Jewelry Design with AutoCAD?

[Albytaps]

Hello everyone. I'm a rather new student to CAD learning AutoCAD 2008 and architectural drafting/etc at the moment. We haven't started 3D yet, which is my main reason for learning CAD. My intentions are to learn the basics of CAD so I can take that into jewelry design. I want to learn several programs but since I'm learning on AutoCAD it would be nice to be able to stick with it.

So my question is:

Is jewelry design with AutoCAD commonly used? Has anyone heard of AutoCAD using CAM? Is AutoCAD a good program for 3D models for jewelry?

Thanks,
Alby

[oliveoil182411]

Although I have my peeves with it, AutoCAD can do just about anything in design. It is used in every industry by people you would never believe use it. I call it the 'Beast' because it has been around so long and the folks at Autodesk just keep building on it. Just look at the help menu and you see a limitless scrolling of text. My peeve, which you shouldn't care about, is that this constant building has led to some redundancies. An annoyance for me, an opportunity for the new user. But, back to AutoCAD's flexibility. It is used in designing almost every building you see these days (although Revit is starting to take hold for the Architects). Off subject, I always find it funny when I'm watching a character in a movie or tv show who is supposed to be an architect and they are sitting in front of a drafting table. Is Hollywood really that clueless? Back to its uses,AutoCAD (i.e. CAD/CAM) in one form or another is also responsible for designing many small machined items in 3D prior to their production. So designing jewelery is definately not out of the question. I'm glad to hear about someoneelse using it for a "non-traditional" purpose. I have a friend who uses it for tattoo design; definately not an expected application and it produces great results.

There may be more specialized programs out there, but AutoCAD should get you started.

[Albytaps]

Although I have my peeves with it, AutoCAD can do just about anything in design. It is used in every industry by people you would never believe use it. I call it the 'Beast' because it has been around so long and the folks at Autodesk just keep building on it. Just look at the help menu and you see a limitless scrolling of text. My peeve, which you shouldn't care about, is that this constant building has led to some redundancies. An annoyance for me, an opportunity for the new user. But, back to AutoCAD's flexibility. It is used in designing almost every building you see these days (although Revit is starting to take hold for the Architects). Off subject, I always find it funny when I'm watching a character in a movie or tv show who is supposed to be an architect and they are sitting in front of a drafting table. Is Hollywood really that clueless? Back to its uses,AutoCAD (i.e. CAD/CAM) in one form or another is also responsible for designing many small machined items in 3D prior to their production. So designing jewelery is definately not out of the question. I'm glad to hear about someoneelse using it for a "non-traditional" purpose. I have a friend who uses it for tattoo design; definately not an expected application and it produces great results.

There may be more specialized programs out there, but AutoCAD should get you started.


Thanks for a great and honest response Olive! Good to hear AutoCAD is so versatile.

What we do with the 3D design, is print (plot?) it out in wax. So, we have a perfect wax model we can then cast and make into a mold for production. We use Rhino in conjunction with Modelworks and print it with a Solidscape printer/plotter (I don't know what to call it... CAM?)

I've had many complaints (not about AutoCAD) from the resident drafter saying that the walls(picture a ring) are no good, or there are parts that aren't closed, and things of that nature. Things that make the wax print come out sloppy or not at all.

Is it possible he's talking about blocking? Do all lines need to be polylines? I won't know what he's talking about until I learn to do 3D.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll learn soon enough. Thanks again!

[Craig_L]

As far as getting pinpoint accurate results, CAD is great.
I use it for custom building my own guitars, and it works very well for this, I also do this in REVIT so I can see a 3d model of what my finished product will look like.

For jewellery though, well I've never done anything so small, and if you have interlocking pieces or things that move you may want to try AutoCAD Inventor, which is designed exactly for things like that and moving parts and actually seeing if the item will in fact function in reality.

3D would be a great benefit to see what your product will look like in reality as you are essentially building a virtual model of it and this would be very handy.

I would think revit may be abit limited in that you wouldnt have the families needed and you might find tight curves on rings etc extremely difficult to begin with...

Also if you're doing jewellery (this is something I do for my guitars) is draw one half of it, get that right, and then mirror it, this way you get perfect symetry and half the drawing time...

Good Luck

[Railrose]

I think it would be a great tool for jewelry making. I don't get to use 3D, but I've used AutoCAD to design everything from quilts to patio & pool layouts for our yard. It is precise enough to design anything you can imagine. It can be cumbersome, but definitely can do the job. I think you would like the ability to zoom in to the most minute detail.

[tedg]

As others have mentioned AutoCAD should be great for what you're doing.

Inventor is great for that type work too for creating "joining / interlocking / moving" parts and assemblies, but it's a bit different from vanilla Acad. Also I don't know much about the 3D output for "plotting" your wax model in inventor.

Revit and other architectural BIM / ACA 3D software is more geared for bigger stuff like buildings, a little too cumbersome for what you're doing... in my opinion.
It's kind of like designing clocks with a paint roller :p

I use mostly vanilla AutoCAD working in structural engineering design, but I also use AutoCAD for graphic design, cartoons, sign design and creating vector art work for vinyl cutting for the sign industry (dxf file format to bring into Corel Draw and other software).

So it's pretty versitile which is what I love about it.
Good Luck!

[jaberwok]

Gemvision Matrix (http://www.gemvision.com/html/products/matrix/matrix.html) is specifically designed for jewellery manufacture.

[RobertB]

Revit and other architectural BIM / ACA 3D software is more geared for bigger stuff like buildings, a little too cumbersome for what you're doing... in my opinion.
It's kind of like designing clocks with a paint roller :p Revit would be no good because you cannot get the units and object lengths small enough for jewelry design.

[tedg]

Revit would be no good because you cannot get the units and object lengths small enough for jewelry design.
Thanks for the clarification. That only enhances my point.
I don't know enough about Revit to know about those specific shortcomings, just that it is geared for bigger things and wouldn't be the best design tool for jewelry.

[oliveoil182411]

Thanks for a great and honest response Olive! Good to hear AutoCAD is so versatile.

What we do with the 3D design, is print (plot?) it out in wax. So, we have a perfect wax model we can then cast and make into a mold for production. We use Rhino in conjunction with Modelworks and print it with a Solidscape printer/plotter (I don't know what to call it... CAM?)

I've had many complaints (not about AutoCAD) from the resident drafter saying that the walls(picture a ring) are no good, or there are parts that aren't closed, and things of that nature. Things that make the wax print come out sloppy or not at all.

Is it possible he's talking about blocking? Do all lines need to be polylines? I won't know what he's talking about until I learn to do 3D.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll learn soon enough. Thanks again!

Glad to give the input. I don't know all the ins and outs of CAM, but I used to work for a company that did shop drawing for composite panel(skins on buildings). These were strictly 2D and were fed to a CNC machine to cut. The outer envelope of the panel shape had to be one continuous polyline, otherwise there would be an error like double-cutting which ruins the part. This may be similar to what your resident drafter was speaking about. Who knows?

Keep an eye out for the jewelry software. Jaberwok may have found what you are looking for in Gemvision Matrix. It's been 8 years since I've played with it, but Solidworks may also be an option. I'm not sure how far it has progressed, but it did have the capability to model and animate moving parts like drive shafts.

[Albytaps]

Thanks for all the great responses!

I've heard of Matrix and have seen the renderings... it is amazing. It's a bit pricey though if I'm not mistaken.

I did a test. I have taken a DWG file I made of a engineering part in 3D (this was in a tutorial.) We opened the file with Rhino and it works! What a relief to know that the things I make on AutoCAD can work perfectly with Rhino.

In the future I may consider getting Matrix, but for now I think we'll do just fine with Rhino and AutoCAD. I will have to buy AutoCAD, of course, after I graduate.

Thanks again for all the input. I have barely scratched the surface of CAD, and I'm lovin' it!