Master advanced sketching techniques in this detailed tutorial focusing on the creation of a power chord component. This article takes you through each step, from the initial sketch to the use of constraints and dimensions, ensuring your design is both precise and parametric.
Key Insights
- The article guides you through the process of sketching a power chord using advanced techniques, including the use of splines and constraints to achieve precision in your design.
- It emphasizes the importance of constraints in maintaining control over your sketch. For example, the coincident constraint is employed to snap points to specific locations, and the perpendicular constraint is used to set a point at the midpoint of an arc.
- Dimensioning is also discussed as a key aspect of advanced sketching. The article demonstrates how to add dimensions to a spline, ensuring the design remains parametric. It showcases the use of 'T' as a standard for setting thickness and also describes how to use functions to manage dimension size.
In this video we will continue to sketch the power chord using advanced sketching techniques. So let's get started.
You'll see that I am still in step 13 and I will open my power chord component and activate chord. Now I'll open up my sketches and double click to edit sketch 1. Let's move up to this area and let's create a spline that goes from the midpoint of this line down to the endpoint here. So I will go sketch, spline, and I will simply click the midpoint here and click the endpoint here.
I can hit the check mark or right click OK. Notice my spline has a black line, which is the spline itself, and then these green lines with dots at the end. These are my controllers for my spline.
I can click and drag them to extend the length of my spline or to change the angle. These are the objects that I would like to constrain in my spline. So let's zoom into the top and I want to place this point at the midpoint of this arc.
I will do this by using two constraints. With nothing selected, I will go coincident, select this point, and select this arc. It will place a constraint on that arc, but notice it is not set to a specific point on the arc.
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I will place a perpendicular constraint between this blue line and this line to snap it into place. You can now see that I can't drag this point any longer. Let's move down and do a similar thing here.
I can move my point around, but I want to place a coincident constraint from here to here. So I will go coincident from my point to my point. Now you see my spline turn a black color, which means that it is fully constrained.
Let's move down to this part of my lampshade arm and let's add some extra geometry before we draw our next spline. I would like to place a point out here and out here so that I can go click, click, click, click, and create a four-point spline. So I will turn on my construction geometry and go to my line tool.
I will now create two lines from here to here and hit escape. I will go a line again from here to here. These are just giving us small lines at the end of our arm.
Now I will go back to line and draw up through my arm and click into space. I'll do that again through the bottom. These lines are not constrained at this end.
They can move around freely, but they are snapped to the points here and here. Now I will go to my midpoint constraint and I will place a constraint between this long line and the line at the top. Notice this turns my line black because it's snapping the midpoint of this line to the midpoint of that line.
I'll do that again at the bottom. Click here and here. And our lines are fully constrained.
One more constraint. You can see that this point is revolving around freely. I would like to place a coincident constraint and snap this point on the extension of this line.
This may be confusing, but I will try to explain it the best I can. If I go coincident and select this point first and then this line, this line will point directly at the endpoint here. If I remove this dimension and drag my line, you see that it connects exactly.
I'll undo to put my dimension back. Now we have a 10mm length line pointing directly at the endpoint here. Again, these are advanced sketching techniques and you probably will never have to use them in a project.
But I would like to show you how to exactly snap in a spline for parametric design. Now let's add our spline. I will uncheck construction geometry toggle and let's go sketch spline.
I will click once, twice, third time here and fourth time there and then I'll hit the check mark. We can now see our spline is black because that's how it comes in when I draw it. But the moment that I move one of these point sliders, it becomes blue and unconstrained.
So let's place some constraints around the outside of our spline. I'll hit escape so that nothing is selected and I will go first to tangent. I want the bottom here to be tangent to this line.
Next I will go perpendicular and I will place perpendicular from here to here and from here to here. Lastly, I would like to place a G2 continuity between the edge here and here. So I'll go curvature for my spline to this line.
Now my spline is black because all of the angles are constrained. Notice however, I can still change the distances so my spline is not fully dimensioned. I will go D for dimension, select this spline first and I'll add a thickness of T. That way this spline will update as I update my thickness.
I'll drag here, T, and I'll drag here and this one's special. I will make this a distance of 5. I think a distance of T might be too small here so I will do T times 1.5 so that it's 1.5 times my distance of T or a function of 22.5. I'll reorganize my dimensions a little bit and my spline is completely dimensioned and constrained. Again, these are very advanced sketching techniques and you may not need to use them in a future project, but again, I'd just like to show you in this model.
This is the entirety of the sketch that will run along this plane. It will come up through the top of my lampshade cap, down through my arm, and up around the bottom of my base. I'll hit stop sketch, activate my top component, and look at my model from the home view.
In the next video, we will draw the sketch that runs through these two holes and we will continue to sketch out our power cord. Let's go back to our home view and save our file. I will see you in the next video.