Little idea I had after I woke up in the middle of the night at 2am; taking shape…Lately I dream about CAD designing every night.
Playing around with more techniques… Without orthographic imagery, in CAD, the only use a photo is good for is following general 2D perspective shape contours. Measurements are still super critical if you want dimensional accuracy. I wish I knew a smartphone software developer, because an orthographic camera app would not be that difficult to design.
I guess if you are profiling a relatively simple, flat object, constraining it to the required dimensions would be super easy with a 2D perspective image. Lots of youtube videos on that… Certainly not the case here, though. I know soon enough that laser scanners are going to get even better and none of this **** will even be required.
Now that I know what I’m doing, I decided to break this profile down with 5 additional planar references to get the front radiator opening curve rib profile dead-on perfect.
I am using a 1.25” 90 degree horizontal plane setback on all of the inside ribs, which will define every single point of the inner profile perfectly, and ahead of time. I should be able to connect those points and extrude the rear vertical plane right from that profile. I’m learning that the more planar data points that you can resolve from a single point reference, the better.
For my newest technique, I actually used a carpenter’s contour gauge to measure out the rib profiles, and then threw the tracings on my scanner (which is also an orthographic camera… Can’t get any more accurate than that!). I now will draw out the rib profiles on the respective planes of the 3D shape to connect the vertical profiles. I will use a coincident constraint to connect the ribs at the profiles. Should work, in theory, lol. It is so far, anyways…
That should get me well within 1/8” or better tolerance, and I learned another 3 or 4 new techniques in the process. This stuff is so much fun. Should have a final draft of this tomorrow.