designing tubers with cad
 

hey guys i just got inventor 2008, im just wondering how all of you guys are drawing tubers?? maybe im just not good enough but seems extremely hard to draw them! are you just using planes and lofting? thanks for any help guys

The way it is done in Solidworks is quite easy.

1. Create a 3d sketch of the model with just lines
2. Create a plane at he endpoint of the line, normal to it.
3. Draw a circle representing the cross section of the tube.
4. Extrude it along the length of the line.
5. Smile

I have not used inventor, only Solidworks and Wildfire, so the features might be called by different names. But the process should be similar.

Of course if you just want lines you don't have to do steps 2 and 3, but I like to model everything so I can do my packaging.

hmm... ok, sounds like a lot of planes! haha alright ill see what i got! also what about bends?

It is a lot of planes, but not as many as you think. Your 3d sketch lines can be made with splines, they are hard to control in 3d but it is doable. There should be a feature that will allow you to extrude a cross section along a path. That path can be anything, i.e. a curve. If I were you, draw one side of the frame, then mirror it about the right plane, that way you don't have to worry about symmetry.