Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3D Tree Exercise
3D Tree Exercise
by David Watson
Introduction
The object behind this exercise is twofold. Firstly it is to give you practice
with some of the 3D techniques which you have discovered in the tutorials or to introduce you to them
if you haven't seen them before. Secondly it is to demonstrate a reasonably simple method for
constructing a convincing 3D tree.
2.
"CANOPY" and "TRUNK". Set the current layer to "CONSTRUCTION" and give the new
layers appropriate colours. If you need more information about working with layers, see
the "Object Proprties" tutorial.
3.
"3D_TREE1". Remember to save your drawing regularly (every 10 to 15 mins) during the
drawing session.
4.
3D Viewpoint
create an elevational view of the drawing by setting the vertical angle (the half circle on
the right of the dialogue box) to zero. Notice that your UCS icon changes to show the
broken pencil to tell you that you cannot draw in this view.
5.
reappears as usual except that the "W" is missing, to indicate that you are no longer in
the World Co-ordinate System. You are now ready to draw in elevation. For more
information on User Co-ordinate Systems, see the "UCS" tutorial.
from the Draw toolbar.use the height and spread of your tree as dimensions
(say 8 high and 6 wide) remember to work in metres. The midpoint of the rectangle base
needs to be at the co-ordinate 0,0 so that you can later use this tree as a block insert. Tip:
try using -3,0 for the first point and @6,8 when prompted for the second point. This will
create a rectangle 8 metres high and 6 metres wide with a base midpoint at 0,0.
7.
Now that we have created a rectangular frame for our tree profile we need to draw a line
for our Axis of Revolution. Start the LINE command, Draw
Line or
and draw a line from the midpoint of the rectangle base to the midpoint of the rectangle
top. Make sure to use the Midpoint Osnap
values with AutoCAD, see the "Using Co-ordinates" tutorial for more guidance.
8.
Polyline or
the canopy and one for the trunk. Make sure that you join the two polylines end to end,
use the Endpoint Osnap,
midpoint of the rectangle top and that the trunk polyline ends on the rectangle baseline.
9.
You have now drawn all of the constructional elements you need. Your screen should now
look something like the illustration on the right. Save your drawing.
Surfaces
polyline you drew to represent the trunk profile when prompted for the path curve and
then pick the axis. Accept the command defaults and a 3D tree trunk will be generated.
11. Make the CANOPY layer current and use the 3DFACE command, Draw
Face from the pull-down or
Surfaces
3D
draw too many leaves, remember that they will be multiplied later when you use the
ARRAY command and this can make the drawing file quite large.
Tip: just draw a few leaf shapes and then use the Multiple option of the COPY command
to copy them. When you have finished, your drawing should look something like the
illustration on the right.
toolbar. Select all of the leaves when prompted and then select the Polar array option.
Pick the midpoint of the rectangle base when prompted for the centre point of the array
(this may be easier if the TRUNK layer is turned off first), alternatively you could enter the
co-ordinate value 0,0 since you know this to be the same point. Enter the number of
items, even numbers look best (say 6 or 8). Do not enter a large number, AutoCAD is
likely to crash and you may lose your work. Accept the defaults for start angle, 360
degrees and to rotate objects as they are copied. Your canopy will be generated.
Shade
down menu. Tip: the leaves will look best if the 256 Color option is used. This is
effectively the same as setting the SHADEDGE variable to 0. Experiment with the
different Shade options to see what effect they have.
16. Save your drawing. Sit back and marvel at your skill.
You may find that the tree doesn't look quite right and that there
are gaps in the canopy. If this is the case just go through the process again and use a different leaf
pattern or add more leaves. There are lots of ways that you can refine this process to improve the look
of the tree. For example you could draw leaves on three different layers and give each layer a slightly
different colour to increase the tonal range. By changing the colour of the leaf layers you can hint at
seasonal changes. You could draw leaves on both halves of the canopy so that the tree doesn't look
too symmetrical when viewed face-on. The key is to experiment. The illustration on the right shows a
tree with a conical shape.
Once you are quite happy with your tree and you have saved it you can use it as a block insert in any
other drawing. You can do this by using the DDINSERT command, Insert
down menu when in another drawing. The insert base point of this block will be the base of the tree
trunk because you drew the tree with the co-ordinate system origin (0,0) in that location.
If you do decide to keep your tree for future use it is worth tidying the drawing up a little. For example,
you don't need to have the construction lines any longer, so erase all of the objects on the
"CONSTRUCTION" layer. Once you have done that you can also remove the layer itself using the
Layers command or the PURGE command, see the "Object Properties" tutorial for details. This is good
drawing practice.
Top of page
Donate to CADTutor
If you found this tutorial useful, you might like to consider making a donation. All content on this site is
provided free of charge and we hope to keep it that way. However, running a site like CADTutor does
cost money and you can help to improve the service and to guarantee its future by donating a small
amount. We guess that you probably wouldn't miss $5.00 but it would make all the difference to us.