Taiko_2025Jun19a.gh (20.9 KB)
3 Likes
I saw some differences between the drum head in the video and my code, so added the cyan group in this version. The ‘CP’ and ‘AR’ sliders are difficult to explain but play with them 
Taiko_2025Jun19b.gh (24.0 KB)
P.S. It can be argued that Taiko drum head patterns have ‘AR ’ = 1, so to speak, which simplifies the code to this version ‘bb’:
Taiko_2025Jun19bb.gh (25.4 KB)
Just a nitpick. The SED arcs do not meet the circular arcs tangentially.
Yeah, thanks, I saw that. Wanted to keep it simple but… Have a go at fixing it, I’m done for now.
P.S. Is it not an issue when the ‘AR ’ slider is set to one in version ‘19b’?
No. It is not. But not once you start scaling. The geometric solution is pretty easy:
gives the center of the outer arc… unless I am mistaken?
That may be true but it looks to me like Taiko drum head patterns have ‘AR’ = 1, so to speak. I don’t know how complicated your geometric solution would be in GH? I took the easy way and used BiArc on the disabled Arc SED component (yellow group). Cheating, I know.
The other Arc SED doesn’t matter, eh?
Taiko_2025Jun19c.gh (27.6 KB)
Looking at the overhead still from this video, the circular heads aren’t circular at all, but seem to be simple archimidean spirals:
Heh, heh. I had to look up “Archimedean spiral”:
An Archimedean spiral is a spiral curve where the distance between successive turns is constant. It’s defined by the polar equation r = a + bθ, where ‘a’ and ‘b’ are constants, ‘r’ is the distance from the origin, and ‘θ’ is the angle. This means that as the angle increases at a constant rate, the distance from the origin also increases linearly.
Your speculation might be true but how “simple” is the GH code to generate the Taiko drum pattern using Archimedean spirals instead of arcs? I posted code, not just images. 
I just added version ‘bb’ in a P.S. to this most, eliminating the ‘AR ’ slider:
I dunno. Plotting approximation points according to the formula of the spiral and running them through PolyArc with the start tangent taken from the outer circle, or using Archimedian Spiral Plane from the many spirals listed in the Spiral panel of Laurent’s Nautilus plug-in seems feasible.
The script below prevents the circle heads from intersecting, but beyond that and the ability to set pattern divisions beyond three, it is not much of an improvement over your last posted definition:
Taiko_vr2.gh (63.4 KB)
Shortcuts could be taken; indeed I tried making the heads and the tails separate closed curves which I then unioned, but for some reason (either because of the unioning or the joining of curves) the tails kept on shifting away from touching with an adjacent head, so I left it as-is, explicit and step-by-step.
The outer circle is not happy with being region differenced with the tear shapes, unsurprisingly since their outlines lie on the outer circle. The region boolean operations are really intended for curves that cross. You could try to extend the tear shaped outside of the outer circle for a proper region difference. I see you switched to Surface Split to get the white shuriken shaped space, but that fails once the circle heads touch or begin to intersect.
And now so did I, but is the rolling eyes emoji really necessary? You don’t know what I am busy with during the day. Maybe I wasn’t that invested. Do you feel that I am somehow obligated to post code and that me liking your post and making some observations on the nature of what the pattern is really like isn’t enough?
1 Like
Thanks to Joseph for posting that drum video and a method to make the drumhead design. I really liked the drummer’s performance. And I had not seen that kind of design before either. After looking at all the variations it occurred to me that the inside (white) part might make an interesting 3D shape. So I tweaked Joseph’s first GH file like this:
to makes this:
Since I only needed half of the geometry I was able to simplify Joseph’s file quite a bit. Then I added fillets because my 3D printer can’t print true curve points or sharp edges. Now I just have to come up with a way to transform this shape into something useful.
DrumDesign.gh (13.8 KB)
2 Likes
@Birk_Binnard Maybe depending on how much you twist or how much ‘diameter’ you can use it as a wine rack! 
Some fillets added for better printing? More difficult than expected…
Taiko_Ext_2025Jun20b.gh (30.6 KB)
1 Like
Great idea to use stacked curves to make a Loft surface. I’ve often done that with other shapes, but hadn’t thought about it for this one. That certainly adds a lot of additional flexibility for the final shape.
My first thought was to make something like this: Twisty
but I’m trying to come up with a better idea.
I switched the GraphMapper to a Sine curve to rescale the Loft control curves:
The 2D render doesn’t do it justice - and I am too impatient to make a ray traced one. (I recently swapped out my i5 PC for an N100 mini; it’s OK for standard renders, but not really fast enough for ray tracing.)
Looks terrible.
Can you create a pair of “twisty” surfaces using GH?
I know, but it’s got lots of possibilities for improvement.
Sure - I’ve made a several of them - including a chess set that I never took the time to make complete:
The GH file for that one is pretty messy though - it barely fits on my 4K screen.
I don’t see any connection between “twistys” and chess or Taiko drum patterns.
This is too simple, yet not simple enough…
twisty_2025Jun20a.gh (13.8 KB)
3D printed interlocking conical sections. (on reddit)
This one is appealingly simple:
