This is just a little update to let everyone know I have not died and am beginning to continue on in life. I have had a few days recently to work on the "other" Abrams in my life and wanted you all to see. I decided to re-do most of he entire thing since I had done the most of it in blocks instead of Xref. In AutoCAD you can't edit blocks in place as easily as you can edit Xref's. I also had new info available and better measurements so I had a lot of correcting to do. I am not very far past where I was when I re-started, so this will seem pretty familiar to some of you.

Welcome back Rob. It is good to see you posting again. The project looks great. I can't wait to see more. Please keep us updated as you progress!!

Brother Abrams

Cool!
Welcome back.


Steve

Bro..try not to be a stanger.Always loved what ya do!

Hey rob,

Nice looking Abrams. And good to see you back. Do not worry about the departure, I've had one when I did a stint with the Air Force earlier this year.

Welcome back,
Dave

I decided to change the colors to something a little more subdued when a friend told me he thought they were awful. I also have a lot more done on the suspension.

I give you props, Autocad is not the easyset program to do 3d stuff in. I use it in my profesion (architectural designer) and when i have to do a 3d project for a client, i usualy do the building in autocad, and render it in bryce 3d, great job so far.

I'm actualy rendering in TurboCAD v 10, it has a much easier rendering interface and you can save the rendering as a jpeg. They are not real high quality but they let others see what I am doing, and that's enough for now. I need to find a better rendering engine. I might wait till next semester when I will be using Vis3d.

I made some new hi-res renderings to show off some of the detail. Still learning the rendering aspect so these are much better than the old ones. Unfortunately they are too large to post here so I had to put them at webshots. Click on the "View Full Size link."

http://community.webshots.com/album/267722303vhrioR

Finally added some track teeth and more suspension components. I also started on the engine bay doors.

As I have said before, this thing is amazing. I am watching this closely and can't wait for you to finish it!

Thanks Brent, How are you and the mrs. getting on in BFE?

well, heres another update. No real work has been accomplished since the last images, but my company just bought me a very high end design program called Inventor for my home pc. I am not very profficient on it yet but after just a few hours of learning I have converted all my abrams ACAD files to Inventor file and I must say this thing is sweet. What took my computer five minutes to render before is now done automatically in real time by Inventor. I just can't believe what this program does and I have only learned the basics of it so far. Well, I am going to go play. Updates to follow.

Allright we have success. I have successfully computed the turret geometry using said new program and am beginning to be able to make the turret panels now. Here's the first look at the turret weldment (the parts that are welded to form the shell). There are some parts that still need clean up, like the sharp angles on the side, but I was so happy I finally have the geometry done I couldn't wait to show y'all. Let me know what you think.

Rob

little more progress