tips on getting this edge flow?

[cheerioboy]

http://www.copper.org/applications/a...flat_seam.html



possibly with by making a single strip and doing an array... it seems a bit tricky
in the end I plan to use this flow for extruding diamond details into the dome.

[YoyoBoy]

1) Download the CAD file on the link you included.
2) Looking at the side view of the dome, create an object with faces that snap to one winding row from bottom to top.
3) Create a high-density sphere that matches the side view.
4) Use the Conform compound on your strip to deform it to the sphere.
5) Array 48 copies 7.5 degrees apart.
6) I think you can figure out the rest.

[YoyoBoy]

And yes, I did it it myself because some challenges I just can't resist. But I'll let you make your own.

[Mokiki]

I don't know if you need the exact spacing but can't you just go create a sphere add an edit poly go to the modeling tools ribbon "Polygon Modeling -> Generate topology" and click the icon in the middle row second from the right (edgedirection)"

*edit* added a screenshot. Might have used too many segments :P

[AlexP]

Amazing, learnt a couple of incredibly useful things in this thread, and its nothing to do with me!
Never knew about that generate topology, that's pretty awesome.

[cheerioboy]

Whoa. Awesome!
I'm going to try BOTH of these methods, looks super promising!

Thanks guys

[cheerioboy]

ok!

tried both methods.

@YoyoBoy
Love this method because it was manual and used a compound object that I've never used before. It might be more difficult to implement if there is no CAD drawing to start. I probably should have added more head/tail to the strip, if I wanted to subdivide it with less issue.

@ralphr
Super simple execution - I never touch the ribbon tools (I probably should, but I'm so stuck in my old-school methods). Super simple method - I couldn't get the smoothing right, it seems the position of the verts are arranged in a way that the dome still smooths in the original edge direction. Also once I matched the poly density of the CAD, the dome starts to fall apart at the top. There might be a way to avoid that by using a dense sphere and then removing edges instead of just changing the topology on a lower segmented sphere - I'd need to experiment more with it.

Thanks guys for sharing your methods, learned some neat stuff


diagonal_domes.zip
[max2012 file]

[Mokiki]

You are right out of the box my solution doesn't work as well. Like you mentioned the smoothing is all wrong and the pattern on the top isn't optimal either. I try to play around with it a bit over the weekend and see if I can find a solution for that.

[cheerioboy]

I should add that I ended up just using a regular sphere and using displacement
I thought with the edgeflow corrected on the geometry I could just extrude the shapes, but it started to get messy

Since I had to add additional detail into the dome, like this:





I just need to find an easy way to adjust the mapping so that they get smaller towards the top, at the moment it's a tiling texture of a single square patterned displacement.

I wish Unwrap UVW had a free form mode similar to photoshop's transform distort selection

Edit: duh - looks like if I just use my own spherical UVW Map instead of the default mapping from a sphere primitive, I can get the type of mapping I'm looking for!