Solving double curvature surface, transition from rectangle to oval

Hello all,

I am trying to create a similar piece to this warped glass panel (ref image) As you can see the trick is solving that single module from the panel that consists in a double curvature surface, that gives a bump effect. what is difficult to me is that the shape starts out as a rectangle and then seems to transition very smoothly into a oval shape (ref sketch) but I can’t find a good way to design this specially because it seems to arc quite steeply and then transition smoothly at the top. Perhaps someone from industrial design knows how to solve this better.

for reference in real life the glass was reheated in a kiln over a mold to take this shape

Thanks!

Easiest I can think of would be to create a rectangular plane, then rebuild with 4 control points in each direction and move the center 4 points up to match your shape.

Hello - is this it?

-Pascal

Hello @pascal and @phcreates!

thanks for the quick replies! I got a little sidetracked from this last week, but I think your model looks good but it isn’t quite like that. The tricky part is I think the effect has this bulging effect, almost as if you where blowing the liquid glass through a frame, in section i think it almost immediately starts to bend.

Not sure if my explanation makes sense, I will try some more options!

Why wouldn’t you just make the bumps a separate object and blend them to the flat? You can make the transition do whatever you want.

bubble.3dm (324.7 KB)

So far my solution has been a bit complicated, I stated with quarter of the rectangle and made a surface from 4 lines, then I used mirror and match surface with tangency. Finally I used a combination of Move UVN and smooth on the surface points.

Still I feel its missing something, perhaps the way it reaches the borders?

@JimCarruthers not sure how that procedure would work? what commands are you thinking on using?

why not simply using patch. a rectangular and a point in the middle, turn on history and move the point up down and change the shape of the rectangular to change the surface.

1 Like