Using a graphic image to create structure

Is it possible to create a surface relief using a graphic?

I had this in mind;

Hmmm… I’d suggest T-Splines Retopo or RhinoEmboss by TDM soloutions for the PC…

Does the Mac version have Heightfield? It’s been a while since I used the Mac version.

Andy

I’ll take a look for 'height field ’ in the mac version. I know there’s no t splines for mac but maybe the others you mentioned …

thanks Andy

Hi,
If you find a way to do this, would you please drop a line about it?

Thanks,
Jeysa

The height field is not useful. Every thing else is PC based. The Mac crowd is SOL at this point. I think I’m going to take a look at the Fusion offer from autodesk - it’s free for non-commercial use.

This design could be easily done with pipes. This is a quick height field at 100x100 and 5mm depth …

500 x500 2.5mm deep …

Fusion 360 is a whole other learning curve. You may want to try zBrush or Modo, zBrush has a free smaller brother called Sculptis, i think.

Is the image you posted above the actual image you want to use?

It might be possible to process (ie Photoshop) it to yield better results before using heightfield.

In my time dabbling with Sculptris, it’s a very nice freeware program for making rudimentary sculpts. Just some notes for those who’d like to explore it.

It’s still free on Pixologic’s website. It’s available for both Windows and OSX. FOR OSX: Since Pixologic hasn’t updated Sculptris in a while, YOU NEED TO FIND THEIR FORUM POST ON CHANGING A SMALL CONFIG FILE. If you fail to do this, you’ll be the umpteenth noob post asking why the sculpt object is just a dark silhouette.

Sculpting is a process that works far better with a graphics pad (Wacom, etc)

Does this abandoned freeware have limitations? A few, but they’re glaring. You can’t do Boolean operations in Sculptris. Can’t make holes through your sculpts.

To test usability as it pertains to the OP, I loaded an alpha image JPEG as a Sculptris brush, then divided my sphere into 130k triangles, cranked the brush’s detail slider and stamped the alpha image onto the sphere. It works, but it’s not a fantastic result…

Meanwhile, ZBrush offers a good deal of fine-tuning when it comes to tweaking alphas and turning them into a sculpted feature:

Check with Pixologic on September 30th. They’re announcing ZBrushCore. Might be a solid in-between solution at a reduced cost that should still provide alpha image stamping. Hints it might come bundled free with Wacom graphic pads.

Thanks, we just got the OK at work to get zBrush. I am still working on the best way to get from Rhino NURBS to zBrush OBJ and keep my hard edges I need on some pieces. T-Splines and creased edges seems to be the best so far, I am checking Fusion 360 for us Mac users. Getting off topic, for another post.

I noticed zBrushCore on the website last week, but didn’t look into it. I will do now just to give “The Powers That Be” some pricing options.

The surface relief in the image in the initial post appears to be engraved into a flat surface using a small ball mill. No new software is needed to make a digital version. It can be replicated in Rhino very simply. Start with the flat surface. Create curves representing the centerlines of the engravings. Then use Pipe on the centerlines. Cap=Round for the the open curves.

If the flat surface is part of a solid use BooleanDifference to make the grooves using the pipes. You may need to use SrfSeam to drag the seams in the pipes above the solid. Explode the pipes, SrfSeam each segment and cap, Join to create solids from the pipes.

If the flat surface is not part of a solid then use Split and Delete or Trim to remove the unwanted parts of the surface and pipes, followed by Join…

Will do. Thanks

Thanks David, The detail is actually raised up and using rounded piping was my approach but I found the result too clean/consistent. I then swept a profile on the turkey’s lines, but it’s still not quite right. There’s a quality of the actual molding that’s difficult to emulate with the precise results rhino delivers.

I’m going to look into CarterTG’s suggestions. It may be time to start looking outside Rhino for supplemental tools.

Hi,
Thanks for the ideas.
I’m trying and trying to follow rhinorudi’s steps, but to no avail, here is the original image and the result. What am I doing wrong? I choose “hightfield from image” command.
I’ll have to rebuild the model I guess anyway, but the above command should work too,
Thanks,
Jeysa

I use Fusion 360 for some filleting… I have T-Splines for Rhino but Fusion makes a nice addition as a tool. It’s great to export meshes if you’re having problems but it’s not always straight forward… Worth a play around with but I bet my bottom dollar you stick with Rhino.

I also use Meshmixer which is pretty handy. I tried Sculptis but found it lacking, Meshmixer is good fun and easy you use. Working with a tablet for this kind of work is a pleasure.

Andy

I too would go with pipes if that’s too clean use sketch then pipe. You can alter your profiles of the pipes by selecting all of them and flattening them using the gumball. Personally the thing is pretty poorly done and trying to emulate it’s faults is interesting. It looks like a rudimentary sculpt out of 3dcoat using a spline tool, I see the overlapping strokes maybe try their demo it’s my favorite freeform modeling program zbrush is great too.
You could also mesh it and degrade the model that way too.
RM

8 pm tonight online streaming. http://ZBru.sh/zs2016

can’t wait!