Modelling a solid using a .stl as reference

[agiron2954]

I'm trying to model a furniture model made of 6 different parts. The only file we got was made on SketchUp so .stl file it is.

Since I want to apply some changes as this is mainly an unfinished concept, I have been trying to model it on Inventor. The best I could come up with was to import the .stl file on Inventor and using MeshEnabler to model it all over again.

It doesn't have to be the exact same, since one of the changes we wanted to apply was to make some of the curvatures simpler and flatten some "swollen" surfaces (since the exterior surfaces would be made of sheet metal and overly complicated double curvatures might be an issue for the guys in the workshop, they are artisans so they can handle some complicated things but we want to make something viable). 

Hopefully my Inventor file illustrates what I was trying to acomplish (in a messy way), any help modelling this parts would be useful and maybe some advice on how to work with solids that have surfaces that I would be able to flatten them later.

Apologizes for my broken english

[pcrawley · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure if you've ever tried the "Fit Mesh Face" tool - see below animation.  It's perfect for this sort of mesh work:

It will build you some nice surfaces on the faces of the mesh - these surfaces are then much easier to reverse engineer into parametric solids for your final model.  Notice how you can "paint" while zooming/panning the view.  You don't need to select every facet of the mesh either - just enough to get the shape.

I didn't go on to trimming the surfaces or building any solids because I think the mesh needs scaling down... It's nearly 5m from end-to end.