Autocad 3d trees

by Design Workshop Sydney

Sep6

Creating 3d trees in Autocad is simple, and is one of the many topics we cover in our Autocad 3d courses. In this blog post we will show you how. Once built you will have a 3d tree block which can be used again & again in future models. Many users keep libraries of blocks to make the construction process faster and more efficient.autocad-3d-trees
First create a new drawing and open the 3d workspace; save it as 3d_Tree.
Next create a rectangle 8 x 6 m, for example. Move the rectangle so that it’s base midpoint lines up with the zero, zero point. Then draw a line dividing the rectangle vertically. Use the Polyline tool to draw two polylines, one for the trunk and one for the outline of the foliage. Then go to: Draw > Surfaces > Revolved Surface and click on the trunk polyline. Go to Draw > Surfaces again to choose 3D Face and draw various objects for the leaves, as on the image above left. You could create a few then use the Copy command (CP) to create multiples.
Then select the Array tool and choose Polar Array > and select all of the leaves; for the centre point select the midpoint of the base; make the number of items 6 or 7. Be careful not to crash the program by entering too large a number. And orbit around to view the tree in 3 dimensions.
Use the Shade command to shade the tree: View > Shade > 256 Color. To add variety of colour to the leaves you could have different leaves on different coloured layers. We would now save the tree object as a Block using the usual procedure, and insert it into future drawings using the usual method.

The 3d interface in Autocad is user-friendly and easy to learn, and we take time to teach a broad range of applications in our classes including modeling, materials, lighting and animation. See many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page. For more information there are lots of resources on the web, but try the Autodesk site to begin with: www.autodesk.com. Support options and user forums are also available from the home page.
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