Learn about the meticulous process and methods involved in creating a 3D design of an outdoor playground using SOLIDWORKS. In this course, we will also discuss the importance of using a master part master file methodology in achieving efficient and clean design results.
Key Insights
- The creation of a 3D design, in this case an outdoor playground, involves creating an assembly file which is a collection of sub-assemblies or parts which have been loaded into a single space. Each part of the file will be its own solid body and it will end up being a collection that's rather large.
- The methodology used in this course, called the master part master file methodology, involves creating all the unique parts and pieces in a single part file. This methodology allows for easy up-to-date changes and efficient utilization of the parametric capabilities the program offers.
- In addition to creating the 3D design, the course will dive further into equations and global variables, setting plank and board dimensions, and discussing smart dimension versus reference dimension and fixed items, thereby providing a comprehensive understanding and experience in 3D design and SOLIDWORKS.
This lesson is a preview from our SOLIDWORKS Certification Course Online (includes software & exam). Enroll in this course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
Hello, in this lesson I'm going to show you what we're going to create in this course, in this case an outdoor playground. I'm also going to show you the methodology that we're going to practice to create this entire design with all the parts that it uses in an efficient and clean way so we can make easy up-to-date changes and really utilize the parametric capabilities the program offers. So what we have here on the right is an assembly file and as a reminder an assembly file is a collection of many subsequent sub-assemblies or parts that have been loaded into a single space.
You can see all those sub-assemblies and parts based on these part icons and assembly icons right here in the feature manager. To the left we have the drawing of what this sub-assembly is and I've got some dimensions, set. This drawing has multiple pages so we can view different aspects of that drawing including section views for instance or detail views.
We can see the assembly in an isometric view so it's a little bit more of a 3D representation. This one shows a detail over here in the corner and then here is a drawing of one of the sub-assemblies that makes up this entire assembly. In this case these are all the framing beams that we will create to make sure that our outdoor playground is nice and stable.
We'll go ahead and close this out. I'll save it and as a continual reminder save your work on a regular basis. This is a resource intensive program and we don't want it to crash on you and have you lose any of your hard work.
Now I can go ahead and click this box up here to make this the one thing I'm looking at but just in case you're wondering up here I have two buttons left and right and I can move my window over to one side to allow myself the ability to view another file simultaneously. Let's go ahead and move this one over to the left as you can see. I'm going to close out my main assembly.
I'm going to go ahead and expand this so it's the one thing I'm looking at. Now what we see here is a single part file and we know it's a part file because our feature tree is filled with just part command features and we've created a series of bodies. In this case we've created as many as 205 solid bodies but a lot of these are patterns.
A lot of these are repeating pieces. Now in this methodology which I call the master part master file methodology we do our entire design all the unique parts and pieces in a single part file and each part of that part file if you will be its own solid body and it'll end up being a collection that's rather large. Now a lot of this is built on patterns so we'll only have to make something once and then pattern it and then once we've created all the unique pieces we delete all the bodies except at least one representation of each unique type of piece.
For instance this handrail will have several of these vertical beams running back and forth but we only need to save one and so we can pattern it in the assembly. The staircase for instance will need one type of stair that looks like this and several types of stairs that look like this which will get repeated all along the staircase here. After we've come to this point we'll go ahead and save that we'll create here we go let's open up a one of the parts here we go there we go we'll create a new part import our master file into that part and delete all the bodies except the single part that we want to have in that particular part file.
Those part files are going to go into a sub-assembly and let's open up one of those sub-assemblies now here we go let's look at frame and walls here we are give it a some time to update this will be an example of one of those sub-assemblies and then each of those sub-assemblies and loose parts will finally go into what's known as a general assembly which is an ultimate collection of everything we've created and repeated and patterned now this is referencing dozens and dozens of part files which is why it's taking a minute to open up another way that SOLIDWORKS can be kind of resource or energy heavy on your machine so you just got to give it some time allow it to build there we go now we can view the entire sub-assembly we'll create some swings, a staircase, a few decks, a creative shape window here, a slide, a rope ladder, walls, beams, brackets, and everything we need to make a really fun and safe outdoor play environment. In the next lesson we're going to get further into equations and global variables we're going to set our plank and board dimensions and we're going to dive further into smart dimension versus reference dimension and fixed items
