IMSI TurboCad V7.1 Professional Review - Ty Harness 6 th June 2003

The aim of this review is to evaluate and teach myself how to draft in TurboCAD (TC). There's no better aid to learning CAD than using the software on a real job. Even today there is no real standard in communicating your drawings over the internet. Plot files, VRML, DWF and even PDF, but people still attach large CAD files by email and expect the end user to know what to do with them. Three major problems with sending the source CAD files are: one, the user steals your hard work and profits from doing nothing; and two, people can misinterpret the drawings e.g. you may have a hidden layer containing the existing steel work but you wanted the customer only to look at the new steel work, and three the end user doesn't have the same CAD application and version.

The job:
An ornate church style grille that needs to be cut out on a Trumpf Trumatic Laser Profiling machine tool(M/T). The client's designer has sent an AutoCAD2000 DWG, but none of the piercings are continuous poly lines and the DXF conversion fails when transferred to the M/T.

The procedure:
I used TC to open the DWG and to remove some extra AutoCAD layer information and other superfluous information by copying and pasting the grille into a new metric TCW document (where mm are the default for the M/T).

At this point I'll just make a JPEG image with TC (File, SaveAS (JPG)) so I can show you all what the ornate church grille looks like.

This feature is great for making web pages and also communicating your ideas across the web, but it's not often associated with CAD or engineering.

The piercings are made of arcs, lines and the geometry provided is not 'water-tight'. I've decided to trace over the piercings with the spline tool onto another layer. Using symmetry, I only needed to do one-side and then use the mirror tool. I can now delete the original entities leaving me with only continuous polylines.

This is a real job and it has a real cost so we can use TC to work out the cutting distance and area of wastage etc. Tools - Measurement - Distance - RB Single Entry

Tools - Measurement - Area - RB By Entry RB Close.

TurboCAD can then produce data for a Laser Cutting Tool (in a 2D DXF format). Save the file as a DXF(v12) and change the setup options to 16DP precision. Before sending the DXF to the laser cutting company, I know the Trumpf Trumatic uses JetCAM CADCAM software. JetCam produce a free DXF viewer which gives some confidence that the DXF will be understood by the M/T.

I guess at this point I better show you the final results (cut by Titan Fabrications,Lincolnshire). The decoratively styled security grille is a lot nicer than just plain 'burglar' bars.

TC is a 3D CAD system so via extrusion and 3D boolean editing tools I can turn the 2D model into 3D model.

To turn the 2D grille into a 3D Model:
View the drawing Isometrically.
and zoom extents.

select all the objects including the outer border
RB properties
3D
solid
thickness (3mm for me)
Apply material (Metals - Chrome)
We now need to subtract all the unwanted material
Modify
3D Boolean Operations
3D Subtract

first pick the part you wish to keep then click the material to remove.

Keep going until you've removed all unwanted material. (TC does a great highlighting job showing you where you've been).

Once done, render it and you'll soon see if you missed any parts.

I changed the options to LightWorks Full Render and TC applied a default ambient light.

In this case I don't need 3D data, but the photo realistic renderings are a valuable marketing tool for web sites and brochures. I've enjoyed using TC for the first time and I think it's a good piece of software.

Ty Harness

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