Is there a standard technique for drawing 3D objects

[deadseasquirrels]

I am new at drawing in 3D, so I was hoping to get some tips about drawing in 3D so that I'm not doing things terribly inefficiently. Right now I am trying to design a closet mock up. Which means a lot rectangles. I have the basic gist of drawing rectangles, though I am still not that familiar with drawing rectangles on an intermediate plane not on an axis.

I'm reading tutorials online and have only begun to use the technique of viewing the drawing from different angles to utilize the easiest way of creating things.

Right now I am creating shelves. I have one view in isometric, but when I want to make a second shelf, that is say, 2' below the top shelf I go to a front view where it looks like I am staring at the closet head on. Is that the best way of designing shelves?

Also a big issue I have is trimming and extending objects. I wish I could do that in 3D but apparently you have to use another type of tool, but I'm not sure I understand how. Can somebody explain to me how I can do trimming and extending on 3D objects?

[hendie]

when you say "3D", do you mean wireframe or solid modelling ?
after learning wireframe, I went on to solid modelling and I don't think I've ever used wireframe since.
The most important thing is to learn and understand the use of UCS's, once you've got the hang of that, the rest is pretty simple.

for your shelf problem, I would imagine that the best approach would be to change your ucs to view the cabinet from the top. that way you can see the extents of the space for the shelf to fit within. simply draw a rectangle to fit in that space, extrude it, then move it to the correct elevation. Then copy it to the other elevations as required.

[deadseasquirrels]

Thanks, yeah I am really trying to get a handle on UCS and WCS and I am still working on that. The way I understand it is that WCS is something that is fixed, the UCS is something that I can change to make drawing my object at any given moment easier. For example I can change my UCS to 30 degrees about the y axis, if I'm going to be drawing a lot of lines like that because then I can use the Ortho command. Is that about right?

Thanks for your tip, but if I do what you say I'll get a rectangular box, but I need the sides to have a certain depth too, so I can't just extrude a rectangle. Unless there is a way to extrude the sides of the rectangular box afterwards.

[hendie]

... but if I do what you say I'll get a rectangular box, but I need the sides to have a certain depth too, so I can't just extrude a rectangle. Unless there is a way to extrude the sides of the rectangular box afterwards.

"a reactangular box" ~ isn't that what a shelf is ?

if you have a rectangle 250 (width) x 175 (height) and extrude it by 20, you will have a 250 wide x 175 deep x 20 thick shelf

[deadseasquirrels]

I guess I meant the whole closet, I thought you wanted me to extrude the rectangle and that would be the entire closet, not the shelf itself. I see what you are saying.

[hendie]

You could also do it that way, ~ extrude the rectangle to be the entire closet, then extrude more rectangles on the front face and subtract them from the closet to give you the voids between the shelves