snowcads limits ?

[alexisg1]

Hello everyone,

I am using snowcad to design my skis, as most of people here I guess.
However, the design of skis has evoluted over the past years and I feel snowcad has some limits.

For example, what if you want to design a ski with progressive sidecut ?
Another point for me is: when you design some rockers on snowcad, the junction between the "normal" sidecut and the "negative" sidecut of the rocker is not smooth. If you look at black crows skis for ewample, the tip is almost straight at the junction (no sidecut, or zero sidecut) : this is not possible on snowcad.

So, do you have the same problmes ? Do you use another CAD program ? Not necessarily dedicated to ski design ?

[falls]

yeah alexis. I have started using autocad for drawing template and tip/tail shapes. It takes a bit more learning and time than snocad, but gives you much more freedom in design, especially with ski design and rocker/5 dimension ski designs like the rossi S7 and armad JJ among others.
I think you'd find a fair few builders here are using another cad program rather than snocad. I think snocad is really great if you are making traditional skis, but as you said gets limited with more cutting edge or experimental designs.
There are some free or low cost CAD programs available on the internet. Auotcad is probably overkill because 2 dimensional drawings of ski shapes no matter how experimental are only scratching the surface of a full CAD program's potential. If you are choosing one make sure it can export your drawings as dxf files because this is what a lot of CNC operators will want to deal with.

[doughboyshredder]

I gave up on trying to teach myself cad drawing. Paid one of the smart guys on here to do my drawings in solidworks. Krp8128 did a great job incorporating my funky sidecut in to my board design.

[SRP]

I'm with you. Snocad is great for what it is, but trying new things you quickly see it has some short comings. I am just starting to learn autocad to open up more design possibilities. I have also gotten things close to what I want in snocad, then transfered to autocad and had someone who knew it better help me finish it.

[alexisg1]

All right, thanks for the answer.
I was afraid I did not explore all the functiuns of snowcad.

I have solidworks (but don't know how to use it) and autocad. I'll go for autocad, doesn't seem to be too complicated.

Now I'm wondering what software is used in the industry...I'll ask people from salomon (headquarter is in my town).

[carnold]

Hi. For what it's worth.... Learn to use Autocad. Once you get the basic concepts you'll love it. Import a .dxf from snocad 'tweek' it and import to CNC software. Machine your bits and bingo fast, accurate and fully flexible.
Nearly every cnc can use a .dxf as can most cad. I've only used a few different cads and Autocad is super user friendly and ace for snowboard design. Chris.

[alexisg1]

Thks Chris.

The problem I have so far is when I import wy "snowcad" basic model into Autocad... The ski is made of a polyline that has thousands of points...not much workable ...

I do not plan on using a CNC, as I don't have one and don't know anyone here who could help me with that.

[SRP]

I am having the same problem as alexisg1. When I import the dxf to autocad it is a lot of tiny lines that make it unworkable. Is there an easy way to fix this?
Carnold, it seems this is what you are doing, any suggestions?
Any books in particular for learning autocad that anyone likes?
Thanks for any help

[carnold]

Hi. I have mostly used Autocad to edit the layers in the snowcad .dxf files. For my latest design I have redrawn the snowcad base outline as a series of tangential arcs. This gives me good data for CNC ing.
If you want to draw your own ski design use the spline tool or tangantial arcs. With the spline... Use as few control points as possible. You can 'refine' your spline by adding or removing control points and moving the controls. There are tools in Autocad to convert polylines to splines and to reduce the control points on the spline. I couldn't get satisfactory results however and have either used the polyline generated by snowcad or redrawn over the snowcad with a spline or arcs.

[knightsofnii]

my cnc guy has to do something to the dxf i export out of snocad to blend all the infinite amount of points, but i dont know exactly what it is he does as he uses some software I've never heard of.

For everything else, I bought a program called Viacad 2D/3D, from Punch software. $99bucks. I've been doing my mold designs with it and its working so far.

[carnold]

Hi. Any chance you could ask your 'CNC guy' what the software is to ditch the extra point data?
It's a problem as the CNC software that I have uses all the point data making the whole operation run really slowly. Works fine and is very accurate but it's not necessary and I'd like to be able to control the machining speed to suit the different tooling/materials that are use in a snowboard.
Chris.

[knightsofnii]

yea i'll find out

[bobbyrobie]

Well with the polylines you get very jittery movement on a cnc setup as there is so many damn points with how snocad is setup. What i do is just redraw the arcs. very simple. The machine then can cut a smooth arc.

[Head Monkey]

I have an algorithm that simplifies the paths from snoCAD-X that I apply when I import a DXF into MonkeyCAM. If you guys can’t find anything out there to do that easily then I’ll consider factoring it out into a stand-alone program… but hopefully someone can find a simple way to do it in a more standard CAD app…

Also, FWIW, I’ve sent Dan email about a number of issues with snoCAD-X, and included the vast number of useless points as an important one to fix. I haven’t heard back yet, but I’m hoping he’ll release a new version with this plus some other small fixes.

[carnold]

Hey Mike. Thanks I appriciate your offer. I think that by far the best solution that I have is to redraw the profile as a series of tangential arcs. The CNC software that I use (Xilog+ and/or AlphaCAM) is very happy with arcs and it gives me full control of the design. Chris.