Create Mesh from surface/Intersect Solid and surface?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Hi, I’m relatively new to rhino. I’m trying to create a widebody kit for a scale model of a car. The below images are what I have right now:

77c3db4bf212afb79736d643217ea942.png1639×729 217 KB
d0df1d83e46e955f48eb5d6880232234.png1644×728 427 KB

The second image shows the mesh I want to convert to a surface. Basically, I need the back of the fender (all the black bits on the first image) to fit perfectly with the surface of the car, once I 3D print the fender. I’m not sure which would be easier, 1) Creating a solid once the fender is completely done, then somehow boolean instersecting it with the mesh, or 2) Convert the mesh into a surface and then cutting a section out. If converting the mesh into a surface would be the better approach, what is the plugin that would fit me most for doing that?
Here’s a third picture for clarity. Picture the fender I’m working on “fitting” flush with the side of the car.

cd1831bc3ef4a023651e5d38ae3a3ceb.png1527×695 425 KB

2

Hi Eric - I don’t see any way other than to reverse engineer that mesh with some surfaces - is that the question, how to do that?

-Pascal

3

In that case, yeah, the easiest way to fit a nurbs surface to the mesh body. Do you know any good plugins for reverse engineering a mesh into a surface? Maybe it wasn’t clear, but I also asked if it was possible to do a boolean operation between a mesh, like the body of the car, and a solid.

4

Hi Eric,
There is really no “auto-magic” way to fit accurate NURBS surfaces to a mesh.
The process of “Reverse Engineering” is complicated and tedeous.

There are a lot of service bureaus that do scanning and reverse engineering. Their services don’t come cheap. One company that may be able to help is The OutSide Digital Art and Design.

There are also way to do this outside of Rhino as well. You may want to look at Geomagic Studio. If you do this a lot, it may be worth it. You can import your surface then into Rhino.

With that said it can be done in Rhino without any special tools, just a lot of advanced surface know-how, time and experience. Here’s a link to a document that shows the process of first cleaning up the mesh so it can be rapid prototype printed, and goes on to show some reverse engineering techniques:

There are some plug-ins that may also help.
The list of plugins for Rhino and Reverse engineering can be found here:

Users have reported success using these 3 surfacing products:

  • RhinoResurf - NURB surface converted from mesh/points
  • RhinoReverse - Create spline faces on given mesh data
  • Mesh Flow - Mesh Flow is a reverse engineering related plug-in in Rhino 5.0 and above.

Here’s a link to a wiki page on the subject as well…

Sincerely,
Mary Fugier
McNeel Technical Support and Training
Seattle, WA