What software do you use?

Hey Mitja;

How did you make the short video of your Gnome rotating? Does Rhino have an anitmation feature?

That looks great.

Tom.

And while we're into software, has anyone tried the Cadre software for analyzing trusses? I've downloaded the demo, and received a demo fuselage-type structure from the sales guy, but haven't really gotten into it yet.

Apparently you can do a 3d wireframe model in some software, export/import as a DXF, then apply loads, material properties and then hit the go button to give you the loads in each frame member. But I haven't gotten this far yet.

Just curious if anyone uses it and finds it to be good.

Tom.

I believe that Cadre was originally written specifically for truss type assemblies and from what I've heard from others, it is very good. Considering its relatively reasonable price, it's a pretty good deal.

I have been using CADRE Pro for a welded steel fuselage. It does do a good job with trusses, but I use Excell to create the data file and only used Cadre for getting the results. Attached is a view after a run.

Pat

Hi Pat;

The Cadre sales guy, Jim Haynes, said that you could do a wireframe 3D model, then import it as a DXF to Cadre. Have you ever tried that? If you only use Excel, how do you generate the drawing of your airframe?

Thanks, Tom.

Originally Posted by Tom Kay

Hey Mitja;

How did you make the short video of your Gnome rotating? Does Rhino have an anitmation feature?

That looks great.

Tom.

Render--> Animation--> Setup animation.
Choose turntable, set number of steps, name of the rendering, what type of file (jpg) and directory to save all those jpgs. Then create renredings..it is automated job and it is explained in help menu.

Then convert all those rendered slides aone after another to create a "movie". You need about 25-30 slides, to get a video 1 sec long.

I made about 144 slides for one full rotation.

Mitja;

It sounds like a lot of time-consuming work to create one second of video, but I gotta try it !

Thanks, Tom.

Once you input the settings, Rhino automatically do the rotation of object, render the scene and save the jpg, and so on till all scenes are done. Just do the typing and go to sleep ..all rest is done by rhino.

Hi Tom,

I generate the drawing in a CAD program (KeyCreator) and export a DXF. I then import it into Cadre, this works great. You then have to assign properties to the members, and bounds and loads to the nodes and you are ready to go!

I use EXCEll because it is easier when there are lots of different members and load conditions.


Pat

Pat;

Great so far. Just curious if you have the Excel software configured to collect the data from the load application run. I mean, is Cadre also configured to export data into the Excel?

I can see (having modeled a fuselage) that there would be a mass confusion of tubes going every direction. I assume that you'd name each separate tube segment, say A-B, and B-C, etc. And that would even mean that a single longeron would be broken up into segments based on where the clusters are formed.

Thanks again. I haven't tried Cadre, other than importing the sample file that I was given by the sales guy, and then hitting the "Solve" button. It is neat to see what happens when the load is applied.

Tom.

Tom,

I use the "Axial loads" from the results menu, then "Select all" and "Copy", then paste it into Excell, all the numbers go into individual cells. The members can be sized and the stresses determined. Cadre also provides the length of each member so compression members can be checked for column buckling stability.

Pat

Hi, I'm new here and I'm starting in the airplane building.
I will participate in competition here in Brazil...I'm trying to know how to use Autocad 2010, so could anyone send me a basic project in Autocad 2010 of a wood airplane.

I don't think you'll find too many people doing aircraft design in Autocad... it's not really well suited to this kind of work.

-Dana

"You sure it's broken? Let me make sure..."

Originally Posted by RicardoFreire

Hi, I'm new here and I'm starting in the airplane building.
I will participate in competition here in Brazil...I'm trying to know how to use Autocad 2010, so could anyone send me a basic project in Autocad 2010 of a wood airplane.

YouTube - autocad

Mitja

I've used both ProEngineer and Solidworks, and there's no competition. Maybe because I'd learned ProEngineer first, but Solidworks was excellent. The GUI was considerably more intuitive than ProE, Solidworks let me do what I wanted to do without giving me a billion caution and warning messages, and included really nice tutorials. The only thing I can complain about is the intent manager, as it's called, which guesses what you're trying to do. Some times it's right, other times it's putting constraints and relations on things I didn't want it to do. It took me a day to learn Solidworks on my own using the tutorials, and a bit longer to really get the hang of it. By comparison, ProE had almost a flat learning curve. Despite having a textbook on how to use it, I spent way more time trying to find buttons or trying to find what ProE was complaining about. In short, it's as if with Solidworks you're designing, and with ProE you're using CAD software. ProE is definitely a bit more advanced than Solidworks and I've heard it's better for large assemblies. But, unless your homebuilding something that could be certified as a 525 type aircraft, I'd think that Solidworks is more than sufficient. However, it's not free and I'm only using it as I got a free copy from my university. I think it's a bit pricy, but then again if you're building an actual aircraft a $200 on software isn't going to be a bad idea. I've built what I designed in Solidworks before, and it worked perfectly (...almost, I missed a little detail but it wasn't that important )

Another option is as mentioned AutoCAD Inventor. I just started playing with it, and it's not too bad. Not quite as easy to use as a Solidworks, but it's better than ProE. There's a free academic version availiable online, so as long as your a "student" you'll get a freebie copy.