Twisted product design issue
I'm trying to draw the sample in the attached pictures, It's two triangle, small base triangle, and scaled up top triangle that is twisted 180 degrees, my first choice was using loft with guides to give the corners their shape, but that made the walls not "bloated" the way the original is, and I tried drawing guides to make the walls go outward but that didn't work and I tried using "normal to profile" option but id didn't work, instead it was kind of going inwards whatever I did or had a bad shape that was nothing like the original.
I tried extrude with flex but gave the same issue, and I had the idea of using sweep with a twist degree but that wouldn't work either.
Can anyone please help? I'd really appreciate it, thank you.
2 Answers
This one is not that difficult just a couple of sketches lofted, a few radii, then shelled and an extruded cut to shape the top. Just change the dimensions in the driving sketches until you get a shape you want
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When lofting profiles to produce these sort of "art objects" it is all a bit random. One of the fundamentals I was introduced to when I started out was the concept "near enough is good enough", the important part being knowing what good enough is. Depending on what you are making, a tolerance of + or - 2mm might suit or it may need to be + or - 0.001mm. To make an object that is not good enough to function as designed. is bad, but also is making it better than it needs to be. To make a model of this type of object exactly like a sample probably is not possible. You need to decide how close is good enough and practical to achieve.
The model you build needs to be robust and able to be driven by changing various dimensions without falling to bits. I have constructed my model using Alibre Design software, an excellent product way cheaper than Solid Works but just as useful. By using a design table I can alter all of the parameters easily and therefore alter the shape of this object quite a bit easily. I have not bothered with guide curves,I just change a few dimensions around until I get something I like the look of.
So you need to decide what "near enough" looks like, make sure your model is well constrained and robust, then play around with driving dimensions, until you end up with a model good enough to do the job
i have added a couple of images. The model i have quickly created has 24 parameters, some driving some linked together. By just changing 2 of the driving parameters the images show the 2 results
