Most people know about the Golden Ratio—a specific ratio of a rectangle’s length to width that can be divided into rectangles with the same ratio. But many do not know how to use the Golden Ratio in SOLIDWORKS.
In this Video Tech Tip, I introduce the Golden Ratio and how this special number plays a role in math, nature and SOLIDWORKS. With the help of SOLIDWORKS drawing tools, you can use simple squares, lines, arches and rectangles to create a Golden Spiral.
From there, you can use the Planer Surface tool to create a surface body off the sketch or use the Move Copy Bodies tool to reproduce the rectangle, rotate and repeat. By using sketching to connect vertices to create triangles, you can transform your once Golden Rectangle drawing into a three-dimensional Perfect Icosahedron, which is one of the five platonic solids.
To take the design one step further, I use SOLIDWORKS to hide the surface bodies and use the sketch to create a solid. This can be done by surface modeling with the Lofted Surface tool. Creating an axis will help designers repeat a body pattern without having to manually do it twenty times. Once you have your water-tight solid, you can use the Knit Surface command to convert all of the surfaces into a single solid body.
