- 1). Take a digital photo of the side view of an existing piece of furniture you want to base your design on.
- 2). Open your CAD program and click the "Create" menu. Click the "Plane" object; then click in the drawing window. Drag to make a plane object. You'll load the photo's side view onto this plane and then shape the box to agree with the photo.
- 3). Click the "Create" menu's "Box" object. Then drag in the drawing window to define the box to the dimensions of the furniture displayed in the reference photo.
- 4). Click the "Cut" tool, which creates new points to allow you to finely shape an object. Drag the mouse over the reference photo's outline to create new vertices and edges on the box.
- 5). Click and drag over the portions of the box that lie outside the outline you traced. Then press "Delete" to remove those portions. This step completes the copying of the furniture shape from the reference photo. The remaining steps show you how to make the piece an original design.
- 6). Save your CAD file under a new file name to preserve the base model you made in the foregoing steps.
- 7). Select, from architecture and furniture magazines and websites, books on art history and related publications, a motif, idea, theme or style whose essence you want your furniture to communicate. The theme can come from any field, not just furniture design. For example, a photo of a chair in a Web article on the English Renaissance catches your eye. The chair uses motifs like ornately carved acanthus foliage that you want for your furniture. You would thus select "English Renaissance" for the idea to express on your base CAD model.
- 8). Write on paper your answer to these questions: "What's the essence of this visual idea?" "How do I express that idea on this piece of furniture?" You'll shape your CAD model with the answers to those questions. To guide you in answering these questions, download and sketch (on paper) several more photos of structures displaying your chosen idea. For the English Renaissance example, you would download examples of acanthus foliage from websites about architecture, sculpture and other art forms.
- 9). Choose the specific parts of your piece that will express the motif, such as the arms, back or legs.
- 10
Get a photo of an orthographic view (i.e. strictly top, bottom, left, right, back, front) that clearly displays the motif you want. You may photograph your own drawing, refined from your sketches in step 9, for this step. - 11
Load the photo onto another reference plane object in your CAD program, as you did in step 2. - 12
Click the "Move" tool, and use it to position the plane onto the portions of your CAD model that in step 9 you selected to change. Cut new edges that trace the new reference image, as you did in step 4. - 13
Click your program's "Orbit" tool; then drag in the drawing window to evaluate all sides of your furniture.
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