SolidWorks 2010 Exercise 12

Starship

Exercise 12: Create this by following the steps as shown.

Starship

This lab reinforces the following skills:

 Sweep with guide curves. on page 90.
 Lights. on page 174.
 Inserting TIFF Files as Background Pictures on page 176.
Units: centimeters
Procedure Open a new part using the Part_MM template.
1 Units.
Change the part units to CGS (centimeter, gram, second).
2 Viewport background.
Click Tools, Options, System Options, Colors.
Under Background appearance, click Plain (Viewport Background
color above). Then, set the Viewport Background color to white.

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3 Save.
Name the part Starship.
4 Sweep path.
Open a new sketch on the Top
reference plane.
Sketch a vertical line 1525cm
long, as shown.
Name the sketch Path and exit
the sketch.
5 First guide curve.
Open a new sketch on the Top reference plane.
Select the line in the Path sketch and click Convert Entities .
Change the converted line to construction geometry.
Sketch a line and tangent arc as shown below.

Exit the sketch and name it Side Guide.

6 Second guide curve.
Open a new sketch on the Right reference plane.
Select the line in the Path sketch and click Convert Entities .
Change the converted line to construction geometry.
Sketch a line and three tangent arcs as shown. The arc without a
dimension has an Equal relation to the R762 arc.

Exit the sketch and name it Top Guide.

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7 Sweep profile.
Open a new sketch on the Front
reference plane.
Sketch a semi-ellipse as follows:
 The centerpoint is Coincident with
the end of the Path.
 The major axis has a Pierce relation
with the Side Guide.
 The minor axis has a Pierce relation with the Top Guide.
 The two endpoints have a Horizontal relation to each other.
 The start point has a Coincident relation with the major axis.
8 Bottom half of sweep profile.
Continuing in the same sketch, sketch a
second semi-ellipse as follows:
 The centerpoint is Coincident with the
end of the Path.
 The major axis is Coincident with the
endpoint of the first ellipse.
 The minor axis is as yet undefined.
 Both endpoints are Coincident with
the endpoints of the first ellipse.
9 Construction lines.
Sketch two construction lines from the center to the end of the minor
axis, and then to the end of the major axis.
Add an angular dimension and set the value to 60°.

Exit the sketch and name it Section.

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10 Sweep with guide curves.

Select the profile, path, and both guide curves.

There are two important options in the sweep command that affect the
quality of the resulting faces. They are Merge tangent faces which is
located in the Options box, and Merge smooth faces which is located
in the Guide Curves box.
If the sweep profile has segments that are tangent, Merge tangent
faces causes the corresponding surfaces to be tangent.
Clearing Merge smooth faces improves performance of sweeps with
guide curves. However, it will break the faces into segments at all
points where the guide curve or path is not curvature continuous.

Results with Merge tangent faces Results with both Merge tangent faces
selected and Merge smooth faces and Merge smooth faces cleared.
cleared.

Results with both Merge tangent faces

and Merge smooth faces selected.

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11 Rename.
Name the swept feature Fuselage.
12 Sweep path for wing.
Open a new sketch on the Top
reference plane.
Sketch a line for the sweep
path as shown.
Exit the sketch and name it
Wing Path.

13 Guide for trailing edge.

Open a new sketch on the Top
reference plane.
Sketch a line as shown.
Exit the sketch and name it Wing
Trailing Edge.

14 Wing section.
Open a new sketch on the Right
reference plane.
Sketch three lines and an arc as
shown at the right.
Dimension and constrain the sketch
according to the illustration.
Exit the sketch and name it Wing
Section.
15 Sweep with guide curves.
Clear the Merge results check
box.
Because of the symmetry in the
model, our plan is to build the
wing and engine and then mirror
them. However, patterns
(including mirror) do not support
a sweep with guide curves unless
the Geometry Pattern option is
used. Since the Geometry Pattern can degrade performance
significantly, a much better approach is to create the wing and engine as
a disjoint body and then mirror the body.
Rename the feature Wing.

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16 Fillets.
Add a 91.50cm radius fillet to the leading edge of the Wing.
Add a 160cm radius fillet to the trailing edge of the Wing.

17 Engine.
From the Design Library, in the Exercises folder for this lesson, drag
the library feature named Engine Profile and drop it on the planar face
at the end of the wing.

18 Edit the sketch.

In the sketch there is a small, vertical
construction line. This is used to
locate the profile.

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19 Add relations.
Add a Midpoint relation
between the bottom end of
the construction line and the
bottom edge of the wing.
Drag the other end of the
construction line and make it
Coincident with the upper
edge of the wing.
Click Finish to exit the
sketch.

20 Revolve.
Select the sketch and click Revolve Boss/Base . Since sketches can
be shared between features, it is not necessary to dissolve the library
feature first.
Be sure Merge result is selected so the revolved feature merges with
the Wing.
Rename the feature Engine.

21 Fillet.
Create a 15cm radius fillet between the Wing
and the Engine. Fillet both the upper and lower
sides of the Wing.
Name the fillet Wing/Engine Blend.

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22 Mirror.
Select the Right reference plane.
Click Mirror .
For Bodies to Mirror, select the Engine.

23 Combine.
Click Combine .
For Operation Type, select Add and select all three solid bodies.

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24 Fillets.
Create 120cm fillets between the Wing and the Fuselage.
Name the fillet Upper Blend.

25 Sketch for aft section.

Open a new sketch on the planar face at
the aft end of the Fuselage.
Expand the Fuselage feature and select
the Section sketch.
Use Convert Entities to copy it into
the active sketch.
Sketch a line through the minor axis and
trim away half of the profile.
26 Revolve.
Create a revolved feature with an Angle
of 180°.
Name the feature Aft Dome.

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27 Edit color.
Select the topmost feature and change the part color to medium gray.
The R, G, B values are 128, 128, 128.
Select the two pointed faces (the engine exhaust) and change their color
to red (255, 0, 0).

28 Show the Lights, Cameras and Scene folder.

If the Lights, Cameras and Scene folder is not visible in the
FeatureManager design tree, click Tools, Options, System Options,
FeatureManager.
Under Hide/Show Tree Items, set Lights, Cameras and Scene to
Show.
Tip You can also right-click in the FeatureManager and select Hide/Show
Tree Items.
29 Lights.
Expand the Lights, Cameras and Scene folder.
Right-click Ambient and select Off from the
shortcut menu.
Double-click Directional1.
Adjust the settings to match the illustration at the
right.
The color is light cyan. The R, G, B values are 128,
255, 255.

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30 Add two spot lights.

Right-click in the Lights, Cameras and Scene folder and select Add
Spot Light from the shortcut menu.
Repeat this to add a second spot light.
Adjust their settings to match the illustrations below. The color of
Spot2 is dark maroon. The R, G, B values are 128, 0, 64.

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Inserting TIFF You can import a TIFF image and use it as a background of a part or
Files as assembly. Note: The SolidWorks application does not support LZW
Background format compression for TIFF files.
Pictures To work with pictures, you must customize a couple of menus in order
to access the commands. For example:
 To insert a picture, you first must click Insert, Customize Menu,
and select Picture to activate the command. Then you can click
Insert, Picture and browse to and open the desired file.
 To turn the display of the TIFF image on or off, click View,
Display, Customize Menu, and select Picture to activate the
command. Then you can click View, Display, Picture. When the
Picture option is selected, the image is displayed; when the Picture
option is cleared, the image is hidden.
 To delete a TIFF image or replace one TIFF image with another,
click View, Modify, Customize Menu, and select Picture to
activate the commands. Then you can click View, Modify, Picture,
Delete or View, Modify, Picture, Replace.

31 Add a background picture.

Activate the Picture commands.
Click Insert, Picture. Select the file Nebula.tif from the Exercises
folder of the lesson. Click Open.

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32 Change the view.

Click Perspective to turn on a perspective view.
Rotate the view until you are satisfied with the appearance.

33 Save.
Save the view state. Then save and exit the part.

Optional Try using some of the other TIFF images that are supplied in the
Exercises folder as backgrounds.

Tip Repeating the command View, Modify, Picture, Replace many times
can get tedious. Use Tools, Customize, Keyboard to create a
keyboard shortcut. For example, assign the command to a function key
such as F12.

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