AutoCAD has been since 1982, and imagine those of you who have used AutoCAD to make your drawings in the field of Manufacturing, Architecture, Engineering and Construction. Since the 3D revolution, there has been a craze to move ahead in the Z Direction and I’m sure there are many companies willing or forced to move forward to the 3D world.

Many questions come to the mind of the engineers and various companies who have made their designs in 2D

• Do I need to redesign / draw those 100′s of drawings done in 2D ?
• Will I lose my digital design data during migration ?
• During migration will my settings be retained ?
• Will customers accept the 3D data that are migrated from 2D ?

There are many more questions that pop up in the crunching time like can I migrate from 2D to 3D and will there be benefits.

But trust me 2D can never be replaced in a manufacturing company but these companies can add 3D to their workflow to aid the manufacturing, like for example CNC machining process simulation developed from the 3D model, can help the shop floor engineer think better and yield better productivity.

So, if you are a company using AutoCAD for a long time, then if you are forced to move to 3D. Then I would just recommend you to migrate to Autodesk Inventor.

Another question may pop up in your mind as to why only Autodesk Inventor ? The answer is very simple – Data migration from AutoCAD to Autodesk Inventor is as easy as say moving a folder from one hard “E” to another hard drive “F” within a computer.

So let’s go technical

You can directly open AutoCAD DWG (.dwg) files in Autodesk Inventor using the open command and then view, plot, and measure the file contents. The AutoCAD objects remain as AutoCAD objects in Autodesk Inventor, and display exactly as they do in AutoCAD. In addition, all the AutoCAD data is selectable for copy and paste. You can open an AutoCAD DWG file in Autodesk Inventor, and then copy and paste AutoCAD entities into any Autodesk Inventor sketch.

While Autodesk Inventor drawing data and AutoCAD data can coexist in the same file, some data is shared between both applications. Blocks, layers, and sheets/layouts are editable by both AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor. Dimension and text styles, while not equal, are synchronized such that supported changes made in one application are duplicated in the other application

DWG interoperability is the key for the successful migration from AutoCAD to Autodesk Inventor

Can I open and save DWG files in Autodesk Inventor if yes what scenario can I think ?

• Copy AutoCAD data directly into an Autodesk Inventor sketch without opening AutoCAD. You can choose to import AutoCAD blocks as Inventor sketch blocks (see Sketch blocks) when you create an Inventor part file.
• View, plot, and measure AutoCAD data in Autodesk Inventor and Autodesk Inventor data in AutoCAD.
• Add Autodesk Inventor drawing data to existing AutoCAD files or AutoCAD data to Autodesk Inventor drawing files to make a single file containing assembly drawings, schematic diagrams, and details.
• Add Autodesk Inventor drawing data to existing AutoCAD files or AutoCAD data to Autodesk Inventor drawing files to make a single file containing schematic diagrams and details.
• If you have customers using AutoCAD, supply them with drawings containing Autodesk Inventor data containing the appropriate layers, blocks, title blocks, and borders by creating a DWG template in Autodesk Inventor.
  Note Creating a DWG template in Autodesk Inventor streamlines the translation workflow.
• Reuse Autodesk Inventor data in AutoCAD:
  • Create associative drawing views in architectural drawings for plant layouts, and so on. Deliver views of finished 3D design created in Autodesk Inventor for reuse in architectural drawings (AutoCAD).For example, place views of equipment designed in Autodesk Inventor into an architectural drawing for plant layouts.
  • Create associative drawing views of redesigned subassemblies and place them in large, legacy 2D assembly drawings.For example, if you have legacy AutoCAD files that require updating with 3D models, you can open the file in Autodesk Inventor. Create the 3D solid, and then create a drawing of the 3D model. Open the file in AutoCAD, and create an instance of the block definition of the view. Your legacy drawing is updated with the new content.

What can happen if I open by AutoCAD Data in Autodesk Inventor ?

Move beyond 3D and develop a complete digital prototype of your product with Autodesk® Inventor® software. Inventor allows engineers to integrate AutoCAD drawings and 3D data into a single digital model, creating a virtual representation of the final product. Using the single digital model, you can design, visualize, and simulate your product digitally, minimizing the need for physical prototypes.

Inventor software makes it easy for you to take full advantage of your investments in DWG™ design data and AutoCAD expertise. The Inventor software suites even include the latest version of AutoCAD® Mechanical design software so that you can continue to take advantage of the AutoCAD built specifically for mechanical design.

Top 10 Reasons to Add Inventor to Your AutoCAD Workflow

1. Digital Prototyping

Digital Prototyping with Autodesk® Inventor® software gives you the ability to create and explore a complete product before it is built. Inventor software makes it easy for AutoCAD® software users to realize the benefits of Digital Prototyping by enabling them to integrate 2D AutoCAD drawings and 3D data into a single digital model. This single digital model creates a virtual representation of the final product that helps engineers to better design, visualize and simulate their product with less reliance on costly physical prototypes —thereby improving time-tomarket, and increasing competitive advantage.

2. AutoCAD® and DWG™ Interoperability

Inventor software helps AutoCAD users to quickly become proficient with Digital Prototyping workflows by offering a familiar design environment, AutoCAD-compatible shortcuts, and out-of-the-box user profiles for AutoCAD experts. And with true DWG™ file support, Inventor users can leverage their existing 2D drawings to build accurate 3D models. Inventor software provides direct read and write of DWG files without translators. So, you will be able to share critical design data securely, efficiently, and accurately with partners and suppliers who rely on AutoCAD software.

3. 3D Mechanical Design

Design better products using 3D. Inventor software offers a wide range of tools to simplify the transition to 3D design for AutoCAD software users and get them productive immediately. Breakthroughs in both assembly design and part modeling offer dramatically easier to use, easier to learn design tools. Intuitive AutoCAD-style sketching and direct manipulation modeling offer an uninterrupted workflow for quickly exploring and evaluating concepts. Specialized features accelerate the design of plastic parts and sheet metal. In addition, easy-to-use tools help to guide assembly creation, so that every part and component fits together correctly.

4. Automatic Drawing Updates and Views

Change it once, change it everywhere. Inventor software associates drawing views to the original components, so a change made to any part or assembly is automatically reflected in all associated drawing sheets. Improve drafting productivity by automatically creating front, side, ISO, detail, section, and auxiliary views of parts and assemblies from the model. Quickly annotate drawings by retrieving the dimension information directly from the design. In addition , the digital prototypes you create in Inventor software can be used to quickly generate compelling 3D product documentation—from assembly instructions to operating procedures—using Autodesk® Inventor® Publisher software. Learn more at www.autodesk.com/inventorpublisher.

5. Design Automation

Autodesk Inventor software features rules-based design and automation tools to accelerate design by automating common tasks, enabling engineers to focus on design intent rather than manually modeling geometry. Inventor software captures the functional requirements of a design to drive the automatic creation of intelligent components and accelerate design cycles. Fully integrated Inventor iLogic technology can dramatically simplifies rules-based design to help any Inventor user—even those with little or no programming experience—to define complex product configurations, increase engineering productivity, and optimize designs.

6. State-of-the-Art Visualization

Quickly and easily create stunning renderings, animations, and presentations that improve communication with your design partners and customers. Autodesk Inventor software provides state-of-the-art visualization, illustration, and animation tools directly in the default workspace, giving you a realistic representation of your design at all times. Dynamic shading, precise lighting control, and the included library of high-resolution textures make it easy to create photo-realistic scenes of your final products in actual environments.

7. Automatic Bill of Materials

Create automated and associative parts lists and bills of materials (BOMs) that are developed specifically for manufacturing. Support is included for multiple parts lists per drawing, collapsible assemblies, and automatic recognition of standard parts. With automatic updating, changes ripple through the entire design to help keep everyone on schedule with accurate part counting, identification, and ordering. Features can be customized to match current company practices, and BOM data can be exported to a variety of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

8. Easy-to-Use Simulation

Predict how your designs will work under real-world conditions before they’re built. Autodesk® Inventor® Professional software provides easy-to-use motion simulation and stress analysis tools to help you create better-quality parts and avoid field failures. A comprehensive simulation environment provides support for motion simulation and static and modal finite element analysis (FEA) of parts, assemblies and load-bearing frames. Autodesk Inventor Professional also includes Moldflow® plastic simulation tools to validate the design of injection molds for plastic parts. And, because these tools are tightly integrated with the 3D design software, it’s practical and cost-effective to employ simulation throughout the design process.

9. Pipe and Cable Routing

Autodesk Inventor Professional software provides the power to quickly and accurately add routed systems, tube and pipe runs to 3D designs. Routed designs automatically comply with user-defined design rules to reduce errors and save time. In addition, the cable and wire harness routing functionality helps mechanical engineers to integrate electrical controls into 3D mechatronic product designs. As with all Inventor files, the assembly drawings automatically update whenever the routing model is modified.

10. Integrated Data Management

Autodesk Inventor software includes integrated data management with Autodesk® Vault software, a centralized application for workgroups that securely stores and manages workin- progress design data and related documents. For additional functionality, such as revision control, file and folder security, and BOM and ECO management, learn more about the complete Vault family of products. www.autodesk.com/vaultfamily

Source – Autodesk Inc, USA

Reading the above 10 Points, I’m sure you would be interested in updating your software to the current version, again Autodesk has made offers un till July 18th 2010,

Visit – Autodesk Get Current Promotion Offers

If you are from India, there are offers going on with Autodesk Inventor Click Here

Note: Offer expires July 18, 2010. The offer includes discounts on upgrades (including traditional cross-grades), retroactive Subscription and standard Legacy Program purchases

Offer expires July 18, 2010. The offer includes discounts on upgrades (including traditional cross-grades), retroactive Subscriptionand standard Legacy Program purchases

With rapid change in technology, especially in the area of Computer Aided Design, customers are demanding quick and accurate 3D models for their easy visualization and quick project completion time. Further there is a rapid transformation from 2D CAD to 3D CAD solutions. This article provides an overview and basic technique available to convert the existing 2D CAD drawings into 3D CAD models without much loss in time and data using 3D Computer Aided Design software’s like Autodesk Inventor. This technique not only allows users to convert CAD 2D drawings, but also allows conversion process with more accuracy. Further the various concepts involved in converting the 2D CAD drawings into 3D CAD Models leading to easy conversion of STL format, which can be later used for physical prototyping is a also discussed

Introduction

3D is a real object or true depiction of real image. Though we may be viewing 3D image on plane paper or computer monitor (both flat 2D), our brain compares 3D image with its own archive of 3D real objects as seen by our eyes in past and hence even not so good 3D image provide more information to our brain than plain 2D drawing. Even for a layman, identification of high rise sky scrapper is just easy if you show him a 3D model but extremely difficult if you show him Plan, Elevation and Sectional Drawings of same building. For engineer, both are good enough, because he is trained to understand 2D. Well! In simple terms, understanding 3D is part of natural process, where as you need to get trained to understand 2D

Design engineers generally focus on one main issue; they include either designing or drafting or in some applications both. The primary difference between 2D and 3D technology is apparent in the amount of time designers spend on these tasks when they use the respective tools. Unlike 2D drafting tools, 3D modeling technology provides life like representation of a design, from structural composition and the way parts fit and move together, to the performance impact of characteristics such as size, thickness, and weight. When design engineers can see the sum of the parts in 3D, they can see issues and opportunities without ever having to spend time creating documentation. Further any CAD user would definitely affirm that a simple 2D drawing doesn’t attract much attention, but the third dimension tends to impress people Rather than starting a new product concept with meticulous 2D technical drawings of elements that might not function as planned, this technology quickly shows whether a design idea is viable or not based on existing data. This difference amounts to business advantage for companies that otherwise might have to retrace all manufacturing processes in search of an answer or build physical prototypes of products that don’t function as desired.

2D to 3D Conversion Technology

With the emergence of 3D modeling tools, which occurred two decades ago, it is estimated that roughly 75% of the current CAD user base still primarily employs 2D drafting. Although with rapid change, the pace of migration from 2D drafting to 3D modeling to have accelerated, unyielding time-to market constraints offer no opportunity for manufacturers to allow users to adapt to new paradigms and convert legacy drawings into new formats without being productive at the same time. Yet some manufacturers are not only accomplishing this feat, but excelling in top-line and bottom-line measures.

All 3D CAD tools available in the market today can easily generate a 2D drafting view from a 3D CAD model and this further proves to be genuine true. Further this technology is used in every day project activity by a designer, which in turn can be directly used by a machine operator to manufacture the component using any sophisticated CNC machine. However the concept of converting a 2D drawing into a 3D native CAD model is quite challenging and the process of conversion looks quite complicated. However this process is now simplified using popular 3D modeling tools like Autodesk Inventor, Solid Edge which is a 3D CAD solution provider. Further one needs to understand that, the concept of 2D to 3D technology is to simplify the process of creating 3D part models from existing 2D CAD drawing.

Further this technology helps design and manufacturing engineers to improve productivity to a greater extent. Typically, reconstructing a 2D geometry into 3D model involves the use of basic Extrude feature and this is easily accomplished if the projected views are aligned on orthogonal planes. Apart from features mentioned above, other features like hole, chamfer, and fillet are ideally created by Boolean operations which involves cut and intersect options. The algorithm that works in achieving this technology is generally based on Boolean operation. To understand this technology, the 2D to 3D conversion is carried out from AutoCAD 2008 to Autodesk Inventor 2008 developed by”AutoDesk®”.

Benefits of 3D in an organization

With many companies migrating from 2D CAD to 3D solid modeling for mechanical design, Solid modeling shortens design cycles, streamlines manufacturing processes, and accelerates product introductions by improving the flow of product design information and communication throughout an organization, as well as among its suppliers and customers. For any business, this means faster time-to-market and higher quality products translate into increased revenue, while reduced design costs provide larger profit margins.

Some of the benefits of 3D are listed below

Faster product design (roughly around 45% faster on average)
Automatic flattening of sheet metal parts (with bend allowance)
More effective communication with suppliers/customers
Visualize more ‘what-if’ scenarios during the design process
The ability to create renderings and animations for design proposals or reviews
More effective internal design reviews
Generation of virtual prototypes allows non-CAD people to participate in the process
Easily incorporate late design changes
Test and validate designs to reduce costs from quality problems, errors, ECO’s
Reduce the need and cost of physical prototypes
Automatic Bills of Materials
Better employee morale
Increase customer confidence and loyalty
Data management to organize and manage your design data
Helps to standardize on detailing and drafting practices
Easily manufacture your designs with industry leading partner products
Automate your design process and increase speed and accuracy of output and response to customers
Allow non-technical personnel such as sales department (and even customers) to quote, specify and configure product whilst maintaining your design & engineering integrity

3D CAD and Product Development Process

Nowadays the product development team must look way beyond questions of drawing productivity when deciding on the right CAD tools to specify. 2D CAD technology has delivered all the drawing productivity improvements that are likely to get and those benefits have long ago been absorbed. 3D CAD, on the other hand, is a completely different technology, capable of delivering far more wide-ranging benefits across the whole of the engineering and collaborative engineering process. Whereas 2D CAD shortens time scales to some extent, 3D CAD goes much further, directly supporting the whole product development cycle, speeding up every activity and increasing the quality of design by
removing many sources of inaccuracy and error, the accurate 3D solid geometric model, together with all the non-geometric engineering information attached to it, becomes a complete ‘digital product model’ for purposes of design review, holding all the information required to analyze, procure and make it, in a form immediately usable by all engineering processes. When allied to product data management and the Internet, 3D solid modeling provides an entire foundation for product information flow across the collaborative engineering network. A 2D drawing is an indirect and incomplete representation of an engineering product or system, subject to interpretation and error. Taking off data in correct form for downstream analysis, simulation and manufacturing processes requires additional effort and is subject to mistakes. Sending drawings electronically to partners, customers and suppliers is fine, but the potential for errors and misinterpretation remain. By contrast, 3D solid modeling produces a complete and accurate geometric model of the product, analogous to a physical model. Any required geometric and physical information can be derived from it for purposes of engineering analysis, simulation and manufacture, using linked specialist applications that have become an integral part of the concurrent engineering process. Given this high degree of integration it becomes feasible to iterate through several cycles of design, analysis and manufacturing simulation at an early stage in design in order to encourage innovation while achieving the best possible product within the time available. Product and engineering data management, similarly integrated, ensures that the engineering product is fully and accurately documented by the time the design is complete

Basic 2D to 3D Conversion Methodology

001

Typically any 3D modeling tool that involves the conversion of 2D to 3D should work in line with the above flow chart in order to create accurate and quick 3D models from existing 2D drawings. The same process is also used by Autodesk Inventor 2008, in generating 3D CAD models. However during transfer of data from 2D to 3D sufficient care should be taken to ensure smooth transition process. This includes exporting only the desired geometry (lines and polylines) and retaining the layers, dimension styles, all axis lines that exist in the 2D data. Further the properties like line type, line weight are also vetoed.

Further with reference to the figure 2 if all the views are oriented in a glass box, i.e. in their respective position, then the process of extrusion and Boolean operation becomes easier. This is the basic concept of 2D to 3D conversion.

002

Interoperability Issues

From recent developments, in area of CAD, interoperability is the key issue which integrates various CAD CAM CAE tools. Further, this technology helps seamless transition of CAD data either from 2D to 3D or from 3D CAD tools to CAE tools. The geometric kernels, used in these tools are seamless, since they work on the same coding using popular programming tools like C++, C# and VB.

Stages in conversion from 2D to 3D

Converting 2D files to 3D solid models can be expensive and tedious for large manufacturers with tens of thousands of product drawings. But a programming mathematics combines the series of thin slices on a logical path to form a 3D object. Every 3D object used in AutoCAD or Inventor got its base as 2D shape. Box got rectangle as base shape and Cylinder got circle as a base shape. When dealing with 2D model, the third dimension is silent (zero value), as soon as third dimension assumes some value other than zero is given to accommodate the changes in 2D to 3D, model is now termed as 3D model. How ever, the fundamental concept is to arrange the 2D geometry onto a”glass box” making it easy to convert the design into 3D

The key concept apart from use of tools like Extrude and the work flow that involves in conversion from 2D to 3D is listed below in 4 steps leading to effective conversion technique. Further a simple case study is taken to understand the conversion process.

1. Establishing the base geometry (front View)
2. Identification of projected geometry (Side and Top View)
3. Alignment of various geometric views
4. Extrude (Boolean operation)

1. Establishing the Base Geometry (front View)

A 2D drafting tool like AutoCAD having file extensions as *.dwg provides seamless data transition into any 3D CAD system. Hence a drawing as shown in figure 3 is generated in AutoCAD 2008. Further this data is imported into Autodesk Inventor 2008 using Insert AutoCAD file option. During this translation process, using filter technology option built in, Autodesk Inventor, data like dimensions, various line type parameters, layers are filtered before they are actually imported into the 2D to 3D module. This process leads to effective and accurate conversion from 2D to 3D. Once the views that are drawn using AutoCAD are imported into inventor, the base view is aligned along the XY plane. However, this process can be extended to conversion of a manual drawing into CAD drawing using the technique of raster to vector conversion. The base view generally refers to the front view in any orthographic projection.

003

2. Identify Projected View geometry

With a seamless data transition from a 2D CAD package to a 3D parametric CAD tool, it is essential to have a significant technique to enable quick and accurate orientation of data from various views. This process can generally be established by orienting various views into a box, which provides all three planes like XY – YZ – ZX, since a 3D model can be viewed from 6 different orientations. To better understand this, consider a cube, which includes all the 4 views followed by top and bottom view. Based on the view type, the corresponding views can be selected to better associate with the front view as shown in figure 05.

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3. Alignment of various geometric views

Once a the basic views are identified, that are necessary for creation of a 3D Model, the orientation and alignment issues are very important before the 3D model can be extruded. These alignments are generally carried out using basic translation technique which basically includes only move command to appropriate plane, since other technique cannot provide an accurate 3D model. However it is clear that when translation process is carried out, the entire view is made use to position accordingly. Figure 6 provides the three view alignment before this could be converted into a 3D model.

4. Extrude (Boolean operation)

The models, after appropriate orientation, need to be extruded for creating the 3D model. The conversion is generally made easy by selecting one view at a time. Once the basic view is extruded, it is essential that all other views needs to be created using a combination of Extrude and Boolean operation, by accomplishing this process the final 3D Part model would be ready without any errors. However the user must ensure proper use of the sketch, since, once the sketch has been utilized for extrusion or Boolean, that sketch cannot be used again. The process of cut and intersect is mainly used for arriving at the final model. To better understand this technique refer figure 7.

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Conversion from CAD to RP files

Any 3D modeling tool, has the capability of converting a 3D CAD model into an STL file. This conversion is again using the triangulated format technique; generally know as the STL format. These formats help users to directly interface with any Rapid Prototyping machine to quickly create a 3D Model. This technique calls for quick concept to market scenario since, the process of physical prototyping is taken care in a short time. Further any changes can always be done within considerable time, leading to better sustainability in the market. The concept of rapid prototyping reduces the manufacturing mistakes. Some manufacturing companies require a physical prototype due to ergonomics in mind. No matter how good the model looks on the screen, one can’t tell how it will behave once he or she handles the model.

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Conclusion:

Most 3D modeling systems offers features that help manage the accuracy and completeness of 2D to 3D conversion. However, the stages of conversion seem to be a major concerns, if the extrude and Boolean operation is not used properly. Further, Manufacturers plan to add 3D modeling to 2D drafting instead of replacing it. This is the main reason which calls for such conversion technique. However if these technologies can accommodate, conversion of 2D assembly drawing into a ready to use 3D assembly models, then the technology growth would be at its peak and most companies would go into 3D technology, and the cost factor would drastically drop down. This will encourage even mid-sized companies to wrap up 2D to 3D technology and this trend would continue to grow among all verticals.

Are you a AutoCAD user? Have you tried converting all the orthographic drawings in your CAD department into 3D Part models using Autodesk Inventor®? If no, then this tutorial is for you and a must for every CAD engineer.

With a new tool released from Autodesk Labs, 2D to 3D Tool for Autodesk Inventor, life is much more interesting for every CAD professional. In this tutorial we shall focus on how to convert a 2D drawing created in AutoCAD® into a 3D part model in Autodesk Inventor.

I recommend you download this tool from Autodesk Labs and follow the procedure for installation as given in the User Guide Download.

Let’s begin with the tutorial.

Step 1: Make sure you search for an old orthographic drawing done in AutoCAD, maybe way back in the ’90s. I am using a drawing file created in 1998. (This is to make sure you can implement this feature from any version of AutoCAD.)

Step 2: The isometric view and orthographic views are as shown in Figures 1 and 2 below.

1

Figure 1

2

Figure 2

Step 3: Now make sure you have installed the 2D to 3D Tool for Autodesk Inventor and open Autodesk Inventor with Part Module (mm) as shown in Figure 3.

3

Figure 3

Step 4: Select the command Insert AutoCAD File from 2D Sketch Panel as shown in figure 4

4

Figure 4

Step 5: Now open the orthographic drawing (*.dwg) from the location where it is saved, as shown in figure 5, and click on Open.

5

Figure 5

Step 6: You will be taken to a new window which shows a preview of the drawing to be imported into Autodesk Inventor. Based on the number of layers used in AutoCAD, all can be used or removed by selecting the selective import. Once done click on finish.

6

Figure 6

Step 7: Make sure you can either retain or remove the dimension layer while importing the drawing into Autodesk Inventor. The drawing will look like the one shown in figure 7.

7

Figure 7

Step 8: Now make sure you select the 2D to 3D tool in Inventor as shown in figure 8.

8

Figure 8

Step 9: The various options available in this toolbar are Base View, Projected View, Sketch Alignment, and Extrude.

9

Figure 9

Step 10: Once you click on Base View, you will have your drawing view oriented as shown in figure 10.

10

Figure 10

Step 11: Select the front face and later select the front view as shown in figures 11 and 12.

11

Figure 11

12

Figure 12

Step 12: Now make sure you select the Projected View from the 2D to 3D Tool Bar as shown in figure 13.

13

Figure 13

Step 13: Now go ahead and select the side view as shown in figure 14 using the mouse button and click OK. You will get the side view as shown in figure 15.

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Figure 14

15

Figure 15

Step 14: Similarly, repeat step 13 to get the top view as shown in figure 16.

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Figure 16

Step 15: Once you are sure that all the views are oriented, select the Extrude command (E). Now select the Side View, which has two faces (area), and enter the extrusion distance as 40mm and click on OK as shown in figure 17.

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Figure 17

Step 16: Similarly, select the front view and carry out a Boolean operation as shown in figure 18.

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Figure 18

Step 17: Similarly, carry out the same for top view by selecting the hole with a cut out option as shown in figure 19.

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Figure 19

Step 18: As you complete the steps sequentially, you will get the final 3D PART MODEL as shown in figure 20.

20

Figure 20

Tips and Tricks

* You must work on a new part file to begin this tutorial.
* All the geometry must be located on the same plane.
* All loops must be closed for use with the Extrude command to create 3D Models.
* In order to achieve STEP C the best way is to import the geometry using the Import Wizard.