"Inflated" surface with Patch? Or some other way?

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

Hi, Im on Rhino for Mac

I am trying to make these surfaces look “inflated”

With Rail Revolve the surface looks distorted, and with Patch is more like a flat, peaked mountain.

Is there a “easy” way to make a patch surface look “inflated” , meaning more bulgy at the edges ?

Or maybe some other way? How about SubD? Is there a clever way to “Inflate” a SubD surface?

Please have a look at the attached file, to see what I mean.

Thanks !

Hans Henrik

Turtle shell.3dm (19.2 MB)

Here I have tried to make a SubD from a Patch (QuadRemesh with SubD Interpolate edge)
And then nudged the loops with SelEdgeLoop. But this is time consuming, and not really smooth result. Any other suggestions?

TurtleShell2.3dm (16.3 MB)

[ftzuk]

Very easy would be spheres. Scale them vertically etc.

[ftzuk]

Or subd:

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

thanks This looks fast on a plane surface.
How would you do that on a double curvature base surface ?
how do I align the gumball , so it is not in z direction ?

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

I found it here - align Gumball with Object:

How to edit gumball rotation, position, alignment along object?

If you click in the white circle on the Gumball, there is an ‘align to object’ choice but in a case like this where there are multiple surface normals in the polysrf selected, you’ll need to instead use RelocateGumball. Follow the prompts in the command line for repositioning the Gumball origin and axis directions. Alternately, you could make a new Cplane and use the Reset Gumball option with align to Cplane enabled.

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

extrude a helper surface off the edges of this “bump” in the opposite direction you want to “inflate” it. (if you are inflating up, extrude down)

then matchsrf to that surface then use endbudge to adjust the puffiness. (or use history see below)

then matchsrf (use history too for more fun)

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

thanks ! How did you make the first (top) surface? its not a trimmed patch, so what is it?
(and thankyou for the illustrations ! I really didnt have a clue what you meant at first )

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

that is a rail revolve. I drew a centerline using the “normal” option in the line command which allows you to draw a line normal to a surface.

there is actually an excercise int eh level 2 manual which you can get from help>learn rhino>tutorials and samples>level 2 pdf

Chapter 8

domed buttons-

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

Thanks ! When I do rail revolve on those surface curves, I get weird shapes in the dome. This screenshot is with axis curve normal to surface

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

yep, now turn on the points for the surface and flatten them with gumball

grab all these-

snap the gumball to the center point and align with your normal curve-

scale the points to zero which will smash them flat-

now that they are flat, you can adjust the “puff”

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

wooow ! - kyle… you blow my mind ! Thankyou very much !
and thankyou for the advanced pdf tip. I guess we all have to get there eventually

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

yes I got it

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

now that you a re a control vertice editing pro,

the next row down can be smashed flat too, and scaled in or out to adjust the angle in which it connects to the base surface- and moved up or down to control the “puff” more specifically.

just don’t mess with the very bottom row- that controls the connection to the base.

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

wow, amazing ! I like the little double-click (on the quarter cirkle in the gumbal) to rotate gumbal - I dont normally use gumbal. Didnt know it was so versatile !

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

yep, double click the center to relocate, double click a rotate handle to reorient, double click an arrow to move it along an axis.

single click to add numerical values.

use osnaps for super easy alignments.

drag the dot to extrude, drag the slash to cut.

it’s a fabulous tool that can do a TON of stuff-

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

Thanks again for the advanced tips !

The Loft option turns out to be a lot faster, and with way simpler isocurves.

1. Make a center line, normal to surface
2. copy paste the base curve (blue dashed curve on the surface). Nudge-elevate a few copies
3. Loft command - select the three curves, and end with a point somewhere on the Normal-line.
4. choose Loose option - that makes the curves to create control-points, instead of interpolated !
5. The Loft surface has a single center control point , that is easily nudged in position to a smooth surface “bubble”
6. After that , its easy to play more with controlpoints, and gumball.

[theoutside (Kyle Houchens)]

you read the lev 2 manual

add all the tricks to your bag-

happy modeling!

-K

[ohlers (Hans Henrik)]

thanks ! And thanks again for introducing this pdf. really helpfull!