Making a drawing from an existing part.

[Fastyankee]

I find one of the biggest challenges for me is having to create a part from an existing part that is an odd shape that has to fit into an existing part.
I attached a picture of just such a part these are dash inserts that I normally trace and cut out by hand because of their odd shape.

[Joe Jones]

DesignEdge excels at drawing things like this, but you must go through the learning curve of how to USE the software effectively.

Most of these odd shapes can be found online. What is the make and model, and year of the vehicle these fit? They look like dash panels from an older VW Beetle. I can probably find a flat and proportional black and white silhouette of them online.

Joe

VW DASH PANEL2 JPG.jpg (64.59 KiB) Viewed 356 times

VW DASH PANEL2 JPG.jpg (64.59 KiB) Viewed 356 times

[Joe Jones]

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I find one of the biggest challenges for me is having to create a part from an existing part that is an odd shape that has to fit into an existing part.
I attached a picture of just such a part these are dash inserts that I normally trace and cut out by hand because of their odd shape.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CnePLkzmKUyesqXy8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/15sNiWdy2BxoWY9k6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HyrwMz8KQd9fdAdg8

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I find one of the biggest challenges for me is having to create a part from an existing part that is an odd shape that has to fit into an existing part.
I attached a picture of just such a part these are dash inserts that I normally trace and cut out by hand because of their odd shape.

[Joe Jones]

Matching the shape of a photo is useless unless the photo is not skewed or distorted via the camera angle, or the lens used to take the photograph.

Joe

[adbuch]

Andrew - Tracing a bracket onto paper and using Design Edge for auto trace, manual trace, and using Inkscape for manual trace. Click on the links to see the slide shows with step-by-step screen shots.

David

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qv1SNc4rfXwEcHdC8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zfQFTacGqXEtFu9YA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Nj7QcZDsGoToZP2fA

[Fastyankee]

Andrew - Tracing a bracket onto paper and using Design Edge for auto trace, manual trace, and using Inkscape for manual trace. Click on the links to see the slide shows with step-by-step screen shots.

David

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qv1SNc4rfXwEcHdC8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zfQFTacGqXEtFu9YA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Nj7QcZDsGoToZP2fA

Awesome Thanks Dave

[adbuch]

Another option would be to use a Calcomp digitizing/tracing board with the LogicTrace software. I have 3 of these boards in different sizes ranging from 12" x 18" to 44" x 60". You can place the part right on top of the board and trace around it using the "magic pen" and it converts it directly to dxf format.

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Here is the method I used to do an autotrace of a flat sample bracket using Design Edge. Lot's of messing around here, but it gets the job done.
David

Place the bracket on a white sheet of paper and use a Sharpie to trace around the bracket.

Draw a couple of reference lines and take a measurement to be used later for scaling the drawing to the correct size.

Place the paper on the floor and take a photo. You will want to have your camera directly over the paper so as to eliminate any parallax.

Zoom in on the drawing so that it fills your camera screen and take a few pictures.

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Here is the method I used to do a manual trace of this same bracket using the Design Edge Spline tool.
David

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Here is the method I used to do a manual trace of this same bracket using Inkscape.
David

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A quicker method would be to combine Inkscape and Design Edge. Do the manual trace with Inkscape, save as dxf, import to Design Edge, and scale to correct size. Scaling in Design Edge does not depend on having the reference line horizontal - so using a combination of both programs would enliminate the Inkscape operations of rotating, grouping, and ungrouping.

David

[adbuch]

It might be easier for me to buy a flat bed scanner what’s your thoughts on that ?
I actually manually traced the part in Design edge pretty easily but couldn’t figure out how to join the lines and I see you sent me how to do that also so I will go over it. I make a lot of car parts and brackets that need to fit existing parts. So this something I need to nail down.

Andrew - a flat bed scanner would certainly work for parts or drawings that fit onto the scanner. This would eliminate any possible parallax, misalignment, or distortion that might result from working with a photo of the part. In some cases, you can actually set your part right onto the scanner bed. Or do a manual paper trace, place your paper trace on your flat bed scanner and scan it in to a jpeg image.

Then use this image for a auto trace or manual trace with Design Edge or Inkscape (or some combination of both).

Here is an example of doing an manual trace of your VW dash panel insert grille using Inksape.

David

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Andrew - assuming you used a flat bed scanner to scan in your drawing to jpeg format, here is an example of doing an autotrace using Inkscape.
David


This top image is the result of the scan to jpeg from your flat bed scanner.

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Andrew - here is an example of using Design Edge to auto trace the same jpeg from your flat bed scanner.
David

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