Lacanche Cooking Range reconstructed from STEP file

Artwork Works in Progress
1

Hello there,

I am new to Blender, switching from SketchUp. I draw things and then build them :slight_smile: Mostly furniture.

For my next big project I started to draw the kitchen of our new house, and found a STEP model of the range we want to use. To get it into Blender, I imported it into FreeCAD and then exported it. It worked, but for some reason I only get one huge object (Blender actually crashes when trying to edit it). Since this range comes in a bunch of colors and even different hardware finishes, I decided to “deconstruct” the file… I exported every object from FreeCAD individually, and put it back together in Blender, which was an exercise in moving, rotating, aligning, mirroring etc.

Surely someone is going to tell me I could have used something else to properly import the file with all objects separated… but it was a good exercise nevertheless :slight_smile:

I am posting it here now for you to check out, and possibly get some pointers if I am doing something terribly wrong.
Once “approved”, I would like to upload it to somewhere for others to use. I am not sure where files like these are shared (Blender warehouse?).

'hoping for some constructive criticism :laughing:

Here is the Blender file: http://paris.drtebi.com/blender/Lacanche-Cluny-1000.zip

shot-2021-10-26_18-02-36
shot-2021-10-26_18-02-361601Ă—1169 126 KB

2

you got blendswap site

by the way what is this file
was unable to open it ?

is it a blender file or obj ?

on note here ?

this is a relatively easy model to do in blender
just find good photos and model it
no need for obj file import !

happy bl

3

sorry just saw the new blend file in my folder!

this is 79 MB in size for a range so big - huge for a range!

way too big and too many verts look at the bevel super high res
this is not needed in blender

you can redo it with a file lie max 5 MB and still get a nice render

if you compress the file it goes down to 38 MB!

happy bl

4

Hi and thanks for your comments.

Well I am still new to blender, so not exactly that easy for me to model this. And I also don’t have any measurements, it should be done to scale…

I was already wondering about the file sizes, it seems awfully large to me too.

But the question is, can I fix this file to get it to a smaller size without starting from scratch?

5

i think it would be easier to simply redo it most of it
except may be for the burner parts on top

all the body doors knobs can be redone with less verts
should be pretty easy to do
and for if you do make separate parts for the door and knobs

for bevel try to add a bevel modifier and only a few segments
it is a modifier so it can be change aftweward

happy bl

6

i did a very quick re model medium poly
look at it and see how small it is and still render well
using smooth and some bevel

bevel are modifier so you can set the size at will

have fun

Pasteall.org

happy bl

7

There is a .step importer addon for blender, it costs a little money, but it is well worth it. It imports .step files cleanly and in a logical way. it’ll build collections and nest them as needed, so you can have organized sub components. it will also instance identical items to reduce file size:

8

Thanks for the tip, but since I am on Linux I won’t be able to use it I am afraid.

I think I will continue to learn the basics of blender and eventually make this a nice exercise to recreate the range from scratch :slight_smile: I can probably get all measurements from within FreeCAD.

9

did you check the file i uploaded ?

it is way smaller then the one you uploaded and does the job
with less verts count

happy bl

10

oh sorry, kind of overlooked that! Yeah, looks like a good start. I’ll learn some more basics and eventually redraw the whole thing… except for the grills maybe.