Sphere cap

[LUKE_YOUNG]

Hello everyone! I was wondering if anyone knows how to do solid patterns on a sphere? I’ve tried squashing a sphere combing flowing with the surface(the way I normally would do if I want some patterns on a cylinder ), but the problem is the squashed surface of a sphere is still quite curvy. which is hard to know how to draw the patterns as I wish…

[DiegoK]

you can use FlowAlongSrf with both base a target surfaces revolved.

[LUKE_YOUNG]

sorry, not sure what you meant…please can you explain it with a bit more steps maybe?thank you very much!

[dharman]

FlowAlongSrf | Rhino 3-D modeling

[LUKE_YOUNG]

Hi, thanks for the reply, but how to project the pattern on a sphere accurately?

[dharman]

In the attached model i have created two surfaces:

1. A sphere with the ends removed for clarity
2. A surface of similar proportions

I have created pattern on surface 1, and by using the FlowAlongSrf command i was able to flow the pattern onto surface 2 like this

Inputs are attached for your reference
flow.3dm (1.8 MB)

You must pay careful attention to the orientation and UV space of both surfaces. if they don’t match, you’ll get strange results

[LUKE_YOUNG]

thanks so much for the detailed tutorial! it really helps! Is this method also able to create a ball like the photo attached? thanks!

[dharman]

No you’ll probably need to dive into this thread to understand your options for that

Golf ball? Evenly spaced points on a sphere?

[golf_ball_search] The search feature on this forum often fails to find results where a Google search is more successful, but in this case, it’s not very helpful either (though I didn’t dig too deep): https://www.google.com/search?q=golf+ball+rhino+grasshopper I found this Grasshopper effort by @ckmok (a member of this forum) but the GH is incomplete, not fully parametric and relies on a list of 780 triangular surfaces in a Rhino file that form a sphere to generate 392 dimples. I can’t recom…

[LUKE_YOUNG]

Oh, grasshopper…thought I could have avoided that hahaha! because I have no idea how it works…but thank you so much! you must be a tutor of some kind, really appreciate it!

[encephalon]

there is a method you can try without grasshopper. Use TestQuadSphere then VolumeCentroid explode the sphere, create your spikes, then use ArraySrf to pin them up on one surface, make 5 by 5 for a start and copy rotate the needed parts with the help of the volumecentroid.

[xavier.bury]

@LUKE_YOUNG

Oh, grasshopper…thought I could have avoided that hahaha! because I have no idea how it works…but thank you so much! you must be a tutor of some kind, really appreciate it!

Takes time to learn but once you got it you increase the number of variations you can make with a just a module tweak. Even if it does take time to learn, the benefits are amazing… Im not a CAD user but GH enables me to do it (not always right but usually quickly and with lots more features than I expected.) Depends on the usage i guess.