Swiss cheese

[Anonymous]

I have a question for CAD users in general.  Is there a way to design something with interior holes, like swiss cheese? Would appreciate your suggestions/advice/info on this. Thanks!

[LyleHardin]

How about solid modeling and then just subtracting spheres or other shapes from the main object?

[Anonymous]

Would that take substance from the interior or just the surface?

[LyleHardin]

It will subtract substance from wherever the sphere is.

Say you make a cube about 6" on each side.

You can then make a bunch of 1/2" dia spheres and place them inside the cube.

(Use 2D Wireframe as your shademode.)

Use the Subtract command and select the cube, return, then select the spheres to subtract them.

Tada! a Holey Cube.

Though, it won't LOOK any different, the mass of the spheres will be gone.

You can perform a MASSPROP on the cube before and after the subtraction as a check.

[Anonymous]

OK, that could work. Do you have further suggestions if I should want to make the holes uniformly throughout the interior of the solid? Would I need to come up with some formula for subtracting the spaces in order to make that happen?

[LyleHardin]

Well, you could make and array of 'holes' or spheres and Union all of them together.

Place that into your solid and subtract it. That's not really much different than selecting them all at once to subtract.

2012 has nifty associative array capabilities now.

Tip:

Before performing unions and subtractions, always make a copy of your objects off to the side for safe keeping.

Hope all that made some kind of sense. I'm not finished with my coffee yet...

The ultimate solution would be a parametric modeler like Inventor or Solidworks. That way you could make a pattern of voids in your sollid and change any parameter about them (size, spacing, etc.) at any time without having to recreate things.

I don't know if the free new app calle "123D" from Autodesk would do that or not. It's free, anyway and very similar to Inventor.