Modeling furniture in SolidWorks

[thansen]

Can anyone tell me if I can make basic
multi-part (but not too many parts)
furniture in a SW assembly, rather than
have a ton of different part files all over
the place?

I am doing custom furniture, and I probably
won't need the parts in the future, but to
render them in Studio Max, I need to make
each part distinct, so it will recognize it as
separate and render it correctly.

Has anyone on the forum done much furniture
design in SW?

 

[bcampbell]

they are called bodies,

in most commands you have an option called merge, unselect this.
the result will be multi-body parts.

you need to learn surfacing also.

 

[CK]

Multibodies is a good option for this task. I would suggest assigning a material to the parts, If the furniture will be a wood finish, and experimenting with the Photoworks add-in rather than going to the trouble of rendering in studio Max. I guess its all about software preference though. I am currently doing some architecture designs in SWX on the side, Decks, Bathrooms, Kitchens, etc. and I have been happy with my results so far.

 

[skateboardkid]

Make multibody parts in the part window, then make sure nothing is selected, and use the split parts tool to split your part into its seperate bodies. Then import the parts individually dropping them onto the origin point in the assembly.
Everything will be fully defined and you can build parts in context in the parts window.