Donald B. Cheke. TurboCAD Pro V16.2 Railroad Handcar

Transcription

1 TurboCAD Pro V16.2 Railroad Handcar Donald B. Cheke 1

2 Copyright 2010 Donald B. Cheke TurboCAD is a registered trademark of IMSI/Design. Published by: Donald B. Cheke Saskatoon, SK Canada Visit: All rights reserved No part of this document may be reproduced, copied, stored on a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author. The purchaser may, however, print one copy of the document to paper and may make one backup copy of the downloaded material for personal safe keeping. Limitation of Liability While every effort has been taken in the preparation and the writing of this document the author assumes no responsibility for errors and/or omissions nor for the uses of the material and the decisions based on such use. No warranties are made, express or implied with regard to either the contents of the document, its merchant ability or fitness for a particular purpose. The author should not be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to use the contents of this document. Special Note All of the work presented within this tutorial is based on TurboCAD Pro V16.2. Although users of previous versions are welcome to try the tutorial it cannot be stated what results will be achieved. Many changes, some subtle and others not so subtle, are made with each program revision. Although many steps and directions would be generic some may not be. The same can be said for tools between versions. Older versions may not have the same tools as Pro V16.2 and if the same tools are available the tools themselves may have been revised and hence, work in a different manner than they previously did. 2

3 Table of Contents Table of Contents... 3 Introduction... 4 Setup... 6 Initial Lighting Track Profiles Wheel 2D/3D Axels Axel Plummer Box Deck Pump Tower Drive Gears Pump Spindle/Lever/Handle Crank/Connecting Rod Brakes Tower Grips Cross Bracing Bolts Ground Plane / Shadow Catcher Materials Application Named Views Render Scene Luminance Render Scene Environment Saving the Rendered Image Appendix An Important Note about TurboCAD Materials

4 Introduction Where would new CAD users be without all the interesting objects that can be found in the world of railroading? Most of these objects are excellent subjects to practice drawing with, and with so many free resources available online the whole process is made quite easy. Although the handcar design in this tutorial is based roughly on resources discovered on the internet, the author has made many changes to make it better suited to this tutorial. Within the tutorial the reader will be led through each keystroke to produce all components of the railroad handcar that is illustrated on the cover of the tutorial. The reader will learn how to create each object by manipulating 2D profiles and 3D primitive shapes. The reader will learn how to set up their drawing, how to insert standard lighting and how utilize render scene luminance. The reader will learn how to establish a render scene environment and the reader will learn how to render their drawing and save it in a high resolution image format. This tutorial is in no way intended to teach mechanical design but rather it is intended to teach the use of some of the tools that TurboCAD has to offer and to introduce the new user to a drawing methodology. The author feels confident that the techniques outlined within the tutorial can help lay the foundation for future successful TurboCAD drawing and illustration for even the newest user. As with any technically advanced software, the user is generally faced with a steep learning curve. It is the hope of the author that the money and time spent working through a Textual Creations tutorial will help ease the learning and allow the reader to come away feeling confident that they made a wise decision. This tutorial will assume that the reader has the full edition of TurboCAD Pro V16.2 with the current Architectural and Mechanical add-ons, although no architectural specific or mechanical specific tools are used that the author is aware of. There are many ways to approach a project and it is likely that each person using the program would proceed in very different ways, so be open to alternative methods as experience builds. What is important is that the user becomes familiar with the objects that they wish to model and begin to look at them in a different way than they might otherwise do. What primitive shapes make up the whole? What will be required of these primitive shapes early in the drawing and how will this affect needs further along? What component or components should be started with? Many questions can only be answered through experience, but hopefully some of them will be answered by the time the beginner has worked through this tutorial. There is a great deal covered in this tutorial and the author urges the beginner to be patient, to read very carefully and to take the time necessary to do a good job. Try to enjoy the process as much as you will enjoy the final results. This tutorial assumes that the beginner has studied the desktop to some degree and can locate most of the tools. Since there are endless desktop configurations that can be set up in TurboCAD the author has opted to illustrate the required tools with the V16 user interface, and the default toolbars in their undocked format (Office 2000 theme). 4

5 Please remember that any supplied images and files are for use within the tutorial only and may not be shared or sold to others. Place tutorial images in a permanent location on the hard drive. A free HDR image is used within the tutorial. paris3_half.hdr is a free image that was found in the Realtexture starter collection at: Although the HDR image has been included in the tutorial download (as items on web pages often become unavailable at some point) the author encourages the reader to visit the site and download it. Others of interest are available there and will make a nice addition to one's HDR collection. 5

6 Press the Space Bar to exit the tool. Select the half rail profile. Select the Mirror Copy tool from the Copy toolbar. V SEKE snap the top right corner of the half rail profile to define the first point of the mirroring line. Press and hold the Shift key down. Move the cursor upward a short distance and then left mouse click to define the second point of the mirroring line. Release the Shift key. In progress below. Press and hold the Shift key down. Left mouse click the copied half to add it to the current selection. Release the Shift key. Select the Mirror Copy tool from the Copy toolbar. M SEKE snap the long blue line to define the first point of the mirroring line. Press and hold the Shift key down. Move the cursor upward a short distance and then left mouse click to define the second point of the mirroring line. Release the Shift key. In progress below. 28

7 Select the long blue line and delete it. Wheel 2D/3D To create the wheel, 2D profiles will be revolved into a 3D shape which will be further manipulated. The image below illustrates what 2D profiles will be worked toward. Select the Circle Center & Point tool from the Circle/Ellipse toolbar. Place the cursor by the edge of the upper left arc of the right track profile and C SEKE snap to place the first point of the circle. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter.5 in the Diameter field. Press Enter. Press the Space Bar to exit the tool. Select the new circle. Select the Make Copy tool from the right mouse click local menu or from the Inspector Bar (providing the user has a large enough monitor) to turn it on. 29

8 Turn on the Wheel / Hub and Rivets layers. Press Ctrl + A to select all visible objects. To help place the second set of wheels, select the Make Copy tool to turn it on. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter in the Delta Y field. Press Enter. Select the Make Copy tool to turn it off. Press Ctrl + A to select all visible objects. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 0 in the Y Position field. Press Enter to center the selection. Press Esc to deselect the selection. Axel Plummer Box A very simple Plummer block will now be created for the axel. Turn off the Wheel / Hub and Rivets layers. Be sure to deselect the highlighted names or all those selected will turn off, en masse when one of them is turned off. Left mouse click below names to deselect. 60

9 Switch to Right view and zoom in on the left axel. Select Plane by Active View from the Workplane toolbar. Select the Circle Center & Point tool from the Circle Ellipse toolbar. Select Blue from the color dropdown menu on the Property toolbar. Place the cursor by the edge of the axel and C SEKE snap to place the first point of the circle. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 3.25 in the Diameter field. Press Enter. Select the Rotated Rectangle tool from the Line toolbar. Using three Q SEKE snaps place a rectangle as indicated in the picture below. V SEKE snap the first two points of the next rectangle to the two lower vertexes of the red rectangle. Move the cursor in a downward direction for a short distance and then Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter.5 in the Size B field. Press Enter. 61

10 Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 24 in the X Position field. Press Enter. Select the Make Copy tool to turn it off. Turn on the Wheel / Hub and Cross Members layers. Switch to Front view. Select Plane by Active View from the Workplane toolbar. Deck boards will now be created. Select the Rectangle tool from the Line toolbar. V SEKE snap the first point of the rectangle to the upper left corner of the cross member, as indicated in the picture below. 80

11 Move the cursor in a right upwardly direction for a short distance and then Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 2.75 in the Size A field and 1.5 in the Size B field. Press Enter. Press the Space Bar to exit the tool. Select the rectangle. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter in the Delta X field. Press Enter. Select the Mirror Copy tool from the Copy toolbar. M SEKE snap the top of the cross member to define the first point of the mirroring line. Press and hold the Shift key down. Move the cursor upward a short distance and then left mouse click to define the second point of the mirroring line. Release the Shift key. In progress below. To determine the distance between the rectangles select the Line tool from the Line toolbar. Using two V SEKE snaps, place a line between the upper inside corners of the two rectangles. 81

12 Select Place on Workplane from the Format menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop. Leave the objects selected. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter in the X Position field. Press Enter to move them into place. Turn off all the layers, except layer 0 and Rails. Select the Plummer block. Right mouse click and select Default Reference Point from the local menu. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter In the X Position field. Press Enter. Select the Make Copy tool to turn it on. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 4.25 In the X Position field. Press Enter. Select the Make Copy tool to turn it off. Press Esc to deselect the selection. Turn off all layers, except layer 0. Select the four deck timbers and assign them to the Rails layer for now. Select the four panels and assign them to the Pump Tower layer. Create a new layer called Crank Plummer Block and turn it off. 110

13 Switch to Isometric SE view. With the red profiles still selected, Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 0 in the Y Rotation field. Press Enter. Select the Simple Extrude tool from the 3D Object toolbar. Ensure the Use Compound Profile and Two sided extrude options are engaged. Select the blue profile as the object to extrude. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 16 in the Height field Press Enter. Turn off the Two sided extrude option. Select the red profiles as the object to extrude. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 20 in the Height field Press Enter. Select the 3D Intersect tool from the Boolean & Facet toolbar. Select the two extrusions as the object to intersect. In progress below. Press Ctrl + K to open the Select by Colors dialogue. Select Blue and Red and then click OK. 133

14 Assign the selection to the 2D layer. Select the Fillet Edges tool from the 3D Modify toolbar. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 1 in the Start Radius field. Press Enter. Select the lever as the object to fillet. Select the eight inside lines at the as the edges to fillet. Select Finish. In progress below. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter in the Start Radius field. Press Enter. Select the lever as the object to fillet. Select the six outside lines at the as the edges to fillet. Select Finish. In progress below. Press the Space Bar to exit the tool. 134

15 Select the Line Length tool from the Modify toolbar Switch to Isometric SE view. Select the top of the vertical line segment as the line to lengthen. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 6 in the Delta L field. Press Enter. Select Plane by World from the Workplane toolbar. Select the Circle Center & Point tool from the Circle/Ellipse toolbar. Select Blue from the color dropdown menu on the Property toolbar. V SEKE snap the top vertex of the polyline to place the first point of the circle (it will snap way down on the workplane at 0, but that is okay). Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter.75 in the Diameter field. Press Enter. Select the Rail Sweep tool from the 3D Object toolbar. Right mouse click on the Rail Sweep tool icon to open the Properties for the tool. Under the Sweep shape tab, select Bend from the Corners dropdown menu and enter a Minimum Radius of.375. Click OK. 158

16 Select the circle as the object to sweep and then select the red polyline as the path. Select the 3D Subtract tool from the Boolean & Facet toolbar. Select the Don't remove the subtrahend option. Select the guide as the object to subtract from and then select the rod as the object to subtract. In progress below. Turn off all layers, except layer 0 and Wheel / Hub. Select the Cylinder tool from the 3D Object toolbar. C SEKE snap the upper edge of the push rod to place the first point of the cylinder. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 2 in the Diameter field and.25 in the Height field. Press Enter. 159

17 Select all the visible components and assign them to the Brake layer. Turn on all the layers, except 2D for a look so far. Select Plane by World from the Workplane toolbar. Tower Grips Two simple hand grips are required on the left and right sides of the pump tower and these will created now by sweeping a profile along a path. Turn off all the layers, except 0 and Pump Tower. Switch to World Plan view. Select the Polyline tool from the Line toolbar. Select Blue from the color dropdown menu on the Property toolbar. G SEKE snap the first point of the polyline to a grid intersection to the right of the tower. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 5.75 in the Length field and 0 in the Angle field. Press Enter. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter 9 in the Length field and 90 in the Angle field. Press Enter. 178

18 Select the Mirror Copy tool from the Copy toolbar. M SEKE snap the bottom of cross member to define the first point of the mirroring line. Press and hold the Shift key down. Move the cursor downward a short distance and then left mouse click to define the second point of the mirroring line. Release the Shift key. In progress below. Press Ctrl + K to open the Select by Colors dialogue. Select Blue and click OK. Select Place on Workplane from the Format menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop. Select the Polyline tool from the Line toolbar. Using eight C SEKE snaps, place a point of the polyline at each circle. Select Finish after the eighth snap. Press the Space Bar to exit the tool. Select the first circle. Right mouse click and select Default Reference Point from the local menu. Select the Rail Sweep tool from the 3D Object toolbar. Select the first circle as the object to sweep and then select the red polyline as the path. In progress below. Press the Space Bar to exit the tool. Switch to Isometric SE view. Select the new extrusion. Tab into the Inspector Bar and enter -35 in the Y Position field. Press Enter. 192

19 With the rectangle still selected, Tab into then Inspector Bar and enter 0 in the Position X and Position Y fields. Press Enter. Select Surface From Profile from the Solid/Surface toolbar. This will turn the 2D rectangle into an object that materials can be applied to and that will render. Create a new layer called Ground Plane and turn it off. Assign the still selected rectangle to the Ground Plane layer. In progress below. Materials Application Materials will now be applied to all objects. A view will then be set up, followed by establishing a Render Scene Environment and Luminance. The Render will then be saved to image format. 208

20 Allow the scene to rerender (55 seconds on the author's off the shelf HP). Saving the Rendered Image This render will now be saved. The author has found that saving as a high resolution JPG or BMP produces excellent results. If a smaller image is required afterward, resizing with an image editor and saving in JPG format retains the excellent results. With the desired view now fully rendered on screen select Save As from the File menu at the top of the TurboCAD desktop. Under the Save As dialogue, select the desired Save in location from the dropdown menu at the top of the dialogue. Select JPG TurboCAD for Windows JPEG from the Save as type dropdown menu. Enter the file name Railroad Handcar Tutorial.jpg. Select Setup. Adjust the setting to match those in the image below. Click OK. 231