What is your CADchillis Heel?
I must admit, when I first started 3D Modeling back in 2005 at my local community college,I was very awe struck; especially coming from simple 2D drafting in AutoCAD. I could not believe the power and capabilities these systems had. When my instructor told me that no longer did I have to "draw" views on orthographic, the system would generate them for me; I was flabbergasted!
Since then, I have learned a great deal about Solid Works & Solid Edge (my two primary modeling packages). I started working full time about using them exclusively about 4 years ago, and my knowledge grew exponentially. Sometimes I will be working in one of the two systems and get done doing an operation and think...."WOW" I have just amazed myself! I can't believe I just did that!".
I get this little chip on my shoulder thinking I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then I get on YouTube or the CAD package's respective forum, and I get knocked back down a notch or two....well really back down to the bottom notch! I am simply amazed when I look up videos of my known CAD weaknesses such as Surfacing or advanced sheet metal functions like forming. There are just simply some amazing CAD users out there!
I will tell you, I dont think I will ever understand surfacing. I have done the tutorials and whatnot, but to this day, it blows my mind. That is definitely my one CADchilles heel that I don't know if I will ever conquer. It may be that I just dont use it to make my living on a daily basis, but I just don't get it. Its not to say I don't use "some" surfacing tools like Replace Face in Solid Edge (my favorite surfacing tool available). But for the majority of the functions, I just don't use them or understand them. I see these models of guns and cars and what have you on the internet and am just blown away at the detail. Then I download a CAD file of one say from GrabCad and see that it is a surface model. How do they do it!
Well now you know my kryptonite, what's yours?
Above is a surface model for a jig saw. Surfacing is usually used in plastic design & complex shape/organic shape design.