Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2: From Drawing Views to 3D Part
Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2's Create 3D function lets you fold 2D views in 3D space, often the first step in building solid parts from 2D drawings.
Top, side, and front views folded in 3D space in Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2.
By extruding sketch profiles visible in the folded views and by using profiles to trim away excess materials, you arrive at the 3D solid part.
I’m guessing building a 3D solid out of a series of drawing views isn’t exactly your idea of innovation. Nevertheless, it’s the kind of grunt work that’s almost unavoidable. If the part you need exists only in archival 2D drawings, you have no choice but to rebuild the part based on the front, top, and side views.
In Solid Edge with Synchronous Technology 2 (SE with ST2), you’ll find the Create 3D command under the Tools tab. This function lets you align — or fold — the corresponding front, top, and side views (and any other additional views) into a box-shape setup in 3D space, giving you a good starting point to envision how the finished 3D part should look.
The direct modeling tools in SE with ST2 allow you to select sketch profiles and extrude them to add depth and volume — an ideal approach for turning 2D views into 3D solids. Conversely, it allows you to use selected regions and profiles to trim solids, which works well when you need to use the top or side view to crop excess materials.
Sometimes, folded views might not line up perfectly, leaving you with gaps between them. To address this, SE with ST2 gives you the Fold Line option, which lets you specify the line along which the two views should be aligned. The same function can also be useful in cases where you feel you can get better extrusion results by folding views along other lines beside the profile’s edges.
In case you need to relocate a view to a different surface (often, that makes your extrusion operations much simpler), you may use SE with ST2′s cartwheel handle to drag the view to its new location, just as you might move a sketch profile along an axis. The import wizard guides you through the process step by step, letting you choose to retain — or change, as the case may be — the original drawing’s line types, fonts, colors, and units.
Grunt work is not something many of us would voluntarily perform (hence the name), but with SE with ST2′s flexible editing tools, you may have fewer reasons to grunt. For more, watch the video report below:
Well,
This has been there since V19.0 / V20.0 of Solid Edge . . .
Sunith: Thanks for pointing this out! I didn’t have a chance to use earlier versions of Solid Edge. But I felt the 2D view-folding function works much better in the direct modeling environment of Synchronous Technology 2 because it lets you build parts with greater ease. Perhaps you feel differently.
The part shown in the example would not take very long to model by reading the 2D print. I would like to see an example of a more complex part. Not something as complicated as a video game controller, but something with many more features. And, how much time is involved to set up the 3D space with the 2D profiles?
Kevin: Good point! I may have picked an extremely simple part for the demo clip. The view-folding or view-alignment takes no time at all. It’s just a matter of selecting each view, clicking “New View,” repeated for the number of views involved, then clicking “Finish.”