Amapi3D 5.0 Documentation

15 A Carafe

We encourage you to try out the Dynamic Geometry features, which are one of the main innovations of Version 5. In this exercise, you can modify the general shape and the proportions of the object at any time by operating on the original construction curves.

Drawing the section and the profile.

1. Switch to Top View: Key “5”.
2. Select the Drawing tool in the Construction Palette. A sub-palette as well as the axes centered on the table appear.

3. Select the Circle tool.

· Click to set the center of the circle, then move the mouse to modify the radius.
· Click. The “+/-” cursor appears. You can now modify the number of points defining the circle. Here, we will keep the default number which is 8.
· Validate by pressing the Return key.
· End the action by putting the tool aside.

4. Switch to Face View: Key “2”.

5. Select the Polyline tool

· Hold down the Shift key and click on a point of your circle. By doing this, you will apply a constraint and the first point of your polyline will be connected to the point on the circle.
· Draw three polyline edges, as shown on our model. Don’t try to set exact measurements as we will modify this line several times in this exercise.
· Validate by pressing the Return key.
· End the action by putting the tool aside.

6. Select the circle again: With the Wand, click on the circle: its color will turn to cyan. This is the current object now.

Extruding the shape.

1. Select the Extrusion tool in the Construction Palette.

2. Click on the polyline. The mesh of the carafe appears.

3. Click on the lower red circle: This caps the bottom of your object. You will get an object similar to our picture.

With Amapi 3D, there are several ways to model an object like this one. We will show you two other methods to acquaint you with other tools.

4. Draw a circle, like before. You may undo your previous actions (with the Undo icon in the Assistant Palette). Note that you can choose the number of Undos you want through the Preferences/Security menu. If your system has enough memory (RAM) available, you can set 25 or 30 Undo levels. If you have made a mistake, do not hesitate to go back to the previous operation.

5. Select the Extrusion tool in the Construction Palette.

· Click on the circle,
· Move the mouse diagonally up and to the right.
· Click: You have made the first section of your carafe.
· Make a second section by clicking a little bit higher.
· Then click even higher and on the right to get a larger third section.
· To finish the extrusion, press the Return key.
· Both ends are red now: Amapi asks you if you want to close them.
· Click on the bottom only.
· Put the tool aside. Your carafe is the same as the previous one.

Now, a third way to make this carafe. Instead of extruding a circle following a profile, you will do the opposite: you will rotate the profile along the circle. To do this, you will use the Sweep tool. You will get the same object as before and it will have the same deformations as the others. Choose whichever method you prefer.

6. Take the Circle and the Profile previously drawn.

· Like before, you can delete the object or undo the actions. To delete the carafe:
· Select the object with the Wand.
· Press the Delete key. The object is deleted.
· Click on the Show icon in the Control Panel.
· The circle and the profile are displayed on the screen. When Amapi makes a shape from curves, it automatically hides them. The Show tool unhides them. You can recall the curves any time if you want to modify them.
· Click on these two curves. Their color turns to white.
· Put the tool aside. The two curves are now in the working screen.

7. Select the profile with the Wand. Its color turns to cyan. It is the current object. Note that before, the circle was the current object.
8. Select the Sweep tool in the Construction Palette.

9. Click on the circle. The carafe appears again.

10. Click on the red circle: By doing this, you are capping the bottom of your object. You will get an object similar to our picture.

Smoothing the carafe
1. Select the Smooth tool . Amapi gives you five smoothing methods to choose from. You can try different smoothing types by clicking on one of the five icons in the smoothing palette. The characteristics of these methods are explained in your User Manual. (See chapter Tools palettes/Moldeling/Smooth.)

· We will use the first method for our exercise. So, click on the first icon.
· With the “+” and “–” keys, you can modify the smoothing range. Here, we will set a range of 2.
· You can also enter the number 2 by pressing the Tab key, then entering the value you want.

2. The carafe is smoothed now.

By pressing the Return key, you can launch a rendering and see your carafe being constructed.

Deforming the carafe (method (1)

· Come back to wireframe mode by putting aside the wand or pressing an arrow to turn your object.
· Take the Stretch tool in the Modeling palette. When you do this, your object is grayed out; the construction curves are displayed in cyan.
· Click on one point of the profile and move it. Your object is deformed and the smoothing is automatically regenerated as you move the point.
· Click again to stop moving the point.
· With the same tool, click on one of the three upper points of this curve and move it to the desired location.
· By moving the three upper points of the profile one by one, you will modify the general shape of your carafe.
· Stretch it until it looks roughly like our illustration.

Deforming the carafe (method 2)

1. Change the control level: Up to now, you have used the construction curves as control curves. You will now use the wireframe of the rough object to deform it and create the spout. When you select the Stretch tool, a new palette appears; it shows you with which finishing level you are controlling your shape. The polyline at the bottom shows the mode you had worked in before.

· Click on the icon in the center of the palette. Warning: You will lose the ability to work with the control curves. So, we don’t need this level any more.

2. Take the Stretch tool in the Modeling Palette. Pull on one of the edges of the top of the carafe.

Finishing
Take the Smooth tool again

. In spite of all you have done on the shape, the smoothing is always dynamic: you can make your carafe smoother or go back to a rougher object. You can always go back and change the smoothing method too.
For this carafe, we will chose Bezier smoothing (smoothing 1), and a higher smoothing range to avoid seeing the polygon breaks when rendering.
When you are more proficient with this program, you will be able to add a handle in less than three minutes.

T hanks to these tutorials, you have now mastered the basics of Amapi 3D.
You can navigate in space, rotating around the object, zooming in and out, even while using a tool. You have learned to create objects from “scratch” using precisely specified dimensions or intuitively. You have learned that you can modify a whole object or only a part of it. And, finally, you know the principle of toggling and the tools options (constraint along an axis, switching the selection tool from the Wand to the Lasso to the Bullseye, etc.) and the level of undos.
These are the fundamentals of Amapi 3D. If one day you are confronted with a modeling problem, think back to these fundamentals: they will help you find the solution.