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Absolutely, I've been using the Mac version of Rhino throughout it's development, and whilst it's a long time coming I'm confident it will be a fantastic product. I've also spoken with Matt Sederberg at tSplines and they're definitely interested in developing their plug in for the Mac platform. Now if I could just convince Joakim at madCAM I'd be Mac happy (NX is already on the Mac)

Personally I'm fascinated by the CAD/CAM industry and all it's developments. I also find that learning a new, different, software often helps with an existing workflow or allows to approach a problem from a new angle. For example, I don't use Moi 3d but the forum and Michael Gibson (founder and developer) couldn't be more helpful. Autodesks surfacing lectures for Alias are an amazing resource and make you realise just how much you didn't know about surfacing. I love tSplines in Rhino but what they're doing with tsElements in Solidworks could be absolutely killer if they develop it in the same way as the Rhino plug in.

I had a look at the Solidworks surfacing webinar and have to be honest saw nothing that made we go wow! It's a very capable program and if the surfacing capabilities work for you then that's great. I'd love to see the parameterization on some of those surfaces as they look pretty heavy.

You may have seen some of these before but if you've got a few minutes take a look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmFnq4_MkaY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvfexLLWLu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivMKqQvg ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kYdmBfm ... re=related

I love this stuff

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Well, it may be that I'm just easily amused! I guess seeing those demos, I'm happy that the version of SW I have looks plenty capable to do what I need + a whole lot more.



I saw a 2 of those before and they are über-duper cool. I imagine that the Free form NX costs a pretty penny. T-splines is also ultra cool and I could definitely see how something like that would be cool but, I'm sure theres a big learning curve/training bill to be had.

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Not at all, it's a different approach for sure but there's so much free help available on the website - tutorials, recorded webinars and a great forum where you'll get lots of help.

This is a great little video, sped up obviously but the tutorial is on the website and it took no more than ten minutes to model this car front end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNB3SIt_ ... rofilepage

I use tSplines on my carve tops - there is simply no better way imho. I'm able to model them as a curvature continuous, single surface with great highlights and nothing to 'fix' at the sanding stage.

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www.morgancustomguitars.com

T-splines looks pretty dang sweet and is a lot less expensive than I thought it would be. Do you think that Tsplines would help draw something like that scroll and neck I posted a few days ago? That drawing took me a long time ago and it's still not exactly how I like it. I think the "clay" aspect of TS might be really nice for certain parts of that I couldn't get just right.

Unfortunately, it looks like to be useful in Solidworks, you need some other host software like Rhino to do the original modeling - or am I misunderstanding how TS elements works with SW?

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Absolutely, post what you're trying to do on the tSplines for Rhino forum with a screenshot and I'm sure you'll get all the help you need - maybe juan will do a quick video tutorial for you, he often helps out this way.




At the moment tsElements for Solidworks only lets you tweak existing tSplines models imported into Solidworks. I'd consider it mainly a Rhino centric plug in for now. However, they're very pro-active so I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't get the same functionality in the future. Rhino to Solidworks is a well proven workflow that plays pretty nicely. I'd take the time to try and learn Rhino with tSplines and expand your CAD capabilities.

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www.morgancustomguitars.com

I suspect I'd be cut off for months if I dropped another $1500 on CAD software right now.

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http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

Here's a single surface carved top modelled in tSplines and quickly rendered in showcase





Gotta love a Gold Top

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www.morgancustomguitars.com

Oh I know, believe me. I've been trying to justify NX for years

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www.morgancustomguitars.com

Just thought I'd chime in real quick, although i don't really have anything new to add

I teach at a product design department in a university college here in Norway.

We use both Rhino and Solidworks, and I really can't put them up against each other because they are so different. Our students love using Rhino for quick 3D sketching in an idea and concept development stage. And although they are not generally as competent i SW a lot of them use it for its assembly capabilities.

For CAM, I first purchased RhinoCAM by MecSoft since I saw the advantage of running CAM directly from within Rhino. Although it has a very intuitive interface, I have soured on it slightly because of what I consider some fairly unnecessary bugs which they seem reluctant to fix, and a, to me atleast, quite bad attitude towards their customers on their support forum.

I have since purchased Mastercam aswell. Even though I still use RhinoCAM occasionally, I am starting to get my head wrapped around Mastercam, mostly with the help of purchased video tutorials from Mike Mattera at http://www.tipsforcadcam.com/. It's not the easiest software to get comfortable with (their "Quick Start Guide" is 150 pages!!! ) but once you get comfortable with it its really good.

We also have tSplines for Rhino, but I haven't had time to get into it yet. Though I do see the fantastic possibilities it introduces to surface modelling.

cheers
Mikael

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Here's the tSplines surface above out of the virtual world and onto one of my single cut guitars

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Nice looking guitar.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to design using t-splines? Another member her sent me a file of a similar LP type design drawn up in SW using lofting. I imagine that tsplines would be faster.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is to not have the OP think that you can't do designs like that without tsplines. Jeff Kosmoski has made some incredibly organic and innovative guitars just using the native SolidWorks techniques:

viewtopic.php?f=10106&t=30771&p=408066#p408066

viewtopic.php?f=10106&t=30797&p=408353#p408353

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Hi All,

I have not posted here for a while....just busy with life, but I just wanted to chime in on this thread:

Solidworks is a VERY capable modeler...and yes, it does have a quite capable surfacing kernel (referred to as the Parasolid kernel) which is licensed from Siemens (the folks who make Solid Edge). Now with that said, the surfacing capabilities when it comes to Free-Form, are NOT as powerful as those in surface modellers like Rhino for example. What it lacks, it makes up in the way one can construct models, and the design tree, allows one to have complete historical and "parametric" control of your model.

I guess it all comes down also to how someone is used to modeling. The thing that drives me crazy in Rhino is the lack of a design tree, but folks who are used to it, can create some incredible models with it (as you can see from the surface above). T-Splines gives it more capabilities as well, but like you said Andy, YOU CAN do designs like this without T-Splines. It comes down to geometry: The better your NURBS, the better the surface. It also depends on the approach you take. Considering carefully the approach on when to use one surface tool over another, will often lead to very good results.

Another approach to modeling which I have NOT been able to adapt to, is that found in say packages like Modo, 3DSMax etc. Where one starts with a "primative" like say a cylinder, box, sphere etc, and by "tugging here" and "pulling there" one is able to construct a model. THAT AGAIN drives me crazy, because I have an engineering mind, and I like precision, and dimensions, and paramets that will define what I am building...

So I guess what I am trying to say, is that BOTH programs are quite capable at surfacing, but each have a very distinctive approach to modeling. It all depends on what you get used to I guess...

Hope I made some sense...

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I'm trying to make the same decision as to which 3D CAD s/w to buy right now... you guys are GREAT! - saved me a whole bunch of research so far.

I was just talking to our Mechanical/ID guy at work (he uses all kinds of CAD packages). He recommended a program called "Space Claim". Anyone heard of this/use it? I checked out their website - there appear to be two versions (Space Claim Engineer $1,995+ and Space Claim Style $895+). How does this product compare to Rhino et al?

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I had not seen that package before, but a short look on their website tells me that they are not a very good surface modeller..and you need that for guitars.

In fact, they have many videos that show it's integration with Rhino, which tells me one thing: You need surfaces? You go to rhino, create them, and then bring them back...so why use two products?



My initial thoughts based on a short look on their site...

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-CyborgCNC
http://www.cncguitar.com
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Thanks for the input "Cyborg" - most helpful. I saw the vids too, but didn't twig that that meant. All things considered, I think I'm going to go with Rhino....

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

looking at the demo, space claim looks pretty cool.

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