Modeling technique

Rhino Rhino for Mac
1

Hello. I am trying to help a friend that needs to 3d print this for his project at the school.
The idea that he has is to have a cubic grid (a cube made with cubes) where the wireframe (tube applied to curves) change the thickness when touches the inner sphere that the cube homes inside.

Please find attached the screenshot. I never needed to do this…but I found it actually interesting now that he asks.

Do you think its possible to do ? ?

Thanks

Bruno

Forum_Cube.png1698×1491 809 KB

2

The way I would approach something like this:

  • draw a line from one of the corners of the cube along each of the ribs, so 3 lines.
  • create a cylinder from a circle around the end of the line with Sweep1
  • create your 3D grid with Array used in Top, Side and Front views.
  • create the sphere
  • copy the sphere in situ
  • cut away all cylinders protruding from the sphere with BooleanDifference, using one of your spheres.
  • store the remaining parts on a different layer and switch it off
  • create a 3D grid from a set of slimmer cylinders in the same way as before.
  • combine everything with BooleanUnion
  • create a mesh from the combined object and start printing.

Max.

3

@maxz Thanks I really appreciate. I guess the recommendation is similar to what I was planning, but I am wondering if its possible to make the transition smoother…kind of automaticlly process…instead of blend each encounter between the sphere tubes and the cube tubes.

Thanks a lot man

4

If all is well you should be able to do the BooleanDifference on all tubes in one go. And forget copying the sphere, that was when I planned to cut away the parts of the slimmer tubes inside the sphere. But you can just leave those uncut, BooleanUnion will take care of that.

Max.