I've updated my image gallery

[dbritton]

Hi,

 

I've added a few of my latest mechanical drawings at David R. Britton Jr.'s Stills Gallery.

 

Dave

[martin]

Those are exceptional mechanical illustrations, Dave. Can Hash show them?

[dborruso]

Very nice. I did some mechanical modeling in max when i was in school for drafting but yours look better than mine. Goes to show hash can do it all.

[oakchas]

Absolutely Very Nice!

 

I'd really like to see tutorials on your methodology...

 

For example: Did you work from CAD drawings? Did you convert from another format into A:M? Did you use mechanical dimensions (placing CP's at XYZ coordinates)? On the cut out disc brake rotor on the dual disc setup, how did you get the outline of the disc to show?

 

I'd like love to use A:M in exactly this type of drawing for a different avocation/hobby. Making plans and assembly instructions... using A:M for not only the illustrations but perhaps even animating the assembly.

 

Cool stuff! Thanks for sharing! Hope your answer to Martin is yes!

[dbritton]

Those are exceptional mechanical illustrations, Dave. Can Hash show them?

 

Thank you Martin. Yes, please show them.

[dbritton]

 

I'd really like to see tutorials on your methodology...

 

For example: Did you work from CAD drawings? Did you convert from another format into A:M? Did you use mechanical dimensions (placing CP's at XYZ coordinates)? On the cut out disc brake rotor on the dual disc setup, how did you get the outline of the disc to show?

 

I'd like love to use A:M in exactly this type of drawing for a different avocation/hobby. Making plans and assembly instructions... using A:M for not only the illustrations but perhaps even animating the assembly.

 

 

No, I didn't use, or have access to any CAD drawings and I didn't convert any models from other formats. I built all of the models from scratch. I measure actual parts with dial calipers, rulers, and study small details with a magnifying glass. I also do a lot of web research for getting dimensions, such as thread info for nuts and bolts. Sometimes I draw a 2D orthogonal line drawing in Illustrator to help me figure out angles, shapes, and the way things fit together. I also take a lot of photographs for rotoscopes--I try to get them as orthogonal as possible. In the end I let the actual dimensions of the measured part have the final say, especially if things are not quite matching up to the rotoscopes.

 

On the disc rotor, I used a boolean "bite mark" to make the cut out, and toon lines gave me the outline of the disc.

 

I have been working on a tutorial for building nuts and bolts. I've got a pretty good method down for building threads with the duplicator wizard.

[oakchas]

I have been working on a tutorial for building nuts and bolts. I've got a pretty good method down for building threads with the duplicator wizard.

 

Look forward to seeing the tutorial, and thank you for the rest of the information...

 

So, after measuring, you offset cps by placing them in XYZ space, or just use the roto and place by "look and feel"?

[dbritton]

So, after measuring, you offset cps by placing them in XYZ space, or just use the roto and place by "look and feel"?

 

I can't define any hard and fast rules there. Sometimes I draw the same model three times until I get a handle on how to make it happen. Based on measurements, yes, I often type in X, Y, and Z values. I also measure angles on actual parts, then rotate, or rotate/shear splines.

 

To keep calculations easier, I sometimes shift or rotate the whole model around a particular point I'm working on so that part of the model is at the origin on one or more of the axes.

 

I often draw parts of a single model as several separate models, then join them, adding detail or redrawing as I learn more about how their splines are meeting.

 

Eyeballing for some parts of models is sometimes sufficient, with tweaking based on measurements.

 

For bevels, I use the pythagorean theorem to calculate height and width (based on a measurement of the "hypotenuse"), and do a lot of scaling after calculating percentages.

 

I also tweak a lot of bias handles. Thank goodness for Emilio Le Roux's SetBias plugin and for Yves Poissant's tutorial on beveling (although I find that the magnitude values in Yves' tutorial for beveling a cube don't work for me any more. The values were great in earlier versions of Animation:Master, but I think they stopped working around v9 or v10. For example, I use a magnitude of 355 for a 4 cp circle. I have a whole spreadsheet full of bias handle values for different numbers of lathe cross sections. No, I didn't calculate them--I don't know how. I experimented with tweaking bias handles on peaked cps using as patterns smooth cps. I didn't see a clear pattern emerge that would have allowed me to calculate these values. The wizards at Hash could probably say something about that however.)

[Dhar]

Wow David. Looks like you got this down to a science. Nice work