From Sketch to Model
I love to sit in a comfy arm chair and read a book in my free time. In our current apartment we have a nice leather sofa, but no room to put a comfy arm chair, which is such a bummer for me. I am excited for when I can finally have an armchair of my own, so I’ll daydream about this chair until that day comes. Which lead me to want to build some 3D models of furniture pieces when we dived into CAD for CM Studio. Below I have modeled out the Highline Leather Armchair from WestElm, a mid-century modern style chair that I would love to own some day.
Here are my sketches on paper to get the idea of the chair before going into Fusion 360 to make the 3D Model. I chose to use Fusion 360 because it seemed a bit more challenging than some of the other softwares shown to us in class and I wanted to test my skills. (I am very glad to be in a module that is program-based now instead of coding!).
Once I went into Fusion 360, I had some trouble initially figuring out how the program worked. I didn’t understand that the sketch mode is the 2D beginning before transitioning to 3D. It was also a bit confusing because while I followed along with this bookshelf tutorial, I noticed the UI is pretty different from the version in the video compared to what mine looked like. So then I went to Fusion 360’s site to watch some of their tutorials, but they used some jargon I was not familiar with and they were also difficult to follow along. I ended up rewatching the bookshelf tutorial a number of times and caught the difference between finishing the sketch in 2D and then moving to extrude in the Design mode for the 3D model. I figured out how to then sketch out my chair in 2D and extrude the shapes to make my chair.
At times I would look at the model from a different angle and realize that a piece was not placed correctly and then I would need to move it. This was difficult at times when trying to figure out which plane the item would need to move and whether it was a positive or negative direction.
Here is the process of building the chair:
Overall I was able to sort it out and make a revised version of this lovely chair. I enjoyed doing this so much that I also modeled a nightstand from WestElm to go alongside the Highline Chair. Below are my sketches and the 3D model. The overall structure of the nightstand was easy enough, but the tricky part was creating the handle. I have two pieces that connect the rod to the drawer and it took me forever to figure out how to place and move those pieces in order to actually align. I finally figured it out and am pleased with the final product.
And here is the process of building the Nightstand:
Thanks for reading!
