Cucina was a personal project of mine that I started to challenge my surfacing skills in SolidWorks. The design is a model of a kettle with a minimal form language but still featuring some interesting surface transitions. This was also an exercise in rendering a fully shiny chrome object in KeyShot with details and subtle imperfections to make the render as life-like as possible.

Although SolidWorks is not as capable as Rhino or as complex as Alias, it has its own set of quirks and best practices that I wanted to familiarize myself with.

The surfacing features in the program are well integrated with the solid modeling features which allows you to transition in and out of surfacing as needed. I use this as a shortcut to establish the surface blend transition points in the model using the standard circular fillet feature. The fillet surfaces are then deleted and reconstructed as curvature-continuous blends to close the form with seamless transitions.

The handle was the quite challenging to get the form right while still maintaining a minimum surface continuity of G2. I was eventually able to get the form I was imagining with some extra guide curves, working on one half of the handle body and splitting the surface in the right places. It is a satisfying feeling when you finally get the zebra stripes flow just the way you wanted.

A trick to getting realistic renderings is to focus on the details and imperfections. While the model in CAD is finished with defined edges, manufactured objects are not sharp to the atom. Adding a small radius to break the edge goes a long way as it also captures highlights from light sources in the render environment. A groove line where there are part breaks in the model also creates a similar effects in the renders.

Cucina has a polished stainless steel material for the body and the lid, radial brushed stainless steel bases and an injection molded plastic handle that is lightly textured with an MT-11010 finish. The CUCINA branding on the front of the body is laser-etched and the markings in the bottom are engraved.

I am really happy with the way the form turned out. My next goal is to build the same geometry in Rhino and Alias to see how the techniques differ in those programs. I am also excited to build on this project further with a base cradle, packaging and instructional materials.