Designing a Case for a Samsung Phone

I have a samsung phone i would like to draw up a a cover for. I have drawn one up and uploaded one on this site and two others. I have been having trouble representing my phone in sketchup/rhino/blender and designing a cover around it. one particular problem i have is that the phone has a curved bottom and that is specially hard to recreate.

any idea on how i can accurately represent my phone in sketchup etc. ???


also another problem --
I made a snap on cover earlier, it did not fit but the lip around the edge was too stiff to push the phone into -- is there amount of length you can give an edge to make it "snap-able"

thanks
.

Which phone? If it's an S3 or something, you should be able to find a file for it. If your like me, and got an S2 Skyrocket, good luck finding an existing file.

What material did you use for your case?

nah, its one of those cheapo Precedent phones they were selling at walmart a while back. the big question is who makes those files and how do they do it? do they use a 3d scanner or is it something you would have to get from samsung.


the material was the generic white plastic - they offer when you first post the design

Your best bet is likely to draw it using measurements you take from the phone yourself. Use a calipers if you have one, or just a ruler. If using Sketchup, you'll want to model at a larger scale than real life or Sketchup will have trouble making all the faces.

For complex curves, you want to use the Intersect with Model command...look up tutorials on YouTube or there's good one in Catchup Magazine #15 - "How to model a Hans Wegner chair in SketchUp".

Marcus thanks for the link. Now I understand what intersect face does, Its is the SU version of blenders difference modifier, but better.

Keith

Yes but what about measuring the curved bottom and sides, then reproducing it in sketchup or blender. I have a pair of calipers I use but that does not solve the problem of measuring the curve and reproducing it.

I guess i could take a picture of it from the side then upload the photo and draw an outline around it and see what I can do with that.

@Fredd...Cheers Sketchup is powerful, but many people don't have the time (or take the time) to learn it.

@val5214 Let me say this first...complex curved faces in Sketchup are hard. Sketchup was never intended for designing them. That said you should be able to get reasonably close.

A set of photos to trace is likely the easiest way, if you can get good ones. Try to take to photos from some distance away so there is less lens distortion from the camera you're using to take the pictures.

Another thing that may work well is using some kind of modeling clay (Crayola model magic works well and isn't sticky) to create an impression, then measuring from that. If you do this, you'll want to mold the clay into a sort of cross section so that you can measure it. So rather than putting clay all around the phone, just put it on half of the back so that you can measure it with your calipers. Does that make sense?

You may also use this awesome Sketchup plugin: Curviloft. You'll need to sign up for a free account to download it. If using this one, create a set of curves based on 'slices' of the phone, then use Curviloft to join them. If you use the modeling clay, you could make a single mold of the phone back and cut it into slices to recreate is Sketchup.