Well here it is, a 3D model of the field, created in SketchUp. This took roughly 3 hours to create, and I hope teams can use it in planning their designs.
SketchUp isn’t as robust as inventor, but you can create 3d sketches very quickly. All of the important measurements have been crosschecked, but I didn’t model every single thing so expect some little variations. I know you CAD guys are sticklers for modeling everything, and will eventually make an inventor model in the future sometime. Until then, this thing should be helpful for planning out basic robot designs.
-Middle button orbits, scroll in/out to zoom.
-Location of the mouse on the screen affects how the model orbits and zooms.
-To measure, grab the pencil tool, click on the point to start a
measurement from, and hover over a point to measure to. Distance is on
the bottom right of the screen. Hold down "shift" to lock to an axis or line.
Press "space" or "escape" to cancel.
-If you've got one of those awesome 3D mice, you can use it with this program.
I do SketchUp training, so if anyone needs any help, just send me a PM and I’ll see what I can do.
Inventor is a be-all engineering-grade swiss-army-knife of awesomeness that can accurately model anything (given enough time). It also has a steep learning curve.
SketchUp is a dumb-solid modeller aimed at prototyping designs and modeling extremely fast. Has a fairly shallow learning curve.
Eventually someone needs to make an inventor model of the field, but it will likely take quite a while to do so. Until then, this should do just fine for basic measurements.
I would highly recommend that teams use SketchUp in the early phases of design, as it allows you to focus on the big picture rather than getting bogged down in minuscule details. When it gets time to start building parts, go for Inventor. It’s kind of the whole, “would you use a carving knife or a chainsaw for the task at hand?”, kind of deal.
SketchUp is not a solid modeling program at all. It’s a surface modeling program.
You have the patience of a saint if you managed to do this all in SketchUp. I use it for creating “art” – buildings and things – but I could never use it for mechanical design.
I love Sketchup. I have the full version and have been using it for a couple years now, before google bought them out. It has to be one of the quickest way to create 3d models, due to how easy the UI is to learn and use.
I just wish more people would use it so that more models would be available for use.
Here’s a .pdf version of the model so you don’t have to download sketchup to view it:
Yes, you called me out on my typo about solid/surface modeler… Oops! I guess I meant “dumb-surface” modeler
I could never use SketchUp for mechanical design either, but it works well to communicate basic 3d forms and ideas to people without going into too much detail.
Haven’t updated it in a while, but here’s a few other projects I’ve used SketchUp on.
