Friday, November 4, 2016

Solid Work on the Beach

I have had fun learning Solidworks, the high powered 3D modeling program that enables you to virtually create almost anything.  I have dabbled a bit in using it for 3D printed parts and hope to graduate to having our FIRST team do more pre-build prototyping with it.

Its fun to play with.  Sure, there are suggested ways to do most things.  But there are quite a few "alternate routes" to follow as well.  Even when my assignments are done I enjoy tinkering with it.  

Quite a while ago I discovered that you could make the parts you were working on have different colors and textures.  You could make them out of pure gold.  Or mahogany.  You could polish them, make them checkerboard patterned.  When I had a difficult part done I would find someplace on it to add embossed letters.  I go back and forth between GIZMONICS INSTITUTE and ACME INCORPORATED.  I have even found a way to put a smiling badger on the corner of the 2D blueprints that are generated from the 3D part drawing.

But recently I found a marvelous, obscure little function that lets me get rid of the bland, light grey back ground and put my work....on a beach.  Or on a factory bench.  I think one of the rocky desert background scenes is a location often used in filming for the original Star Trek. Soon I expect to I figure out a way to import new and varied background scenes.  

What scenes, real or imagined should I then choose as backgrounds?



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