Tutorial 5: Coffee Mug (Revolve, Fillets, Render)

Goal#

Model a classic ceramic coffee mug about 90 mm tall and 84 mm in outside diameter at the rim (76 mm at the base) that holds roughly 300 ml filled to 10 mm below the rim (about 350 ml brimful), with a 3.5 mm wall, a 6 mm thick base, a slightly flared rim, a swept D-shaped handle and generous fillets. Then assign glazed ceramic and a coffee surface, set up a studio scene and produce a finished render.

A mug is the best way to learn Revolve, because the body is a single profile spun around an axis. It also teaches the two things that separate a decent model from a convincing one: edge fillets (nothing real has a perfectly sharp edge) and appearance setup.

What you'll learn#

• Drawing a revolve profile with a spline-free, fully constrained outline.
• Revolving 360 degrees around a sketch line.
• Building a handle with a Sweep along a path and a profile.
• Joining the handle, then applying fillets in a sensible order.
• Assigning appearances, tuning roughness, and adding a liquid body.
• Setting up the Render workspace: scene settings, environment, ground, camera and render quality.
• Saving a render as an image.

Prerequisites#

• Tutorial 1.
• A computer with a reasonable GPU is helpful but not required; in-canvas rendering runs locally and cloud rendering runs on Autodesk servers and may consume cloud credits depending on your plan (see Local vs Cloud Render).

Dimensions overview#

Steps#

Part A: The revolve profile#

1. Start. File > New Design, save as Mug. Units millimeter.
2. Sketch on XY. Create Sketch, XY plane. The Y axis is the vertical axis of the mug; the profile is drawn to the right of the Y axis (positive X).
3. Draw the outer wall. Press L for Line. Start at the origin. Draw: horizontally to the right to X = 30 (the underside of the foot ring), up 2 mm (the foot ring height), right to X = 38 (outer base radius), then a slightly outward sloping line up to the rim at X = 42, Y = 90. (With the floor at Y = 6, the base is 6 mm thick over the foot and 4 mm thick in the recess outside it.) Close back inside along the inner wall.
4. Inner profile. From the rim top at X = 42 draw a 3.5 mm wide rim top (inner edge at X = 38.5 at Y = 90). Then draw down the inner wall, sloping to X = 34.5 at Y = 6 (interior floor). Finally draw a horizontal line from X = 34.5 back to the Y axis at Y = 6, then down the axis to the origin. The profile is a closed polygon: origin, foot ring step, outer wall, rim top, inner wall, floor, back to the axis.
5. Dimension it. Press D. Dimension: overall height 90 mm (axis from origin to the rim line), foot ring radius 30 mm, foot ring height 2 mm, base outer radius 38 mm, rim outer radius 42 mm, rim thickness 3.5 mm, floor height 6 mm, floor to inner wall radius 34.5 mm. Dimension with radii, not diameters, because the profile is a half section.
6. Straighten constraints. Add a Vertical constraint between the axis points, and Horizontal to the floor and foot ring lines. The profile should show fully constrained black lines. If any are blue, add dimensions or check the Fully Constrained Sketches page.
7. Finish Sketch.

Part B: Revolve#

8. Revolve. Choose Create > Revolve. Select the closed profile. For Axis select the vertical line on the Y axis (click the axis line in the sketch or the Y axis in the origin folder). Angle 360 deg, Type Full. Operation New Body. OK.
9. Look. You have a mug body with a flat interior floor, slightly tapering wall and a shallow recess under the foot. If the body looks inside out or hollow in the wrong place, you drew the profile on the wrong side of the axis; edit the sketch.
10. Rename the body to Mug Body.

Part C: The handle path#

11. Plane. The handle sits on the XY plane in front view. Create a sketch on XY (a second sketch).
12. Handle path. Use Sketch > Spline > Fit Point Spline (or Control Point Spline) with 4 points: Start at X = 40, Y = 78 (just under the rim, 1.5 mm inside the outer wall, which is at about X = 41.5 there); second at X = 62, Y = 76; third at X = 66, Y = 52; fourth at X = 37.5, Y = 24 (the wall is at about X = 39 there, so this end is also 1.5 mm inside). Press Enter to end. This creates a D-shaped arc 25 mm out from the body. Adjust the end tangent handles so that the spline leaves the wall roughly horizontally.
13. Constrain endpoints. Project the outer wall edge with Project (P) as a reference line and dimension each endpoint 1.5 mm horizontally inside it (as in step 18, the ends must sit inside the wall so the sweep overlaps and joins).
14. Dimension. Maximum outward reach from the wall: about 25 mm (X = 67 at widest, against the rim radius of 42). Vertical span between attachment points: 54 mm (Y = 78 to 24). Finish Sketch.

Part D: Handle profile and sweep#

15. Profile plane. Create a plane perpendicular to the path at its start: Construct > Plane Along Path. Select the path, set Extent Type to Proportional and the distance to 0 (the start of the path).
16. Profile sketch. Sketch on that plane. Draw an Ellipse with a 12 mm major axis (oriented vertically, so it is stiff against bending) and a 9 mm minor axis. The ellipse center is at the start point of the path. Finish.
17. Sweep. Create > Sweep. Profile = ellipse, Path = spline. Operation Join (you can also choose New Body for safer iteration), Orientation Perpendicular. Leave Taper Angle at 0. OK.
18. Check the joins. The ends of the sweep should penetrate the wall slightly. If they only touch, the join produces a seam. The endpoints from step 12 are already 1.5 mm inside the wall, so they overlap and fuse with the body; if you see a seam, move them further inside.

Part E: Fillets#

19. Order matters. Fillet large edges first, small ones last, and body edges before the handle junction.
20. Rim. Press F. Select the outer and inner rim edges. Set the radius to 1.5 mm. Tangent chain on. Since the rim is 3.5 mm wide, 1.5 mm each side leaves 0.5 mm flat; that is acceptable. Alternatively use a full round, see the Fillet page for Full Round Fillet options.
21. Foot ring. Fillet the two edges of the foot ring, 0.8 mm (the ring is 2 mm tall).
22. Interior floor. Fillet the interior floor-to-wall edge, 8 mm. This is the large radius that makes the mug easy to clean.
23. Handle junction. Where the handle meets the wall, select the intersection loops and apply a 4 mm fillet. Fillets at such junctions can fail; if it fails, reduce the radius (for example to 2 mm).
24. Exterior base. Fillet the outer edge where the recess underside meets the wall (X = 38, Y = 2) with 3 mm.
25. Done. Check the timeline icons for yellow warnings.

Part F: Coffee body (optional liquid)#

26. Liquid. Create a new body: sketch on the XY plane the inside outline of the mug up to Y = 80 (10 mm below the rim). Revolve 360 degrees as New Body named Coffee. Use Project (P) to project the inside wall and floor edges so the liquid follows the filleted floor. Inset it by 0.05 mm to avoid flicker if rendering shows it.

Part G: Appearance#

27. Appearance dialog. Press A to open Appearance. Search the appearance library for "ceramic" and choose a glossy type. Drag it onto Mug Body.
28. Edit. Double-click the swatch in the "In This Design" list. Adjust color (for example off-white 245, 242, 235) and roughness (0.1) if a roughness slider is offered.
29. Coffee. Search "liquid" or use a simple opaque dark brown (RGB 60, 36, 21), roughness 0.1. For coffee you do not need transmission since the cup is opaque.

Part H: Render#

30. Switch workspace. Choose the Render workspace from the workspace menu.
31. Scene settings. Open Scene Settings. Choose an environment from the Environment Library, adjust its brightness, and set the ground plane and background options (for example a plain light grey background) to taste; the exact option names are covered on the Scene Settings page.
32. Camera. Orbit to a three-quarter view with the handle on the right. In the Scene Settings camera options, set the focal length (around 85 mm for a product shot) and enable depth of field with the focus on the rim; see Camera and Depth of Field.
33. In-Canvas Render. Click In-canvas Render. The viewport progressively refines; let it run until the noise is gone, then capture.
34. Save. Use Capture Image to save the render (choose the format and resolution in its dialog).

Checkpoints#

• Measure Mug height: 90 mm, outside rim diameter 84 mm.
• Section Analysis through the XY plane shows a wall of 3.5 mm and floor of 6 mm.
• Handle area: no sharp seams; a check with Inspect > Zebra Analysis shows smooth stripes across the junction (a stripe jump indicates a tangency break).
• Render has soft shadows and a glossy highlight along the rim.
• Volume of the interior is about 350 ml to the rim (about 300 ml to Y = 80); check by creating a body of the cavity and reading its properties (right-click > Properties).

Variations#

1. Tapered travel mug: bigger taper, smaller handle, add a lid with the snap-fit tutorial.
2. Faceted mug: replace the revolve with a polygon extrude (12 sided).
3. Engraved logo: Emboss text on the outer wall with the Emboss command (see Rib, Web, Emboss).
4. Latte glass: change the appearance to glass and add coffee with transmission.
5. Pattern: a Circular pattern of vertical grooves, 24 around.

Troubleshooting#

Related#

• Revolve, Sweep and Fillet pages give all options.
• Appearances and Materials, Scene Settings, Photoreal Tips for the render part.
• Tutorial 11 shows how to animate an assembly.