3d modeling

Richard Gardner

<

div> 

Hi all,

With the help on this forum, I am now getting quite productive with this software. I am primarily using BricsCAD for 3d modeling. I do have a couple of issues that I am having and wondering whether they can be addressed. So here goes....

1. 3d extrude. When selecting object to extrude, sometimes the geometry "drags" in the display, sometimes not. In other words you can see in realtime the geometry "growing". This I find useful, but doesn't always display.

2. When slicing geomerty, it is not allowing me to enter a relative coordinate on the third selection point. For example, I am drawing a roof to a house. I have extruded a box and wish to slice at, say 35 degrees. So, I select, point1,point2. For point 3, I am entering @50&lt;35.  This I hope, is defing the slice slice angle. The slicing plane then seems to disappear. This method works in AutoCAD, but maybe I need to try something different!</div>

Heres hoping the Forum members come up with the usual very helpful advise!

Cheers

Richard

Knut Hohenberg

As to the not always displaying real-time feedback:
I can confirm that the direct modeling commands can be sluggish on complex geometry (at least on my machine), I therefore still rely on SOLIDEDIT a lot. But it did not occur to me yet that the real time display does sometimes not work at all (unless the operation results in an error anyway) - are you perhaps mixing the DMETXTRUDE and the EXTRUDE commands?

As to the slice command:
The syntax you described will not set an angle from the current UCS; it just returns a point (with the given polar distance from the last point entered) in the current UCS XY-plane, which is likely not what you want. I cannot really imagine that this should be any different in AutoCAD...

Richard Gardner

 

1. Well it would appear so! I am selecting the extrude tool on the solids toolbar which executes the EXTRUDE command. Running the DMEXCTRUDE command does the trick. 

2.Still working on this!

Thank you.

Richard

Joe Dunfee

 I mostly use BricsCAD for 2D.  But, the occasions where I have used it with the Mechanical 3D design features, have proven that this aspect of the program still needs work before it can be fully utilized.

Of course, the above judgement is very dependent upon the type of work I want to do.  As long as I stay within the features that work well, I am in good shape.  But this process takes a great deal of time to work through. You must learn a complex program, then do a project using all the aspects of the program you want to use. This process can easily take several months.  Testing another program is also very time consuming, so in the end you often just shop fairly blindly and stick with whatever program you started with.  And the longer you use the new program, the more time it will cost you to change to another program.  This seems to be the nature of software shopping.

Cost is often the driving factor when choosing a lower-cost program like BricsCAD.  For us, I will probably end up going to  SolidWorks, because I know it is capable of doing the 3D work we want, and I have worked with it in the past for several years.  This reduces the initial learning process, though I will need to abandon my dwg library  However SolidWorks is perhaps 5x more expensive that BricsCAD, and the budget just won't allow us to do this right now.

For someone experimenting with BricsCAD for 3D, try to test it with as little time investment as you can.  If you can find someone local who knows the 3D aspects of the program well, it is well worth the investment to hire them to consult if BricsCAD is a viable solution for the type of work you do.

-Joe

Tim Neumann

I use BricsCAD for 2D also but have increasingly had the need to do some 3D work. I've tried out the different midrange packages out there (SolidWorks, SolidEdge and Inventor) and out of those SolidWorks seems the easiest to run with. The downside is they're all so expensive and the place I work for wouldn't budge on a seat for regular AutoCAD so we went with Brics. Right now I'm leaning towards forking out the money myself if only to safeguard my career - 2D isn't dead but it's fading!

The other alternative is to wait and see how Brics develops and go from there. Hoping the next version V15 will shed some light on this. They seem to be going in the right direction - adding the 3D features but for me they're not user-friendly enuff yet. Keep in mind though I'm an old 2D dog who has a hard time learning new tricks!   

Joe Dunfee

I don't think 2D is fading.  All the 3D models need to be converted to a 2D drawing somehow.  And while the model can be rendered for the flat drawing, there is still plenty of stuff to do on the 2D like dimensions and notes.  None of the 3D packages I have used have 2D abilities that are nearly as good as programs like AutoCAD or BricsCAD.

Richard Gardner

 

Well, after using this programme for a week or so now, I think the 3d functionality is perfect for my needs. I am into Architectural visualisation and only use BricsCAD to model the buildings, so mainly very regular simple shapes using just extrusions/booleans. I then link the model into 3ds max, which seems to be working fine. Landscaping and any "organic" type modeling is all done in max. In the end I was using AutoCAD for just a handful of commands which seemed ridiculous.

Joe Dunfee

Be sure that to look into the types of renderings you can use on a viewport.  There is no version that shows hidden lines as dashed.  X-ray is the closest.  

If you want to show a plan view, or a front section view, you should look into the dview related commands, where you can clip the view to look at it as though a portion of the building were cut-away.

-Joe

Alan Liddle

We have made the "leap" into 3d modeling on a coal washing plant (concrete foundations and flooring and steel superstructure) and after a steep learning curve (we had never really used 3d before) we have managed pretty well using BricsCAD. However, one annoyance that BricsCAD must resolve is the half-baked section command that gives minimal options for output (section parameter settings): BricsCAD must attend to this in version 15. It is pointless creating a 3d model if you can't then easily create the 2d sections and views that make up the output.

I agree with Joe that having one person on the team who is at least familiar with 3d (preferably in BricsCAD) is a major benefit, thereafter, as the team improves the ideas and discoveries very quickly come from all members. There are some very basic commands and 3d ways of thinking that need to be passed on by someone already in the game.

3 months into out project we are all feeling a lot more comfortable with 3d and with using BricsCAD to work in 3d.