Design Refinement in SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer

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If you have been following along with the past two blog posts in this series (A New Way to Capture Concept Ideas Quickly and Freeform Modeling in SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer), you have seen how SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer (SWID) empowers designers to freely sketch their ideas and quickly model organic shapes. But designs may require more detail to fully convey design intent and ensure manufacturability. In this post, we will see how SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer takes your concepts to the next level.

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Often a designer needs to illustrate an idea that may not require a 3D feature just yet. Using SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer you can free-hand sketch right on the model!  Here I’ve roughed in some finger grooves, a handle style, and marked off a region for the label.

Sometimes we have existing models we need to design around. In this new bottle design, I am referencing an existing spray nozzle brought in from SOLIDWORKS. In this new bottle design, the body was designed using the freeform tools in SWID, but now I need to create more precise geometry for the neck and threads.
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To do this, I will use traditional parametric features like Loft, Extrude, and Shell.  SWID even has a real Thread feature.  Check out this section view!

Moving forward, I want a nice blended bulge around the neck of the bottle. I can  use another freeform object, merge it with the bottle,  and add a C2 Curvature Continuous fillet to blend it nicely.

 

But wait… we have a problem! The bulge feature needs to happen after the Shell!  Thankfully, a simple drag and drop of my shell feature resolves this issue in seconds. That’s the power of combining freeform and parametric features!

Another challenge when working with concepts is taking in to account manufacturability. In SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer I can turn on real time draft analysis to verify minimum draft is met. As I push and pull, the graphics immediately update.

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Enabling Zebra Stripes, I can analyze the surface continuity.
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As you can see; SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer not only has powerful Concept Sketching and Freeform Modeling, it also combines the power of traditional Parametric modeling all in one tool.

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Stay tuned for Part 3, where Mark Martel will illustrate the process of iterating multiple design ideas quickly! For a deeper dive, check out the resources on the SOLIDWORKS Industrial Designer product page.

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Todd Trein

Todd Trein

Area Technical Manager at SOLIDWORKS
Todd is a Senior Area Technical Manager at Dassault Systemes SOLIDWORK based out of Minneapolis, MN and has been using SOLIDWORKS since 1998. Prior to joining the SOLIDWORKS Team in 2005, Todd was a Product Design Engineer at Weber-Stephen Products (the outdoor grill company). In his spare time he enjoys outdoor activities, spending time with his family and snowmobiling.
Todd Trein