Sculpture - From CAD to Finished Project

hamburger helper

Hey All,

I want to use CAD to design and create blueprints for a sculpture. Basically, I have zero knowledge of cad programs, but I'm highly fluent in adobe photoshop, illustrator, etc. and have a background in 3d software like Maya. That being said, I'm not really a stranger to obtuse interfaces and can pick up software fairly quickly.

What I'm looking for is the following:

Recommendation of a software package (preferably Mac OS X - friendly) that will allow me the freedom to design sculptures up to 8ft^3 in size and be able to export the design into a blueprint. The blueprint will show the materials I need to create the sculpture using either wood or metal.

Are there places where I can take these blueprints? Will hardware stores cut wood from blueprints? etc?

Forgive my ignorance, I realize the scope of my question may be rather large, so I appreciate any insight. You guys have always been the first step in my creative processes Thank-you.

NotYou

You're not going to get custom cuts done at a hardware store. Especially not precise ones.

If you can't cut the wood yourself, you probably need to hire someone to do the work for you.

edit: this is my experience. Even when I wanted a bunch of planks cut to 12 inches or whatever, they were all off by a good bit. Maybe you know a good store where they don't suck.

Zeon

NotYou wrote: »

You're not going to get custom cuts done at a hardware store. Especially not precise ones.

If you can't cut the wood yourself, you probably need to hire someone to do the work for you.

edit: this is my experience. Even when I wanted a bunch of planks cut to 12 inches or whatever, they were all off by a good bit. Maybe you know a good store where they don't suck.

Nah youre right. Youre never gonna find a hardware store that will do custom cuts for you, unless its a small independant store, and even then youre gonna have to start paying contractor time. Cutting wood precisely is a skill, not something extra you get when you buy wood for 8 bucks a board.

What are you trying to do here? Can you build the sculpture yourself? Are the blueprints helpful to you? If not, you might want to find a sculptor first and then decide on what programs or instructions he needs to create your vision. It would be a huge waste of time if you spent hours making blueprints in CAD and then the artist you found refuses to work with them.

If youre going to build the sculpture yourself, id suggest buying some saws and learning to cut the wood yourself. If not, its going to cost you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to get enough wood and metal for an 8'x3' sculpture cut.

The Cow

NotYou and Zeon are both right. Not only will hardware stores not do precise cuts, but finding someone who knows how, and will be willing to do this for you (even if you pay them) is not that easy.

That said, why are you doing this on a digital program? If it's just to have an outline for your project, that makes sense, and maybe someone will point you to a suitable program. If you're hoping, however, to have some sort of crazy fabricator machine build you a 8' by 3' sculpture out of a 3-D blueprint design, this will be exactly as crazy expensive as the fabricator necessary to build it would be crazy complicated, and maybe even more on top. As in, a single piece of this size will probably be many orders of magnitude more expensive to have machine fabricated than hand built, or even contracted out to an artist ( and I know at least a few metals sculptors who would love a project like this ).

So unless you have some specific reason for wanting to get mathematically precise hyperbolic solids cut out of metal or something, I may suggest simply drawing this out by hand as precisely as possible. And talking to your closest university/community college sculpture lab, and seeing if you can negotiate lab hours with the tech there.

I found these two course descriptions on the SCAD website, they seem kind of what you're looking for. Oh SCAD, you and your sensuous course catalogue descriptions.

SCPT 250 Digital Applications in Sculpture I
This course explores the relationship between digital tools and sculptural practice. Lectures and hands-on activities are supplemented by 2-D vector based programs, digital photography software and 3-D modeling programs. Students learn how to use the computer as a design tool for sculpture and to prepare files for various outputs. Prerequisite(s): DSGN 102, CMPA 100 or CMPA 110 or ELDS 225.

SCPT 450 Computer Modeling for Sculptural Practices: Advanced Projects
Students explore their own personal visions using digital tools and computer software programs designed for the development of 3-D forms, spaces, objects, sites and processes. Students develop a critical basis for the evaluation of their use and explore the possibilities and implications of digital tools and processes. Prerequisite(s): CMPA 100, SCPT 250.

Maybe emailing them, finding out who's teaching these classes, and asking what software they use might be a good idea. I'm legitimately curious if you find a way to make this work, so good luck!

japan

If all you need the CAD software for is blueprints, then anything capable of handling a .dxf file should do. There's an open-source CAD package called QCAD which is pretty good, but they don't offer built packages of the unrestricted "community" version (It's also in the Debian Linux repositories and preinstalled with CAELinux, but that might be overkill if you can find a Mac build or an alternative). If you're planning on handing these to someone to actually build you should probably figure out who that's going to be first and find out what conventions they use for layouts, views, measurements, symbols, etc. There are some ISO standards for this but I can't remember the relevant references because I haven't had to do anything with CAD packages in a while.

The Cow wrote: »

That said, why are you doing this on a digital program? If it's just to have an outline for your project, that makes sense, and maybe someone will point you to a suitable program. If you're hoping, however, to have some sort of crazy fabricator machine build you a 8' by 3' sculpture out of a 3-D blueprint design, this will be exactly as crazy expensive as the fabricator necessary to build it would be crazy complicated, and maybe even more on top.

Setting up solid models (as opposed to 2D blueprints) for CNC milling is an entirely different skillset, and probably beyond the reach of someone trying to self-study, especially for something this size.

hamburger helper

Very interesting feedback everyone. I really appreciate your advice. For now, looks like I'll go for the hand-drawn method. Cheers

Vortigern

If things need to be really precisely cut (or your budget allows for some convenience factor) then you should talk to a shape cutting shop. Lasers can cut wood (clean cut with N2) and waterjets as well. Both offer pros and cons, but they both will come with some cost depending on a bunch of things.

Depending on what you have in mind they might even be able to help you with the CAD.