clusters of 6), or in areas of high curvature, into pentagons (i.e. Try arranging them roughly into hexagons (i.e. The arrangement of these triangles dictates the layout of the eventual panelisation, and it will take a couple of attempts to get something that you like. There is no right answer on how you should arrange the triangles. Using 3DFace, manually draw some triangles to create a basic topology for the grid layout. Turn everything off except the Edge layer. Create a second layer, “NURBS”, and copy the lofted surface to it. If the points aren’t in suitable places, you can either delete the curve and re-loft with a different number of control points, or you can ‘Rebuild’ the surface.Ĭreate a new layer, “Edge”, and copy the two halves of the edge curve to it.

If you want to make tweaks to the surface, select ‘PointsOn’ and adjust the shape by hand. ‘Loft’ all these curves to create a surface. 20 points is much more sensible than 279!) Split the base curve into two halves such that all lines are open curves and form a series of arches. You should now have roughly recreated the 3D shape of the dome. Use ‘Project’ to project these lines up to the surface of the original model. In top view, manually draw a series of guidelines (‘Curve’) in the same plane as the extracted edge curve. In hindsight, the methodology presented below certainly isn’t the most efficient or effective, but the important thing (as is usually the case in engineering) is that it got the job done! The problem was that the model we received was nothing more than a collection of lines arranged into one grid pattern and lots of little mesh faces between these lines – no NURBS surfaces or anything else nice to work with! The challenge was therefore threefold: recreate the NURBS surface, manipulate the surface into a structurally more efficient form (think lots of non-zero Gaussian curvature) and then apply a range of grids to it. We had received a domed roof from the architect, and we had been asked to optimise the form and experiment with different gridding options. Something I’ve found in my archives – one of the first projects I did when starting my EngD in 2013.

Weaverbird grasshopper rhino 6 download