I am going to show you my process of creating our logo as a sketch using the autotrace add-in feature in SOLIDWORKS.
Branding is important, and by using SOLIDWORKS we can place logos on our models and drawings. I will show you how you can go from picture, to sketch, to feature. You may already be familiar with placing your logo on your drawings, so I will be focusing on how to create a logo prt file as shown below.
First, start a new part file in SOLIDWORKS. Then, start a sketch wherever you would like. Next, go to Sketch Picture, (Tools>Sketch Tools>Sketch Picture) from here you can adjust the picture’s location and scale. But if you go that route, you will have to trace around your logo with sketch geometry. That could be tedious and may not come out perfect. I propose using a SOLIDWORKS add-in called autotrace that you can turn on before you launch the Sketch Picture tool. This will add a second page to the menu that will automatically sketch geometry around your picture. In my experience creating logos in SOLIDWORKS, I’ve found a combination of using the autotrace tool with manual adjustments afterwards, was the best workflow for me personally.
After a bit of tweaking the color tolerance and recognition tolerance, I get a decent looking trace out of my logo. After confirming the sketch picture property manager, if I wanted to, I could easily add relations into my sketch. (You may want to suppress the picture after confirming, just to see the sketch better.)
Now you have your company logo as a sketch! From here you can do many things with it, let me show you some cool examples I have made recently!
In this TriMech holiday ornament, I created a fun geometry and suspended our logo inside.
This TriMech logo stamp was 3D printed on our large format PolyJet printer, the Stratasys J850. It came out pretty good considering it was a first attempt!
We 3D printed a TriMech stencil and tested it with spray paint. I created the stencil file, by using the negative space from our logo file.
We awarded the winners of our TriMech’s fantasy FIFA league this 3D printed soccer ball stand with of course, a special edition soccer ball to display on top.
If you’re looking to enhance your SOLIDWORKS skills, check out our catalogue of training classes available.
