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CAD with Designspark Mechanical.

The basic principles are quite simple really, Everything is worked out on a co ordinate system, you could say fancy map reading or navigation. A map is divided into squares, each square being part of a numbered grid, same on a nautical chart. so to get from A to B, you navigate accross the chart, so point A may be square 21/06, 21 squares along and 6 up. Point B is say 18/32 so 18 along and 32 up. (asleep yet?) to get from A to B you will plot a route through the grid from one reference to another. Similarly, our CNC router, laser cutter 3Dprinter plotter etc works on the same principle, we have 3 axes, X Y and Z X being left to right, Y back and forth and Z up and down. converts a drawing, or draws as a set of co ordinates, so for a 2 dimensional square, the co ordinates could be, say, X0 Yo, bottom left corner, and X10 Y10 the top right. X5 Y5 would be the center of the square. To add a 3rd dimension, the Z axis gets involved, so on a 3D print, the first layer would be z 0.15, second Z 0,3 etc. I am using Designspark Mechanical to illustrate, the photos are, hopefully self explanatory... Next time will prepare the object for 3D printing.

5 years ago by Nickthesteam