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Old 23rd March 2009, 04:04 PM   #1
KenH
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Default Woodwork Workshop

I have had AC3D for about three years now, so maybe it’s time to show something that I have done with it.

Initially I wanted a modeller to help me plan the layout of a woodwork workshop. 2-D plan layouts were OK but did not give a good idea of space or interference between machines of differing heights. I looked into 3D modellers on the internet, played with 3D Canvas and 4D Blue (which now seems to be defunct), then found a positive review of AC3D. The free Google Sketchup was not around then and the full Sketchup was more than I was willing to pay. So, I gave AC3D a try.

This is what I managed during the 14 day free trial, using about 2-3 hours a day. I was working away at the time and only had the floor dimensions; the workshop itself being a building site at that time. I used manufacturer’s websites for dimensions of the machine tools where available, or made educated guesses.

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When I finished and got home, I made detailed measurements of the now completed workshop and rebuilt the building model accurately from scratch, complete with power sockets, lights and other fittings.

This threw up a problem as my original design of the cabinet on the back wall would not work: All the uprights fouled the power sockets, the heating thermostat would be behind the upper cupboards, and I had significantly underestimated the size of the mitre saw (the blue power tool sitting in the recess in the top). This cabinet is made from cherry veneered 19mm thick MDF which is expensive, so I needed to maximise use of the wood and minimise wastage. By modelling the back wall with power sockets and locking it to just leave the outlines, and modelling the new cabinet against it I eventually came up with a workable design with limited waste.

AC3D is not geared-up to make bills of materials, but I was able to make cutting plans for standard 2440mm x 1220mm sheets by drawing rectangles on paper to represent the wood sheets, and drawing on the pieces one by one after lifting the sizes directly from the model. I checked I had not missed anything by hiding each piece as and when I marked it. A few iterations later I had everything marked, laid out efficiently and sized.

This is the result of the detailed modelling of the workshop and machine tools, the latter being measured directly but with some of their details simplified to save time and effort. The background is a photo applied onto a rectangle using the TCE, set-up as a backdrop:

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And this is with the foreground walls and woodwork made partially transparent to be able to see inside:

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This is a close-up of the cabinet:

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It has taken 2½ years to get to this stage of the model, as work commitments intervened. I modelled the workshop and machines as and when I could (or when I felt like it!) while I was travelling.

All the component parts were modelled separately and brought together using the object library function. I expected the fully combined model (3.8Mb; 47,457 surfaces; 35,452 vertices) to cripple my laptop (Asus V6VA, Pentium M 1.86GHz, 1Gb RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon X700), but it is still relatively easy to fly around in 3D. However, loading the textures takes a lot of time and use of the TCE significantly slows things down. This is only to be expected as I haven’t bothered optimising the file sizes of the textures.

In conclusion, I can say that AC3D was very useful in developing the layout of the workshop, and in developing the final design of the cabinet by allowing me to try different solutions before cutting expensive materials. It was also very useful for optimising the cutting plans in this particular case, but this would not work so well for assemblies that have members that do not align with the principle axes.

Thanks
KenH
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Old 23rd March 2009, 05:59 PM   #2
Ham
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Default Re: Woodwork Workshop

Very cool. Wish I had a little shop like that.
Great conversion from reality to virtuality.
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Old 30th April 2009, 02:17 AM   #3
JaF07
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Default Re: Woodwork Workshop

That is amazing! I wish i could do that
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