body, I did it quickly to give you some ideas.
If you play around with splines, curves and lofting between two sketches you can make some funky shapes.
NOTE: Filleting can give you headaches when it keeps saying it cant do it. Sometimes if you keep your finger on the button and creep the radius bigger it suddenly passes through the error and does the fillet.
Have fun.
One additional bit of key info.
If you look closely at the third sketch picture, you can see the construction and constraints I used.
The short lines are set perpendicular to the lines drawn from the origin to the points where the circle and Ellipse cut the (XY) axis plane.
These allow me to set the Tangent constraint at the ends of the spline.
Arron try this one.