Soap dish, in two pieces
A 150 × 80 soap dish and the drainer that drops into it: one block rounded, hollowed and chamfered, and a plate traced from the basin itself, floating ten millimetres over its floor, shrunk half a millimetre to fit and perforated by the store's Voronoi Cells. Eleven steps: parameters, fillet, shell, chamfer, offset, offset body, and a boolean that shapes one part against the other.
11 steps
What it builds
- Sketch
- Extrude
- Fillet
- Shell
- Chamfer
- Offset body
- Subtract
- Code smart object
Step 1
Sketch the outline, and name its size
Click Create sketch, then the flat blue square lying on the grid — the XY plane. Open the menu next to Rectangle and pick Rectangle (from center), then click the origin. A small panel follows the cursor with the size in it: type W(150), press Tab, type H(80) and press Enter. Written that way each number becomes a named parameter, and every step after this one is measured from them.
Step 2
Extrude it 18 mm
Click Finish Sketch, select the rectangle and Extrude it 18 mm, then confirm with OK (or Enter). The dish starts as a solid block: it is easier to round the outside of a block and hollow it afterwards than to model walls.
Step 3
Round the four corners
Click one of the four vertical edges at the corners and, holding Shift, the other three — turn the camera with the right mouse button to reach the one behind. Pick Fillet, give them a Radius of 20 and confirm with OK. Round the block now and the hollow inside comes out rounded too.
Step 4
Hollow it with 2 mm walls
Click the top face and run Shell with a Thickness of 2, then confirm with OK. The face you picked is the one removed: what is left is the dish, walls and floor 2 mm thick.
Step 5
Round the inside of the floor
Choose Select edges in the Selection menu and click, inside the dish, the edge where the floor meets the far wall. Pick Fillet with a Radius of 15 and confirm with OK. A generous curve instead of a corner: soap slides out of it and a sponge reaches everywhere. Esc puts the menu back to plain Select.
Step 6
Chamfer the bottom edge
With Select edges still chosen, click the outer edge where the dish meets the table and run Chamfer with a Distance of 5, then confirm with OK. A chamfer this big is there to be seen: it lifts the dish visually off the counter. Esc goes back to plain Select.
Step 7
Trace the basin on its own floor
Click the floor inside the dish and then New sketch on face. The sketch arrives with that face's outline already in it, as reference geometry: double-click it to take the whole loop, not one side. Pick Offset, move the pointer outside the loop, type 15 and click. Fifteen is the basin fillet's own radius, so the outline lands exactly on the wall — and its corners grow to the basin's radius on the way.
Step 8
A plate floating over the floor
Click Finish Sketch, select the region and Extrude it 4 mm with Combine set to New body and an Offset of 10, then confirm with OK. Offset is where the extrusion STARTS, so the plate hangs ten millimetres over the floor — the gap the water drains into.
Step 9
Shrink it half a millimetre
Open the Selection menu, choose Select bodies and click the plate: the whole body, not a face. Run Offset Body with a Distance of −0.5 and confirm with OK. Negative shrinks it on every face at once, which is the clearance a part needs to drop into another one instead of jamming.
Step 10
Let the dish shape the plate
With Select bodies still chosen, click the plate and then, holding Shift, the dish. Run Subtract, turn on Keep tools and confirm with OK. The plate is a straight rectangle and the basin is round, so the dish carves the plate to fit. Keep tools is what stops the dish being eaten as the tool it was used as.
Step 11
Perforate the plate with Voronoi Cells
Rest the pointer on the SmartObjects icon in the right-hand column, type voronoi in Search, pick the textures category in the strip on the left and click Voronoi Cells. The window closes and a bar asks you to click a region or a face: click the top of the plate. Set Depth to 3 — the plate is 3 mm thick after the shrink, so the cells go right through — and Margin to 5, the plain border that keeps the plate in one piece. Building the lattice takes a while and it rebuilds after every change: wait for the holes before clicking OK.