r/jewelryCAD | reddlx

Building a dynamic pave placement system - looking for feedback from CAD users

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a procedural pave placement system in JewelCore, and it’s turning out to be more complicated than I expected.

The idea is to have the solver automatically handle stone and prong distribution based on Min/Max stone sizes, while top and side pave also account for each other’s boundaries to avoid intersections and overlapping geometry.

I’m still keeping the advanced controls exposed, so the user can fine-tune the result for different production requirements.

This demo uses a standard Grid layout. I’m currently working on the Honeycomb pattern as well.

I’d really like to hear from people who actually use pave in their CAD workflow. Does this approach make sense to you? Any edge cases you think I should be thinking about?

u/Plane-Good-6147 — 13 days ago

▲ 1 r/jewelryCAD+1 crossposts

Advice for Investment Casting of Gold, DIY Engagement Ring

I'd like to make my partner's engagement ring. It's something I've wanted to do for years, and hopefully you only get one chance, right?

I'm an engineer with a lot of tools, including a good workshop, dremel, microscope and a lot of experience making & designing things. But admittedly, no jewellery experience...

As much as I'd like to do the whole process myself, I think I'm going to take advantage of an online 3D printing and investment casting service, then finish the ring myself.

Maybe set the stone myself as well, but we'll have to see. Much advice needed here!

I've designed a prototype in CAD that I'd like to get some feedback on. Both the design, but also what allowances/tolerances I should design in for the casting?

Casting wise:

Any advice on the following would be much appreciated: minimum feature size, expected shrinkage, sprues, and design limits for what is possible with 3D-printed wax/resin casting. How oversized should I design the elements to allow for polishing losses?

I think I'll go for yellow 18k gold.

Does anybody know a good UK casting service that will print the pattern for me as well?

Design wise:

My partner doesn't like things too flashy, and I think she'll like what I've come up with, but maybe I'm missing things. Once I lock in a design, I might swap the circular prongs for D-shapes, or the front and back leaves for something flatter. The current stone is a 1 ct oval diamond.

Eventually, I think I might add a very small Euro shank to the base to help prevent it from spinning.

The prongs are very much a draft at the moment as I'm not sure where best to place them, 45 degrees or 55? Tulip tip ending OK or should the prong only be a longer single point right at the end?

There are some very tight spaces in the basket area, what is the best way to polish them after casting?

Is my split spiral design a crazy choice, or workable?

u/NDVak — 12 days ago

▲ 0 r/jewelryCAD

AI in Jewelry Design

I'm a jewelry designer and bench worker with more than 7 years of professional experience.

Ever since AI started getting talked about there's been an "arms race" going on in several fields, jewelry included, to get AI to substitute current jobs. In our case, jewelry design. Here's my two cents on the situation:

The vast majority of jewelry designers use Rhino or Rhino plugins like RhinoArtisan or Matrixgold because Rhino allows for a mixture of creative freedom with surface work and a rigid control of measurements which is essential in jewelry. This is true as well for other areas like architecture which was actually where I first learned Rhino from. Rhino also allows for a pseudo-AI/parametric workflow through Grasshopper which is what the aformentioned plugins use to simplify a jewelry designers life.

The variables in jewelry design are imense and specific to the specific request of the specific client and the specific work methods at a company. As such, the idea that AI based programs will eventually simplify jewelry design to the point anyone can do it is ridiculous.

That being said, I do believe AI is and will become incredible for communication and rendering, allowing for the creation of highly detailed and realistic images which have their place in design, both at allowing a client to comunicate what they want and for designers to comunicate what they've designed.

What do you guys think? Will be happy to hear your thoughts.

reddit.com

u/Hefty-Lavishness-635 — 12 days ago

▲ 2 r/jewelryCAD

Help with Overlapping Polysurface and SubD Advice

I'm creating this starfish design for a client by creating an outer outline curve and an inner circle curve. I used sweep 2 to sweep several sweep shapes along the two rails.

https://preview.redd.it/86fo4jpys1th1.png?width=1216&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6a8193e4e48f21fa54050a32944c44012b7ffc5

I've gotten pretty close to what I want using this method.

https://preview.redd.it/u3um44v1t1th1.png?width=1211&format=png&auto=webp&s=9711641a1dc2de3bcfa5d5abeddd2dbad769d170

But the polysurface wraps in on itself in a couple places. Especially near the beginning with the first sweep curve at 11 o'clock ending so close to the second sweep curve on the inner rail.

https://preview.redd.it/9n3tkoiat1th1.png?width=1201&format=png&auto=webp&s=13680504c46b74f16b32e49b76962aa4151808b0

I found this tool in Rhino tutorials called Move UVN where you can unwrap surfaces, but you need to be able to see the surface's points with _pointson. However, _pointson doesn't work with a polysurface, so I can't seem to apply the Move UVN tool to this object.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fix this overlapping issue in my polysurface?

I feel like a lot of people will tell me to approach this design using SubD. I've looked at a few tutorials, but now sure where to start. Should I being by extruding the outline of the design and start shaping from there? I seem to get a lot of segments when I do that. Or should I use primitive objects and build it piece by piece?

u/apoh1698 — 13 days ago