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Modelling Leather Coverings

16 REPLIES 16
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Message 1 of 17
VictorBDEngineer
2619 Views, 16 Replies

Modelling Leather Coverings

Hi

 

I would like some help on how to model a leather covering for some furniture I am designing. (see attached image).

 

Do I treat the leather sheet like sheet metal and use the sheet metal tools (I have not used this feature yet)? That way I can flatten it out to get a pattern.

 

Or do I treat it like a plastic moulding (again I have not used this feature)? A plastic moulding would give me a visual model but I would not be able to get a pattern from it.

 

Any help and/or tutorials whould be useful.

 

Thanks in anticipitation

Victor Pringle

16 REPLIES 16
Message 2 of 17
jletcher
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer

Just do it as a solid and shell it.  If you had more views I would attempt one to show but I don't see all you have

Message 3 of 17
JDMather
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer


@VictorBDEngineer wrote:

 That way I can flatten it out to get a pattern.

 

Victor Pringle


You are not likely to get results that you can flatten in Inventor.
It will be a very challenging design for a beginner, but can probably be done as a visual model, as evidenced by attached.

 

Car Seat.jpg


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Message 4 of 17
jletcher
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer

Opps did not see you want to flatten it. When I worked for a sim company I did a few but inventor would not unfold them so had to go purchase a 3rd party software to unfold it I think it was called SPi sheet metal. The nice thing with it was you did not have to model with sheet metal commands this software can unfold almost anything.

Message 5 of 17

The reason I wanted to model this in Inventor was to have pictures of the leather covering as well as providing instructions on how to manufacure the covering. So it looks like I will have to try both the sheet metal options and the solid modeling.

 

From a logical point of view I can not see how strait folds on sheet metal can be translated into curved folds on leather. I will have to have a look at the sheet metal tutorials (there are some arent there?)

 

For solid modelling it looks like I need to learn about Extrude sketched profiles, Revolve sketched profiles,  Loft sketched profiles before I get any where.

 

Thanks for the pointers

Regards

Victor

Message 6 of 17
JDMather
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer


@VictorBDEngineer wrote:

From a logical point of view I can not see how strait folds on sheet metal can be translated into curved folds on leather.

Regards

Victor


It can't be translated - you won't be able to get this using sheet metal tools.
You are going to want to become very familiar with 3d sketch intersections, loft and surfaces.

Takes about 3 yrs to get up the learning curve. 

There are a bunch of tutorials in my signature.


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Message 7 of 17

I have put this in the too hard basket. I could not find any information on what settings I would need for the material to be leather in the sheet metal settings. The sheet metal tools were not that intuitive even after looking at the tutorials. Solid modeling and shelling seemed just as hard and would not give me a flattened pattern. So I have given up trying to model this.

Message 8 of 17
jletcher
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer

LOL don't give up. there is no leather setting in sheet metal. What you do is make your own or just make it default and set the thickness to the thickness of the leather.

Message 9 of 17
VictorBDEngineer
in reply to: jletcher

I could not see how to create my own settings for leather whose characteristics I do not know. The default settings were giving me notched edges for the folds which would not be appropriate for leather.

Message 10 of 17
jletcher
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer

Do me this take new pictures straight on as you can get.  No iso pics..

 

take a top pic

take side pick

take back

take front

take bottom

 

Give me some ruff dims....

 

I have used sheet metal many times to make patterns for aircraft seats I will see what I can do for you...

Message 11 of 17
JDMather
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer


@VictorBDEngineer wrote:

... The default settings were giving me notched edges for the folds which would not be appropriate for leather.


Unless your parts resemble sheet metal parts (bent planar faces, (and maybe cylinders and cones), forget sheet metal tools.

You might be able to use one of the 3rd party unfolders with Inventor using the standard tools to create your models.

 


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Message 12 of 17
VictorBDEngineer
in reply to: jletcher

Thanks for the offer. I have attached a zip file of the assembly I want to cover. The leather should cover the foam block and be pinned to the body support top sides.

 

Not sure this is going to help me learn how to do this myself.

 

Thanks anyway

Victor

Message 13 of 17
VictorBDEngineer
in reply to: JDMather

What 3rd party unfolders are there out there?

Message 14 of 17
jletcher
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer

The best is SPI it will unfold anything as mention in early post. I have used it to do heli body parts and we all know how nicely shaped they are and it flatten everthng I had Here is a pic of the heli.. It's a V-22.

 

V-22 Cockpit 1.jpg

Message 15 of 17
JDMather
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer


@VictorBDEngineer wrote:

Not sure this is going to help me learn how to do this myself.

Victor


Inventor preserves the history of the steps needed to create parts.
By examining the steps you can learn how to use the software.

Nearly everything I know about Inventor was learned by examining solutions posted here.

 

First thing I noticed is that your Sketch1 is not constrained or making use of obvious symmetry about the origin.

Second I noticed that you used Adaptivity (I would not recommend this technique until you gain more experience).

 

I recommend you start here http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/SkillsUSA%20University.pdf

then through a step-by-step process we can work towards a solution to the problem.


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Message 16 of 17
jletcher
in reply to: VictorBDEngineer

Don't have 2013 loaded so files I cannot open. I have 2013 just not going to load it.

 

Victor said:

Not sure this is going to help me learn how to do this myself.

 

Thats what the end of part shows just roll it up and drop down feature by feature this will help you learn what people did to make the part.

Message 17 of 17

I design cushions for airplane seats and am trying to display a leather cover on the cushions with pull lines for piping detailing. etc. I am also wondering if a leather material style is availble for DL online.

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