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Some Concepts for Drawing a
Plastic Bottle in 3D
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Here is a good example of a complex
shape that needs to be broken down into basic parts that are formed with:
- sweep: top and threads
- extrude: main body except for flat sides
- surface connect: handle and upper body - between two or more
separated lines, circles or polygons
- surface patch: lines defining 3 or four closed sides of a
surface
- solid subtract: handle hole and bottom ribs
- lines extruded into intersecting surfaces and defined with the
Draw->Surface Intersection command: handle and upper body, lower
and upper shoulder
- extrude along curve: bottom curved edge
- solid subtract: rounded boxes arrayed and solid subtracted to form
ribbed bottom
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You have all the lines in this 2D drawing to exploit
into a 3D drawing. Make the 3D drawing a new file and copy or merge each
2D line or profile into it. Keep both files open and us Alt-Tab to toggle
back and forth. Use only the main window in the 3D drawing to make this
easy. (close the other views, don't just minimize). |
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Make some of your complex
entities in new files and then load them into place as symbols
(exploded if you need to use snap points) |
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You can make one vertical half of
the 3D bottle and mirror it to make the other half. That would save some repetitious
steps! |
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Don't try to 'shell' the wall
thickness unless you are a glutton for punishment.
The neck could
have thickness in the 'sweep' |
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It would be valuable to layout some centerlines
and use those as a framework to place the profiles that you will
extrude for the body and sweep for the top. These profiles exist in
your 2D drawing.
You will be using lines from your 2D drawing
extruded into intersecting surfaces in horizontal and vertical
directions that will then use the' Surface Intersection' Command to
define the junctures.
The light blue elliptical extrusion started as a
line, not a plane, and is used both to establish the surface
intersection lines which you need to do a "surface
connect" with the inside profile of the handle and also as a
"solid" to subtract from the body section to create the
larger hole.
Define the objects as solids using 'Solid
Define' to use the 'solid subtract' and other solid commands
When the light blue extrusion is 'solid
subtracted' from the green body it will leave a grid between
the two sides of the hole and the whole unit will become a solid.
Use solid explode to break it into entities so you can choose and
delete the extraneous grids. Draw whole body (upper and lower before
you attempt the hole.
Make copies of entities on separate layers or in
new files in case you make a mistake you can't undo!
The dark blue lines were found using Draw->Lines->Surface
Intersection. They form the lines you need to surface connect to the smaller
inner profiles of the handle.
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This shows how lines are extruded into
intersecting curved surfaces (green and blue). Also shows a circle
"drawn as a line" extruded. The dark lines are the
"Surface Intersections"
This is how you will find the complex curves in your bottle. Delete the
surfaces and the intersecting lines will remain.
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The little shoulders on the bottle will best be done
with this process. Find the intersecting lines at the top and bottom of
the shoulder, connect the ends and surface patch them.
Also the upper curved sections can be found with intersecting surfaces and
then surface patch or surface connect. |
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This shows curves extruded in two directions that
intersect. The command used to get the result at the lower right was
"Slice by Curved Surface".
The curved surface must exceed the
limits of the solid being sliced on all sides. Both sides of the solid
remain as separate pieces after the operation. |
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First image shows curves and their orientation in 3D
Second image shows "Surface Patch" which
considers all 4 lines. |
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Inner shape was drawn in 2D and a larger parallel line
was made of it. (One corner was trimmed and new radius applied)
Both lines had several segments and so were selected and
combined into single lines. If surface connect skips a section, the line
is not a single entity.
In 3D, larger shape was then moved on Z axis and then
used "Surface connect" with 100 planes per line and 20
intermediate breaks, still lost some continuity at "L". Use more
planes per line for smoother results.
Box is for visual reference. |
Threads are formed using
sweep command "W"

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Number of Copies
This is the number of times the original shape is replicated. The more copies you make, the smoother the end result appears, but more copies also take longer to shade or edit. For most purposes you will probably want at least 10 copies per revolution (one copy every 36 degrees). The maximum number of copies is 198.
Span Angle
This is the number of degrees the object will sweep about its axis. For a complete, circular extrusion, enter 360°. If you are creating a spiral shape, you can enter more than 360° to achieve more than one revolution. For example, enter 1440 to get four complete revolutions.
Vertical Offset
This is the distance along the axis of rotation that the final copy is from the original. For normal, circular sweeps, this should be set to zero. If a value is used here, DesignCAD draws a spiral-shaped object instead of a circular object. |
| Slicing a cone with a
curved surface starting at the center. |
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| Curve to cut cone |
Curve extruded |
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Curve scaled *2 on Z-axis from back corner to
extend through solid |
Scaled 1.1 X-axis to extend wider than cone (just
to illustrate) and
surface intersection made for later use |
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Completed operation showing all entities. Solid explode
to remove planes on cut surface then group define or solid define to
keep entities together. |
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Remember that curved surface must extend
BEYOND solid for slice by curved surface |
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Remember to make lines during
some operations that you will need for
surface connect operations.
Surface connect works with planes, but more predictably with
lines. |
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With other slice commands be sure to select
your entity first and choose 'selection only' in command
dialog or it will slice everything it intersects in the
drawing! |
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You can extrude along a curve to make the bottom. Make a
parallel by distance smaller copy of the bottom profile for the
"curve". After extruding to the
innermost line, make the line a plane for the center. |
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Don't offset the parallel line more than the radius
of the corners! You can make several successive parallel lines with
different extrude profiles following this rule, otherwise there will be
gaps. |
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Make the bottom edge extrusion and the bottom plane one solid with solid define
so you can subtract an array of rounded boxes
[also defined as a single solid] from it in a single operation to get the
ribbed bottom. |
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One way to get a
fillet on an oval is to make a sweep of a rounded edge and then scale it
from the center, in this case a factor of 3 on the X axis. The fillet will
distort proportionate with the scale. |
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