DIGITAL MODELING AND PROTOTYPYING

MY PORTFOLIO-PADMAKUMAR

2013-09-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hello, Please see the link below to download my portfolio. Thank you very much. Portfolio download link

AUTODESK FORCE EFFECT- A simple exercise

2013-08-01T00:18:00.001-07:00

Autodesk Forceeffect Motion is a free Ipad application that can be downloaded from Apple store. An application to simulate the mechanisms. Thanks to Autodesk. A humble attempt to introduce this application to those who visit my blog. I desire this video would be worth spending your time.

Product Design -Woofer

2013-04-08T23:17:00.002-07:00

I have been thinking about a personal project for a while. Finally I stopped thinking about it and started taking action.

Objective here is to make a product that has got certain features to catch the eye of the people(mission statement). I wanted to start with something very simple and very common in the market.

I started with a very old damaged Woofer kept somewhere in the trash.

I have decided to put an aesthetically better front cover with additional features. Overall size of the woofer remains the same.

I started capturing the existing design in Creo, the latest release of PTC Creo Elements known as ProE before.

I made a few concepts and selected one for the final design.

I did some tweaking in the final concept and finally made a rough 3d model in Alias Studio to have a feel of the final design. This model was rendered in Showcase to get a better image.

Front cover will be made by 3D printing (Rapid prototyping).

Will continue……..

Click here to take survey

Woofer -ID

2013-03-20T13:56:00.000-07:00

Very rough concept rendering of a product (woofer). I am gonna build a functional prototype of this product.

My sketchbook renderings

2013-03-20T01:11:00.002-07:00

Hello All , after a short break I am back. Please see a few of my rendering work.

Now or Never

2013-03-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

Time to think about conserving the mother nature has exceeded. Now the time is to act on it.

Exponentially increasing demand of human population has brought a situation of sucking the natural resources to the fullest. Over and above, the third world countries like India has a major role
in the contribution of "Environmental Pollution".
I live in a city called Bangalore in India, highly
populated city.

Vehicles burn gallons of petrol in the hectic traffic here. I don't know the level of particulates in the air and I don't believe(I don't trust ) the numbers provided.
I used to see exhausts emitting black smoke.

How a product interact with its environment during its life and after life? The products we design will have an impact on the environment where it works.

I would like to share a Book titled EARTH, INC. by Gregory Unruh, he talks about using nature's

rule to build sustainable profits.

Follow natures rule, stop dumping toxic materials that are not environmental friendly.

He talks about making sustainable profits by following the rules of biosphere.

I think as a designer, this book is worth spending your time.

What is Gaussian curvature?

2011-08-24T06:06:00.000-07:00

What is Gaussian curvature?

The definition of Gaussian curvature in Wikipedia is as follows

In differential geometry, the Gaussian curvature or Gauss curvature of a point on a surface is the product of the principal curvatures, κ₁ and κ₂, of the given point. It is an intrinsic measure of curvature, i.e., its value depends only on how distances are measured on the surface, not on the way it is isometrically embedded in space. This result is the content of Gauss's Theorema egregium.

Symbolically, the Gaussian curvature Κ is defined as

K= k1 x k2.

where κ₁ and κ₂ are the principal curvatures.

I will explain the above definition with a simple example. We will consider a cylindrical surface and try to find the Gaussian curvature of that surface.

By the definition K=k1 x k2

We need k1 and k2 of each point where k1 and k2 are the min and max values respectively.

We create a point on the surface first, then a normal to the surface passing through the point and a tangent plane to the surface passing through the point.

See the image below.

We need to have few planes (say 8 here) to create Normal section curves. Means, we are going to create intersection curves using planes which pass through the surface normal and Normal to the Tangent plane. Our point on the surface is common to all Normal section curves. All the Normal section curves contain our point on surface.

See the figure below. First figure shows the planes for creating intersection curves and the second one shows the Normal section curves created using the Planes.

DTM1, DTM2, DTM3, DTM4 etc are the planes.

Next figure you can see the Normal Section curves.

Make a note that the curve highlighted in red is a straight line whose curvature is zero, means the k2 is zero (in this case).

Next I would like to see the maximum curvature (k1) at the point. I have curvature plot tool and right of the bat I will highlight the curvature combs of the above curves.

Now I have the curvature variation of all the 6 curves, see below

How will I find the maximum curvature at the point on surface? I know the parameter value for our point is 0.5 (point is at the mid of the curves you can see)

Curve Parameter	Curvature
0.5	0.006666667
0.5	0.002988536
0.5	0.002526927
0.5	0.00063661

I found that the maximum curvature is 0.0067. The value of k1, if we consider only the above six curves will be 0.0067(Correspond to the circle)

But when the software calculates the maximum curvature, it looks for all the possible curves that can pass through our point on the surface.

Now what is K?

K= k1 x k2

= 0.0067 x 0

= 0

You take any point on the cylindrical surface the value of k2 will be zero corresponding to the straight line.

So K=0 over the entire cylindrical surface.

Now see the Gaussian Curvature display with color contour

The green color has a value of 0, you can see from the color spectrum.

A positive Gaussian curvature value means the surface is locally either a peak or a valley. A negative value means the surface locally has a saddle points. And a zero value means the surface is flat in at least one direction.

For a flat surface the Gaussian curvature will be zero. How? Self explanatory.

Thanks

PADMAKUMAR NAIR

CAMARO-MY FAVOURITE MUSCLE CAR

2011-07-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, I am back after a short break with WIP of camaro. Modeling activity is going on and is being done in ALIAS STUDIO.

MONSTER IS ON THE ASSEMBLY LINE

TOWER FAN

2011-06-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

Below is the rendering of a Tower fan. Rendering is made using Pastel ,sketch pen and Soft pencil(10B)

CONCEPT CAR 2

2011-06-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hey GUYS
Here I am going to render a Concept Car inspired from Scott Robertson.....

Next stage.....Please excuse me for the imperfections, I have very limited control over my mouse......
With line drawing

Tyres are made (roughly modeled)with the help of Alias

Stage-2

Stage-3

Here I go.........

Rendering in Photoshop using the mouse...Please excuse the mistakes.Disc brakes yet to be added.

Final Stage

PS:

This is the first concept developed by REX Design Studio.The above concept is made by tweaking one of the concepts from START YOUR ENGINES.

GOD BLESS.

I thank in advance to all those who put their valuable critiques.

CONCEPT CAR-1

2011-06-05T05:21:00.001-07:00

My concept car without a Head Lamp.

FERRARI 612 SCAGLIETTI

2011-05-18T12:19:00.001-07:00

My free hand sketching and rendering of FERRARI 612 SCAGLIETTI

Spec:

Engine Location: Front, in line

Configuration : v12

Capacity : 5748cc

Horse power : 540bhp@7250 rpm

Drive : Rear

Top speed:199mph (320Km/hr)

Acceleration : 0-62 mph(100Km/hr) in 4.2 seconds

What are circular references in a top down design?

2011-04-14T03:57:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share some information on the circular references, hoep this will be useful for your day to day design job

As the name indicates a top down design always starts from the top and flows down to bottom. I give a simple example below.

The advantage of Top down design is, here on placing the component B over A, we can take the references from A to add features in B. But never go and take references from B to add a feature in A. In that case there forms a circular reference.

Refer the image below for better understanding

We can see a dependency from A to B and B to A which is not desirable. For an assembly structure as shown below

For adding features in Component 2, we can refer Component-1 or for adding features in Component- 4, we can refer Component -3/2/1 but not Component-5.

For the below assembly

My first component in the assembly is REAR_PLATE.PRT. Next I am going to assembly the second component FRONT_PLATE.prt.

Now I am going to create the Flange Holes in REAR_PLATE by referring the FRONT_PLATE

Now exit the feature tool and regenerate the assembly.

We can see the Flange Holes in the REAR_PLATE model. Now go to the working directory, you can see a file named your assembly name.crc. CRC file with the name of your assembly. Go and open the .crc file using a notepad or wordpad. You can see something like this

Add the column Feat# to the model tree in ProE.

Now read the crc file. The file says Feature number 6 in the above assembly refers to Feature Number (Feat#) 27 in the model REAR_PLATE. Expand the REAR_PLATE.prt and edit the feature number 27.

Go to the sketch and you can see all the references from the model FRONT_PLATE.PRT. Remove all the references to FRONT_PLATE.PRT and give references from the parent model.

No references to FRONT_PLATE.

Go to the working directory and delete the crc file. Go to the ProE assembly and regenerate. Check the working directory you can no more find a crc file in there.

TEST RENDERING IN ALIAS RAYTRACER

2011-02-13T10:26:00.001-08:00

SPEAKER _USING_ALIAS STUDIO TOOLS

2011-02-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

Hey...........Few snaps of my Speaker work in ALias... . Trial rendering without front mesh..... Now reverse the Normals (in yellow). Unified surface Normals......

Another trial rendering....Mesh is not modeled but created using texture map. A bump map and a transperancy map is added to the front mesh surface.

PSP using Alias Studio Tool

2011-01-01T00:48:00.000-08:00

Hi guys...

I started my work on PSP in Alias studio...

Taken to the next level....

Hi guys....1000 miles to go before I reach there....

N SIDED PATCH -PROE

2010-12-21T03:09:00.000-08:00

A patch of surface can be created using the feature called N Sided Patch in ProE. Make

sure that the curves are connected together and they can be in 3D space. See a small

example below. When the number of sides of the surface are more than 4 , you can use

this option.

See the 5 curves above. Go to

Select the curves in the sequence as shown in the first figure.

Now you have the result as shown below. You can set the boundary conditions, for e.g.: Tangency, Normal, Free etc which I am not going to explain here.

AUTOMATION- USING INTRALINK SCRIPT

2010-12-12T06:24:00.000-08:00

HOW TO DO A MODELCHECK IN PROE?

2010-04-23T02:46:00.000-07:00

How to add a parameter named “Description2” and assign the ProE model name to the Parameter

You must be knowing setting up a parameter in ProE manually or by using a template. But here I have

a situation where a quite large quantity of ProE model data used in different programs. These models have a model name which I would say pretty lengthy. CAD models developed for extracting manufacturing drawing should have proper part numbering system.Unfortunately the above situation was lacking that. Finally we decided to assign proper part numbers to those parts/assemblies.

I will give you one example. See the figure given below, a

Bracket used in some design for carrying a certain amount of load.

Here the part name is BRACKET_2LBS_LOAD_RIGHT_FRAME, a part description we can say. But expected is a part number instead, like XXXX.

Ok,if you rename this model name with a part number What will happen? You will lose the description and hence will not be able to know what is this Component and what function it serves. So the best solution to overcome this problem is to add a parameter and assign the model name to that parameter there by maintaining the History of this component. Model Check utility can be used to add this parameter to each part. I used model check because it can be used within Intralink environment. I don’t know how to write a java script for this inside Intralink so that you can process a batch of ProE models and hence save the time. I am not a programming WIZARD.

I will brief my approach here,

1. Configure Modelcheck

Configure the Modelcheck means, setting the requirements of your CAD model. E.g., The model has got no buried features, no weak dimensions; Layers are created and hidden etc.

Modelcheck helps to assure the quality of the digital data and guarantee the models meet the Company standards.

Go to

Configure ModelCHECK

First go to MC_ENABLE check whether Value is YES (Y) as shown below

This will enable model check in ProE GUI.

As shown above in the figure, Next got Check files

Check files tell ModelCHECK

“I wanted to check relation errors”

“Highlight and show me the short edges”

“Inform whether the model contains any regeneration issues”

“Tell me whether my model is missing any relations”. So check files ask model check to give an answer for all types of questions as shown above.

In this contest I ask Model Check to find the answer for my question: “Tell me whether my model is missing any relations” How?

Go to Check files-> Simple_checks

In the check name see the following is added

RELATION_MISS, in the Interact column select E. The meaning is “check the model for the missing relation. I f it is there, mark that as an error (E)। Then save the check file.

OK, now you have to tell ModelCHECK what relation you are expecting when do a model check. That means you have to define a relation and ask model check to verify the model whether it contains that relation or not.

How can it be done? See below

Go to start files

I have created a mcs file called GR.mcs. There I added a check name and check information as shown above

PRT_RELATION , add a check information DESCRIPTION2= rel_model_name.

This will add the above relation and assign the mode name to a parameter called DESCRIPTION2

Now, save the start files.

Close Window.

Run model check in the Interactive mode.

Will continue................

PRODUCT DESIGNS

2010-04-18T03:39:00.000-07:00

soon I will come up with a rendering of this design.

The image shows the orthographic views of an Industrial Design cooler.

Next one is the rendering of another industrial design cooler (Coca Cola)