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Transcript
Welcome to Day #8 of Learn Shapr3D in 10 Days for Beginners. I’m Kevin Kennedy, and today we’ll design a modern wooden desk. We’ll look at using the Loft tool, Replace Face, and additional tips to quickly create multi-part models.
Let’s get started with a New Design.
I’ll start by creating the main body of the desk, followed by the legs. With a diagonal rectangle, I’ll sketch the front profile of the board. The width of the desk will be 52 inches, with a board thickness of half an inch. I’ll then extrude this to a depth of 22 inches.
We can quickly copy this by double-clicking to select it, select the copy badge, then move this up 4 inches. That leaves us with a total distance of 4.5 inches since the transform icons are in the middle of the 3D body.
I’d like the top and bottom boards to join the side boards with mitered corners. We can use the Chamfer tool or simply shift-select both inner edges parallel to the Y-axis, and drag the arrow or type out half an inch.
Complete this chamfer on each side.
Applying this miter now will allow us to sketch on the front face. With the Line tool, we can sketch out the side board by tracing the existing geometry.
Make sure to select both profiles, and Extrude back 22 inches.
To create the board on the opposite side without knowing the distance or doing any math, we can create a construction axis to reference.
From the add menu, select the construction axis. We’ll use Perpendicular to Face at Point. This allows us to select the top planar face, then select the center of the face where it snaps to the center. Notice the axis now runs vertically through the plane.
Let’s create a copy of this board. After selecting the body, we can move the selection point to the center axis. We can then use the Copy badge and rotate this 180 degrees. This allows us to place the second board without defining any dimensions.
Let’s create an ⅛” board on the backside. Remember, the purple points will help us snap to existing geometry. I’ll create a diagonal rectangle from one corner to the other. Then, I’ll extrude to the thickness of an ⅛”. Keep in mind that we’ll need to select all five sketch profiles. Before committing the Extrude, we’ll also want to select the badge and change the operation type to “New Body”. This will ensure this board remains a unique body.
I’d also like to add a half-inch miter on the front of each board. We can hide the sketch so it’s not in the way. Select the four edges and drag the arrow inward to create a half-inch Chamfer.
To finish off the top section of the desk, I’d like to add two boards to the inside that separate the desk drawers.
We can sketch on the inside surface of the back wall.
Use the Center Rectangle, allowing us to start sketching from the center of the back board. We can define the board thickness of a half-inch, and for the height, we can select to snap to the existing edge of the board.
Extrude this to a length of 21 inches, and very important, make sure to change the operation to New Body so this doesn’t join our back board.
Let’s double-click to select this board, and I’ll move it to the left eight inches.
We can then select it again, and we’ll create a copy that is 16 inches back in the other direction. This will get us the same board eight inches to the right.
Now that the Top Section is complete, take a minute or two to create a folder in the Items Manager. I also recommend renaming both the 3D bodies and the sketches. We can also turn off the sketches.
Because Shapr3D is a Direct Modeling program, you can also delete the sketches without it affecting any of the existing 3D bodies.
Consider applying a material with the Visualize tool. You’ll find one benefit to organizing your items with Folders is that we can select them and quickly apply the material to all bodies in the folder.
I’ll apply the American Walnut appearance to the top.
Back in the design environment, we can close the Top folder and proceed by creating the legs.
To create the legs we’ll use the Loft tool, allowing us to connect two circles of different sizes.
Let’s start by sketching on the bottom board.
I’ll create a circle that’s 2.75”. Remember, you can change your circle annotations in Shapr3D’s preferences.
We can select the center of the circle and the top edge to define the distance of 3 inches from the edge.
Keep in mind that you can always create sketch geometry to help you better place an object. For example, we can sketch out a 4-inch line from the center, and we can drag this over to snap to the edge. Let’s lock the center of the circle so this doesn’t move, as the location of the leg is critical.
We can also delete the reference line as we no longer need it.
We now have the first circle complete for the loft. We need to create the second one at the desired distance away from this one. To do so, we’ll create an offset construction plane from the bottom surface.
After selecting Next, we can define the distance as 24 inches.
Sketching on this offset plane, let’s use the Project tool to project the existing edges into our current sketch. With Project active, select the bottom surface and select the sketch plane.
We can now create the second circle with a diameter of 1.25 inches. I’ll define the distance between the left as 2 inches. We can also make the 3-inch distance from the top.
I’m also going to delete the large projected circle so it’s easier to select the correct one with the Loft tool.
We can now activate Loft, select one sketch circle, followed by the second. Notice the loft bridges the two sketches together, resulting in a more complex Leg.
We’ll copy and mirror the legs to create the other 3, and then we’ll create a support bar connecting them.
Let’s hide all the sketches and the construction plane.
If we’d like to mirror the leg we can use the Midplane construction plane. Selecting both side boards of the top will place the construction plane directly in the middle.
With Mirror, double-click on the Leg body, and select the midplane as the mirror plane. Turn the plane off as we’re done with it.
To create the final two legs, let’s select the existing ones in the Items Manager and the copy badge. We can move this over 16 inches.
I’d like to create a board connecting the legs. We’ll want to sketch the board shape in between the two legs, allowing us to use the Replace face tool to wrap around the leg curvature.
We’ll start by creating an Offset Construction plane any distance from the back of the desk, we just need to make sure it’s in between the legs.
Let’s create a 2-inch line at an angle, near the middle of the leg.
We can then offset this to our board thickness of half an inch. Finally, I’ll connect the top and bottom with the line tool. This will complete our side profile of the board.
We can now look at this from a perspective, and I’ll hide the construction plane as we’re done with it.
To start, we simply need to Extrude this board out to any arbitrary distance. This distance won’t matter as soon as we use the Replace face tool.
From the Tools Menu, activate Replace Face. This lets us select either edge of our board, followed by the corresponding leg. Notice how this not only Extrudes the board to the correct distance but also matches the geometry of the leg.
We can select Done and Repeat this for the other side.
Just like that, we’re able to create a pretty complex board with a few simple steps.
We already have a midplane construction plane, so we can turn that back on to reference with the Mirror tool.
After that’s complete, our desk frame is finished for this lesson. In Day #9 we’ll create the drawers for the desk and we’ll look at inserting them into this file.
Don’t forget to create a Folder for your leg and rename all of your assets in the Items manager.
You’ll also want to add the matching material via the Visualize tool and rename the file name back in the designs tab.
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