Hey Denny..

[rjwoods77]

Hey Denny,

I thought you might like this. So damn cool.

http://fxbikes.com/

Also I have a question on how you did you spaceframe. You said you made a plane in the middle of the tube and swept it to the other tubes to make the notches. How did you place the "normal to curve" planes on the lines? I figure that if it is a 2d sketch line you placed a "point" with a "midpoint" contraint. If it was a 3D sketch you would place a "point" on the line somewhere with a "fixed" constraint since there is no "midpoint" in 3d sketch lines. Correct? Did you use both?

[rjwoods77]

Hey Denny,

I thought you might like this. So damn cool.

http://fxbikes.com/

Also I have a question on how you did you spaceframe. You said you made a plane in the middle of the tube and swept it to the other tubes to make the notches. How did you place the "normal to curve" planes on the lines? I figure that if it is a 2d sketch line you placed a "point" with a "midpoint" contraint. If it was a 3D sketch you would place a "point" on the line somewhere with a "fixed" constraint since there is no "midpoint" in 3d sketch lines. Correct? Did you use both?

[Denny Trimble]

Those mtb/motorcycle hybrids look fun, but I do like to pedal up hills, and I wouldn't be able to ride most of the trails I do because motorcycles are off-limits.

As for the SolidWorks thing, the last time I modeled a spaceframe in SolidWorks, I:
-created the nodes using 3d and sometimes 2D sketches
-connected the nodes with centerlines using one or more 3D sketches (then exported the centerlines to ALGOR for FEA)
-for modeling the tubes, I usually create a plane at the end of a tube centerline, by selecting both the line and an endpoint, and hitting the "create plane" button. This automatically throws a plane on the endpoint of the line, normal to the line. Then create a sketch, extrude to the vertex at the other end of the line. You will have some extra tube length that will get mitered away in real life, but you can chalk that added weight in the model up to weld filler, mystery brackets, and paint.

[rjwoods77]

Hey Denny,

Why construction lines vs. normal lines?
If I wanted to do a beam elements on the wireframe how would you export it?

I model the spaceframe just the same as you. I normally leave the to be mitered part in there and conclude that that will be the weight of the weld much like you said. I just remember on one of your previous posts that you premitered the tube by using the "up to surface" command on your sweeps with the normal plane being on the midpoint of straight lines with a bi-directional sweep. Didnt you do this? If you did could you think of a clever way to fake a 3d line to recognize a midpoint constraint. Best I could come up with is snap it to it mipoint(but it wont turn black because of solidquirks) and then I put a fixed contraint on it.

[rjwoods77]

Oops. Just realized that you cant do bi-direction with sweeps. You would have to do it as 2 sweeps from a center point.

[Denny Trimble]

Why do you want to do a sweep if it's a straight tube? Or are you talking about bent tubes?

When I said centerlines I meant the centerline of the tube. I don't turn those into construction lines.

Export it by saveas-IGES, then hit the "options" button in the saveas dialog box. Make sure you turn on sketch entities, and turn off surfaces.