CAD-Computer Aided Design

Luciano introduced CAD(Computer Aided design),and how we can use a Computer-aided design (CAD)in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design,importance of CAD during Fab Academy.

Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computer programs to create two- or three-dimensional (2D or 3D) graphical representations of physical objects. CAD software may be specialized for specific applications.

CAD is widely used for computer animation and special effects in movies, advertising, and other applications where the graphic design itself is the finished product. CAD is also used to design physical products in a wide range of industries, where the software performs calculations for determining an optimum shape and size for a variety of product and industrial design applications.

The 2D and 3d designs created in this software can be used on a wide array of FabLab machines like from Vinyl cutter, Shopbot CNC router, Roland Modella milling machine, 3D printers etc.

Luciano showed us different CAD softwares and he suggested to use Rhinoceros(for Windows),Rhino can create, edit, analyze, and translate NURBS curves, surfaces, and solids in Windows. There are no limits on complexity, degree, or size.

He gave a brief description about commands in Rhino and showed how to design a mould using Rhino.

This session was completely for Rhinoceros,Luciano taught us before learning individual tools, we will be acquainted with the Rhino interface.He said these following exercises examine the interface elements used in Rhino: the Rhino window, viewports, menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes. He gave a lecture about each and every commands ,we can use to design and, Rhinoceros is a really cool 2D and 3D design software. Its used for CAD in quick prototyping, designing stuff for 3D printing etc.I downloaded Rhino 5 for windows from the link below and a signed up a the free trail. .

Download Rhinoceros

Luciano , our trainer went forward with Rhinoceros training ,we got our first assignment using rhinos as well ...he shared a list of commands to do this assignment via slack.

Rhino Homework 1!

1.Polygon 2. Spiral 3. Cylinder ​4.Sweep1 5.Bounding Box ​6.Boolean Difference

it took almost 4 hours to complete this design(my first work in rhinoceros.....!!!)

Final day of this week we got a new instructor Mr.Francisco Sanchez from Fab Lab Trivandrum,He introduced us a new CAD software Antimony,Antimony is a computer-aided design (CAD) tool from a parallel universe in which CAD software evolved from Lisp machines rather than drafting tables.Antimony is built on three mostly-orthogonal axes:

A framework for tracking information flow through directed acyclic graphs
A geometry engine for doing CSG
A standard library of shapes and transforms

Antimony is the only software that gives exact geometric representation of a 3D model instead of finite element approximations. The distinguishing features of Antimony are :

• Geometric Function representation
• Hierarchical Design
• Parametric Design