What's Your Software/Workflow?

[el01]

Fellow case designers- I am curious as to what software you use for your design purposes and for general use. This is my workflow/software for your viewing pleasure:

• Sketch on printer paper with pencil (0.7mm graphite variety that I get at Walmart)
• Inkscape/GIMP for 2D modeling and drafting
• Tinkercad (currently moving to FreeCad and OnShape) for 3d design
• Chrome as browser (Firefox wasn't working for a while, I will move back later
• OpenOffice for local word processing
• Google Drive for school and documents I want shared
• Minecraft and Solitaire for fun

 

[Beardedswede]

I don't design any cases .. yet. But I will even if it's for myself only. I do work as a industrial designer so my everyday tools are usally.
Sketch: big pile of A5 (devided A4 papers ) some thicker "fine liner" , good ballpoint pen. And some accent color and grey scale markers.

3D. mainly fusion360, some rhino.
Rendering and animation with keyshot 7
+ A lot of other stuff

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Sketchup:

Freecad:

Lead mines + Paper + digital painting (Krita on PC or Autodesk Sketchbook on phone/tablet):

ultimately .... reduced scale folded paper:

Edit: I forgot to mention mind maps. I use them a lot on my phone (SimpleMind on Android) to organise and refine my ideas

 

[el01]

Sketchup:

Freecad:

Lead mines + Paper + digital painting (Krita on PC or Autodesk Sketchbook on phone/tablet):

ultimately .... reduced scale folded paper:

Edit: I forgot to mention mind maps. I use them a lot on my phone (SimpleMind on Android) to organise and refine my ideas

Thanks for the information! Could you recommend any 3D Drawing techniques to me? I can do 2D fine at a very small scale, as I don't do straight lines very well without a ruler, but 3D even with a ruler is a complete disaster. Also, how do you use a ruler very very fast?

Thanks!
-el01

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

For "3D" drawing, I use 2 points perspective (and sometimes 3 points if I need a feeling of height).


To draw straight lines by hand, I look at where I want my line to end rather than where the tip of my pencil is.

But my best advise would be: TRAIN. Skills come at the cost of training, starts with simple things, add details only when your comfortable with drawing the basic shape.

 

[owliwar]

concept phase :

drawing and sketchUp
drawing for proportions, sketchUp for general dimensions. I usually go back and forth until I'm pleased.
I use a lot of the resources of this forum, because they tend to be more accurate


I like to draw in either 2 point perspective or a losely isometric perspective.

cad work:
solidworks in the past but migrating to fusion360 , and I export to sketchUp for 'virtual prototype', since sketchup has a lot of acurate parts to download, its a fairly acurate preview of how things are going to fit. Grabcad is a great place for resources as well for cad files.

cad model exported to sketchup : you can see that all parts are for the final thickness and it has all the fitting in the right places. its very acurate


for 3d rendering I use keyshot, but there are some plugins for sketchup as well and I think it should be easy to find a free one.
I've tried blender once but the setup is too long, so I'm trying to find a better option.

if you use fusion as a cad program, it can export to sketchUp and from there building a scene or getting parts into for render should be very easy

for prototyping and personal projects I used mdf and I still think its a great material for personal projects, its cheap and stable. doesn't last too long though.


General tips:

I don't think drawing is a entirely necessary skill with case design, but it certainly helps A LOT and make trying out options a lot faster (if you know the basics)
the skills needed for product sketching are really foundation techniques so Its really easy to get the basics but mastering it takes time of course. if that's close to your career goal (or is something you are interested in doing), I think its something worth pursuing.

see if you have access to some design sketching books on a library or something. they help a lot in getting the basics

edit:

here in the forum there are some great tutorials for basic dimmensions, read it all up https://smallformfactor.net/forum/resources/categories/guides.9/

 

[el01]

concept phase :

drawing and sketchUp
drawing for proportions, sketchUp for general dimensions. I usually go back and forth until I'm pleased.
I use a lot of the resources of this forum, because they tend to be more accurate


I like to draw in either 2 point perspective or a losely isometric perspective.

cad work:
solidworks in the past but migrating to fusion360 , and I export to sketchUp for 'virtual prototype', since sketchup has a lot of acurate parts to download, its a fairly acurate preview of how things are going to fit. Grabcad is a great place for resources as well for cad files.

cad model exported to sketchup : you can see that all parts are for the final thickness and it has all the fitting in the right places. its very acurate


for 3d rendering I use keyshot, but there are some plugins for sketchup as well and I think it should be easy to find a free one.
I've tried blender once but the setup is too long, so I'm trying to find a better option.

if you use fusion as a cad program, it can export to sketchUp and from there building a scene or getting parts into for render should be very easy

for prototyping and personal projects I used mdf and I still think its a great material for personal projects, its cheap and stable. doesn't last too long though.


General tips:

I don't think drawing is a entirely necessary skill with case design, but it certainly helps A LOT and make trying out options a lot faster (if you know the basics)
the skills needed for product sketching are really foundation techniques so Its really easy to get the basics but mastering it takes time of course. if that's close to your career goal (or is something you are interested in doing), I think its something worth pursuing.

see if you have access to some design sketching books on a library or something. they help a lot in getting the basics

edit:

here in the forum there are some great tutorials for basic dimmensions, read it all up https://smallformfactor.net/forum/resources/categories/guides.9/

Thanks! I also use GrabCAD, but given I was previously using TinkerCAD, it didn't work so well. However, I do wish I did drawing virtually on a tablet (I don't have one). I really wish I could find a better-featured version of Google Drawings. Google Drawings is pretty easy to use (along with FreeCAD), but it is heavily limited in dimensions, but unlimited in shapes and such.

The link is really cool, thanks!

P.S. Why is everyone so freakishly good at drawing???:,(

-el01

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

P.S. Why is everyone so freakishly good at drawing???:,(

Anyone can draw, it's just a matter of training (both your hands and your eyes). Observe things and try to reproduce them, don't get discourage if it looks like a potatoe at first .

 

[miptzi]

Anyone can draw, it's just a matter of training (both your hands and your eyes). Observe things and try to reproduce them, don't get discourage if it looks like a potatoe at first .

And if I can't even copy a potato with decent accuracy... What's next?

 

[jØrd]

And if I can't even copy a potato with decent accuracy... What's next?

Practice, no one is born w/ any given skill set, it has to be learned.

 

[owliwar]

P.S. Why is everyone so freakishly good at drawing???:,(

Practice and time spent drawing mostly x) (in my case I'm a professional Illustrator)

for product sketching a focused study gets you at very reasonable levels quite fast actually. like, in a few months fast haha
but yeah, its like everyone already said, it takes time and effort

do wish I did drawing virtually on a tablet (I don't have one)

Tablets wont get you very far by themselves. learning to draw in a tablet is a common beginner trap, IMO.
I feel like learning how to sketch on paper first is easier and better in the long term. Use some disposable ink pen for a final look and scan the drawings. crop only what you want to show and it will get the message across;

when you learn to draw in a tablet there are many layers of difficulty because you are trying to learn 2 things at once, usually drawing, coordination and the software itself. if you are already comfortable with most topics before learning a new one, it gets a lot easier.

like, I only use my tablet when I do illustration. for product sketch and design I go from pencil sketch to cad. My recommendation on sketch Up is because its a good way to represent your ideas better without taking too long.

for digital coloring, like some mentioned already, Krita is a decent digital painting tool and its free/opensource.

And if I can't even copy a potato with decent accuracy... What's next?

Practice, no one is born w/ any given skill set, it has to be learned.

accuracy is just one way to draw, and there are many I totally agree with jØrd;
my tip is : have fun. draw things you need to get better but also things you like.

 

[darksidecookie]

I haven't been designing cases lately (none that I can show yet anyway ) but this is the process i use for most of my design work at school.

my design process usually begins with some research and a pinterest board, after that i usualy but not always make a moodboard to get a feel for the style and look and feel of the design.

Fom there i get to sketching, usualy on paper with a black ballpoint but recently I have almost completely swithched over to sketching on the ipad because you can undo .

sketch on ipad in notes:

if the asignment asks for i hand render i use sketchbook pro on the ipad to make those.

from there it's cardboard, foam and mdf models but i quite often skipp this step because of time limits.

Then it's time for CAD, i still mostely use solidworks but i'm slowly migrating to blender for the free licence.
Next up is rendering, here i mosly use blender, but sometimes i still use solidwork's build in renderer if i'm on a deadline.
Then those renders go in photoshop and thru lightroom for that extra touch .

 

[confusis]

So much talent on these forums, it's scary sometimes!

 

[Windfall]

Shit. I suddenly feel SO incompetent. I do what @owliwar does, except like 1/100th as good.

So much talent on these forums, it's scary sometimes!

You got that right. If we wanted to team up and start a case company to destroy CM or thermaltake or somebody, it wouldn't even be a fight....

 

[Boil]

That GPU sag... ;^p

 

[Boil]

Why is everyone so freakishly good at drawing?

Anyone can draw, it's just a matter of training (both your hands and your eyes). Observe things and try to reproduce them, don't get discourage if it looks like a potatoe at first .

And if I can't even copy a potato with decent accuracy... What's next?

Practice, no one is born w/ any given skill set, it has to be learned.

Practice and time spent drawing mostly

Check out the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain"...

 

[Choidebu]

I can't even draw on paper but now you're telling me to draw on a brain. Now whose head shall I cut down??

 

[el01]

I can do paper modeling (I did a house once): Images will come later. Tolerances, on the other hand, may not be the best to discuss. (same with my attempt to model with Balsa wood)

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

I can do paper modeling (I did a house once): Images will come later. Tolerances, on the other hand, may not be the best to discuss. (same with my attempt to model with Balsa wood)

Foamboard is nice to build mockups. There are plenty of tutorials available.

 

[el01]

Foamboard is nice to build mockups. There are plenty of tutorials available.

I will look into it. Thanks