F1 car design in Catia V5

Alright, here we go!

First things first. I have a book about the car I'm designing.

The Modern Formula 1 race car - Nigel Macknight ISBN 0-87938-823-4

In this book, there is a drawing of the car from the top and the side.

I took the book to a copy shop and made great quality scans. Then I took those scans into Corel Draw and cleaned them up, creating vector graphic drawings of the essential lines.

Then I imported these images into Catia V5R21 SP1. For a nice tutorial on how to do this, look here:

http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/showthread.php?53691-Free-CATIA-tutorial-8-(2010-New-release)-Rebuild-Audi-R8-(1-1)

Problem is, I don't have front or rear sketches of the car.

Fire up Catia. Create a new part:

Make sure "Enable Hybrid Design" is unchecked

At some point in the past, I converted the Corel Sketches I had into drawings in Catia, but this is an unnecessary step. I'm going to insert that geometrical set now, but as I say, it's unnecessary. Good enough to follow the above linked tutorial on how to insert images.

My goal in designing this car is to make the simpliest possible design using the fewest points and lines, as clutter free as possible. I'll be inserting lots of geometric sets and using the tree extensively. Insert a geometric set.

Ok, let's define the total length of the car first. According to the Formula One Technical Regulations of the time ARTICLE 3.5 BODYWORK AND DIMENSIONS - Overhangs:

No part of the car shall be more than than 50cm behind the centre line of the rear wheels or more than 120cm in front of the centre line of the front wheels.
Furthermore, no part of the bodywork more than 20cm from the longitudinal centre line of the car may be more than 90cm in front of the front wheel centre line.
The centre line of any wheel shall be deemed to half way between two straight edges, perpendicular to the surface on which the car is standing, placed against opposite sides of the complete wheel at the centre of the tyre tread.

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_T93/30 the wheelbase of the car is 3030mm.

If we assume that the designer would use the maximum amount of overhang for the front and rear wing (which they probably would) that would make the total length of the car (max front overhang + wheelbase + max rear overhang) = 900mm + 3030mm + 500mm = 4430mm. Working this out on my Corel sketches derived from the scan out of the book, it appears to be correct.

I'll insert another geometric set "DIMENSIONS" and within that geometric set, another I'll call REARMOST POINT

Open Start -> Shape -> Generative Shape Design and click to create a point

Create a point at X=-4430

Now I'm going to enter a constaint on the point with the distance from the yz origin (I think this is unnecessary, but good practice)

Next I'll create an infinite line through Point.1 in the direction of the xy plane.

And another in the direction of the zx plane. I'm doing this because I'm going to anchor other points and lines on these infinite lines to ensure that no lines are too short, or too long later.

Add another geometric set MAXIMUM BODYWORK WIDTH. According to the Formula One Technical Regulations of the time ARTICLE 3.3 BODYWORK AND DIMENSIONS - Width and shape between the front and rear wheels:

The maximum width of the bodywork behind the centre line of the front wheels and in front of the centre line of the rear wheels is 140cm.

So assuming the car is symmetrical 1400mm / 2 = 700mm

I'll place a constrained point and another infinite line at Y=700mm. No need to mirror this or repeat it on the other side, as we'll really only be focusing on designing one side of the car

This should be enough for me to now draw the profile of the car as seen from above.

Insert a geometric set under REFERENCE LINES, "ALL BODYWORK TOP PROFILE." Under this I'll insert a geometric set "POINTS."
Change to the Start -> Shape -> Freestyle workbench.
Change to the top view.
Right click on the compass and check "Lock Privilaged Plane Orientation Parallel to Screen"
Now I'm going to put a point on the scanned sketch at -500 to get started.

I'll add another point at X=0 Y=112 and connect the two points with a line.

Now, double clicking on the point at X=0, I can put the curser into the Y= dialog box and using the directional arrow keys on the keyboard move the point in until the line matches up with that on the sketch

This line (and a few others I'll create) will help to set tangency and curvature of freestyle curves I'll be drawing later. Hide the points, they are no longer necessary, it's the line I'm after. Repeat this process for any other straight lines, like the sidepods, and the rear deck. Hide the DIMENSIONS geometric set for now.