What is the best way to model this part?
I came across an interesting STL and wanted to model it in SOLIDWORKS. It is very tedious. What do you guys think is the best way to model this? The faces are always converging to the center but the face/side length across the angle is the same. check the image and the STL file.
Sorry, this is not a question, per se, but more like idea inputs and wanting to get the different approaches. I did not know where else to ask this exactly.
EDIT: figured out the best way. I will leave the question open for couple of days more.
Accepted answer
I don't know about Solidworks but Inventor won't let me create a loft right down to a point. However, the trapezoidal section at the apex of this model means it doesn't need to be. The loft just needs to "project" towards a point.
1. Create an extruded trapezoid at the apex of the of the model. Make it a little tall if you want it tapered towards the apex later. (Your SLDPRT is tapered the STL is not)
2. Create a sketch for one side away from the apex that includes all 5 peaks.
3. Create a similar matching sketch on the side of the trapezoid that also includes all 5 peaks. The scale of this sketch is the ratio of the distance from the first sketch to the apex of the model. The ratio calculation can be somewhat automated with supplemental sketches. However it is scaled exactly 10% of the original.
4. Create a loft between these two sketches.
5. Mirror the Loft to the opposite side.
6. Trim the top of the trapezoid to give it the appropriate taper if you want.
2 Other answer
WIthout jumping too deep into it and doing it myself I can give you the process I think i'd use:
I'd make a Single Loft making a triangular prism that starts at the origin and Goes out past the longest part of the model. I'd them do a radial pattern about the origin and make about 90 deg of the pattern All of them overlapping a bit... This might cause some errors you'd need to work through. Seeing that it's symmetric, I might use mirror in there to get the far corner point where I want it (Valley vs Peek). This should result in a 180 deg semi circle plate. I'd cut out the tile that I want to keep out of that. Make a final extrusion near the origin to hide the mess there and make that little square.
Again I'd have to try it out, but that would be my starting point.
1. Create a layout sketch to help in defining 2 sections of swept/loft
2. Create a 90º circular array, modeling one swept/lofted sector (10º)
3. Unite sector array
4. Create rectangular section and extrude up to next; boolean type set to "Intersect"
5. Create smaller rectangular extrude (one corner at 0,0,0)
