Body Modeling

[Conor]

I've been trying to model some body ideas in ProE and have found the surfaces to be very frustrating. I'm probably missing the boat on something. What programs do your teams use to model your bodywork? If anyone uses ProE, I could definetely use some pointers.

[Conor]

I've been trying to model some body ideas in ProE and have found the surfaces to be very frustrating. I'm probably missing the boat on something. What programs do your teams use to model your bodywork? If anyone uses ProE, I could definetely use some pointers.

[Maverik]

From my experience, modeling the body is one of the best ways to learn little details in a modeling program. The best way for me to make contoured panels is using 3d sketches and sweeps with multiple planes... time consuming but good end result.

[DH]

Our '06 body designer used Pro/E for a sheetmetal body, and I think he did two carbon pieces in Pro/E as well. The sheetmetal is very easy to model in Pro/E assuming you use bends and conventional methods to form it.

I believe Rhino is very popular among surface modeling types, it was used by our '07 team for a monocoque design.

[Jersey Tom]

Solidworks. I prefer doing work with solidbodies as opposed to surfaces. Lots and lots of 3d sketches, lofts, fillets, domes, etc.

The key if you ask me is defining all the major curves of your body with 3d sketches, then doing some profile cuts that pierce those, and just loft down the line tweaking as necessasy.

[Dr Claw]

3D sketches arent necisary for doign the body, Surfaces are the way to go. How far are you in your design?

with Surfaces, you're making "fields" (similar to a plane in geometrical terms, just with some 'shape' to them) with each newly created Surface Sheet; making sure they overlap eachother fully so later Trimming is possible. Your looking to create Composite Surfaces by Triming and Stitching individual Sheets together keeping in mind that these can turn into a Boolean "cutting tools" for other Surfaces that intersect yet still. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

an example of this is: Stitching the top Field of a side pod (the part that you can rest your helmet on if it's flat enough), to the side/front Field of a side pod (in effect, creating your sidepod shape..), and then intersecting and then Trimming to the 'fuselage' surface (which we are make believing that you've already crated) with the new sidepod surface. stitch, add a radius, try to mirror the whole deal and your done.

clear as mud though isn't it? dont be afraid of mile long feature trees either, but be afraid of them crashing if you edit things in a risky fashion!

I've done 3 FSAE bodies, Body in White design for a startup OEM, and a number of other different car bodies in Solid Edge and SolidWorks throughout the years and i'd be happy to answer any questions if you'd like.

[McGill_boy]

I use pro-e for modeling the body of our car and i find the best way to do this is to use datums .. all kinds of datums ... make planes .. then make points on those planes that are all referenced to other planes so that you can move them wherever you want .. then make curves though them and then finaly boundry blend your whole thing. to make filesizes smaller you can use a long curve through 2 points and then "tweek" the curve to a maximim of 2 "loops" .. like a sine wave but to crazy dimensions.

with just this you can model almost anything .. i made a mock up fsae batmobile with just this.

[Captain Redbeard]

The easiest way I have found to make body panels is similar to McGill_boy, but I use the Style feature to make surfaces from connected curves. This way I can make defining curves and secondary curves and make any surface. I have found that sweeps and blends often make very nasty surface distortions and the styles seem to turn out much smoother. It takes a while to figure out the technique to make it all work out right, but the end result is great and easily tweakable.

[Dr Claw]

Thats why you dont sweep and loft closed contours like squares or rectangles with 'shape'. Instead you model individualy each 'Field' of a: squarish, pointy, triangular shape that is a FSAE nose cone. You then trim and stitch it together, and then add radii.

distortion is non existant and you dont have to deal with fudging points and tweeking stuff. i'll post a walkthrough http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Conor]

Dr. Claw,

A walk through would be very much appreciated. Thank you!