Sculpted in Rhino, Detailed in SolidWorks. It’s All About the Process.

by Josh on December 16, 2008 · Comments

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mark-hagen-revolve-bike Oh the craziness of climbing on a stationary bike and pretending you’re escaping a beating with poorly designed bike locks. What can you do? How about designing a bike that calms your fears, enhances your environment and well-being?

That’s exactly what Mark Hagen did with his new take on a exercise device often seen crumpling upon the less dexterous. Mark used Rhino and SolidWorks to create this concept. That’s cool – you want to know why? Read on.

The Idea

I used Rhino to sculpt the parts of the design and then imported them into SolidWorks to add details like fillets and assemble the design. – _{Mark via Email}

I could go into how interesting this design is, but just take a look at the steps in the process. After that, there’s a paragraph. A paragraph that some might disagree with, but of course contains nothing but absolutly glorious, observable fact. Here’s the images…

revolve-bike-01

Product Designed in…
Every time I feature a sweet product design in SolidWorks, I add whatever I can find about the process that went into creating it. Surprising enough, it’s hard to get this info and when I do it’s rarely ever just SolidWorks that is used.

But ya know what, that is ok SolidWorks corporate peeps, it’s part of the process and when you have people using SketchUp, Rhino, Icem, Bunkspeed… it doesn’t mean you have capabilities missing from your product (well, maybe some) but it means SolidWorks is complimenting an entire workflow and it’s usually one of the final stages in the workflow that bring the product into the realm of manufacturability. That isn’t so bad now.

Designer, Engineer, What’s your process? Sketches, tape, surface modelers, 2D CAD? Or is your design process a single program?

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Comments

Tagged as: design process, solidworks models

HC

Hi
Does anyone know a good tutorial on how to import 3d-files from rhino to SW? I only draw in SW myself, but sometimes cooperate with people who use rhino, and in this case it would be great not to have to redraw the part, but simply export it.
And does anyone know how the geometry turns out in sw after being sculpted in Rhino? ´cause the sculptingprocesses of the two programs are, as everyone knows, hardly related..
HC

Josh M

Hi HC, you can open Rhino files (.3dm) directly from the SolidWorks File, Open menu. Great idea to do a tutorial on it though. It's not always straight forward!

james

it could have done only with solid work, isn`t is?

Modern Furniture Guy

Is that design already in production? I get how did the other materials inspired him to design this? And how is that bike anyways?

Josh M

This is a concept stationary bike, for indoor use.

bcn

Not sure why you needed Rhino for this exercise?...On a different note...how does your reference inspiration relate to your final product....I don't see it.

Josh M

I think Mark, the designer, used Rhino, because he was familiar with the way to shape with it. It can be more complicated in SolidWorks if you're not familiar with surfacing. Seems different things can inspire people in different ways. I don't really follow how some items help inspire the final design. He may have just liked the shape, color or simplicity of each.

Francis B.

Basically - Solidworks, Inventor, CATIA, ProENGINEER - you name it - are all pieces of software that produce nurbs surfaces with a certain given tolerance. For an engineer - I would understand the need for specific types of operations, let's say certain types of specific manufacturing processes to be programmed and executed automatically on your designs. But for anything else - Rhino can do all the NURBs work for you. At our company (industrial design consultancy) we use Rhino exclusively throughout our whole design process up until manufacturing. Fillets, shells, parting lines, kiss offs, draf analysis, curvature analysis, are all functions that Rhino handles nicely, if not better than Solidworks in some cases. The difference is you have to handle the feature tree in your brain, rather than have a program handle it for you. Using Rhino gives us alot more flexibility and liberty in exploring shapes and designs in 3D than Solidworks.

So scan your sketch and add it in a picture frame in Rhino and have fun ;)

mike p

Francis,
the difference between rhino and Solidworks is you can go into the real Feature tree and change in while not having to rebuild the whole project. Rhino is a cutie program but using nurbs is only one way to produce in Solidworks solid modeling is very powerful and if you spend a little time and understand manufacturing you can develop any surface you desire. Hands down Solidworks is just a more complete tool and the best thing is that its just getting better and better. ive used it at for the past seven years and i know how much better it has become. Us one tool and have more fun!

Jeremy

I am curious to know what features in this design you couldnt do in SW? How can Rhino improve my workflow?

Josh M

Hey Jeremy, in this case, mark used Rhino for some quick sculpting. For some that is faster in Rhino. It depends on what you're familiar with. You may want to test out Rhino and also try some surfacing in SolidWorks. Depending on what you are trying to develop you may find one, the other or both can help you illustrate your idea.

TX80

the process of ID is consistent with what they teach at school, however the final product is an abomination. the metrics are definitely off and while he captured 'the look', i doubt the bike would actually fulfill its purpose.

ckeen

Great post. The point regarding workflow is especially insightful. I am glad Solidworks does not attempt to be everything to everyone and bloat the package. As a designer, I almost always start with pencil and paper sketching.