Learn how to utilize modeling tools to create a bench within a 3D space. This comprehensive guide walks you through the process of designing a bench using path options, sweep tools, and profile creation, ensuring the successful creation of a 3D bench model.
Key Insights
- The article demonstrates how to use different modeling tools, including sweep options, for creating a 3D bench model. The sweep tools allow you to draw a path for the object and create a profile after that.
- Designing the bench involves several steps such as sketching the path with line tools, creating a shape that works well, and ensuring the profile created can make the turn in the path. The article provides a detailed step-by-step guide on how to achieve this.
- Finally, the article emphasizes the importance of double-checking the measurements and adjusting the seat dimensions if necessary to ensure a successful sweep. This careful approach can help avoid potential difficulties and ensure the creation of a more realistic and comfortable 3D bench model.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Now we can use a different one of those modeling tools to create a bench that sits in between these two spaces. So to do this I'm going to go to my Level One plan because what I want to do is I'm going to use one of the sweep options here which will allow me to create a path for the object and then I can actually create a profile for it after that. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the Architecture tab, bottom side of 'Component' again, and then 'Model In-Place'.
Just like before with the last option we can go in and we can give it a category. I'm going to pick Casework for this one and click OK and then I'm going to call this one the Bench. The tool that we're going to use to create this is going to be 'Sweep' and this will allow us to draw a path in here.
It could be anything we want and then we can have the extrusion follow the sweep path. If I pick 'Sweep' the next option I have here is I need to sketch the path and then I can use these line tools here to create my path. Just like when we created the wall piece there's really nothing special or particular to the path that I'm drawing here so I'll just start out with a couple different lines.
So I'll start with a line kind of going in this direction. I want to make sure I have enough space for people to kind of clear around through there and then what we'll do is we'll put another line that goes through and this has to be continuous so if I draw another one say here what I want to do is create kind of an end cap that somebody can sit on and so we could do that by creating an arc at the end here and the best way to do that is by using the 'Fillet Arc' tool because then these two will be tangent to each other and so I'll get an arc that works for this space and so I can take it kind of along these lines and now I have a shape that that works well for us. If you wanted it to be at a sharp point one thing that you'd want to consider here is the angles that you use because the sweep if you create a profile it won't be able to make this turn here and it'll end up getting kind of weird but you can go in and adjust it after the fact to work better with the way that you're drawing it so what's important is when we draw this profile which is our next step is we want to make sure that whatever profile we create is capable of making this turn here because if it can't make the turn then it won't allow you to finish the sweep.
Learn Revit
- Nationally accredited
- Create your own portfolio
- Free student software
- Learn at your convenience
- Authorized Autodesk training center
Once we are done drawing the profile we'll go ahead and 'Finish Edit Mode' here and then our next step is going to be to draw the profile. When I select this element here which is actually the defining portion of the profile I will now have the ability to hit 'Edit Profile' and because I can't draw the profile in that view because we're looking straight down on it I have to choose another view to use so you can use the East or West Elevation or the 3D view those are the options that we've been given so if I pick the elevation I can click open and it'll open that view and it'll seem kind of weird to draw something like this from this point of view but it works perfectly fine because at this point we can go ahead and draw in whatever shape we're looking for so I'll start out by just kind of mocking this up and so I'll start with my origin point here which is this location and if I draw a line I'm going to put a bit of a base to it so I'm going to make this it's about four inches here and then I'll give myself a couple inches for a bit of kind of a toe kick so three inches there and then because I want the chair to be about 18 inches off the ground so then I'll go to about one foot two at this point and then we'll just need to establish our seat back dimension and we'll kind of use roughly the same numbers going back so one foot four or so and then I'm going to have the height be at about three feet total on the height here and so this is the part where I'm saying we want to make sure we don't go with too wide of a profile because if we do that then we're going to end up in a situation where it can't make the sweep so I'm going to give it an angle because angled backs are typically more comfortable here and then I'll just go back a little bit to create a cap and then close it off and so the last thing I want to do is just double check this height using these temporary dimensions and like I said I wanted it to be about three feet and then just make sure my math is good and check to see that my seat height is about 18 inches and this looks pretty good and so we're gonna double check and see if I go to my Level One plan you can see the whole width of my profile and so as this makes its way through here it looks like we might be in a situation where this might be too large to make this radius without overlapping itself in the center here so if you were to take this line and kind of run it through the loop here you might be in a situation where it's too deep and isn't going to be able to run the sweep here so what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump back to my West Elevation and I'm actually going to grab all of these pieces here and I'm just going to nudge them over a bit which will make my seat the base of my seat a little bit shorter but that's okay and I can also take this top piece because we're going to put another element on top there and I can take that piece and I can go ahead and just skinny that up a bit just to make sure that we're good to go and so I'll double check in Level One and it seems like I'm not quite going above that midpoint and so we can go ahead and 'Finish the Sketch' for the profile at that location and then we can finish it again and you can see how it gets really tight in the middle there if this was much wider it probably wouldn't have worked out so if I go to my 3D view again which is already clipped to just show this portion you can see we've created a bench down the middle of those two spaces and we're going to take a look at a couple options to help refine this a bit so that it looks a little bit more realistic because right now it looks kind of boxy and not very comfortable to sit on
