Modelling pitted surfaces eg Travertine

Hi All

I am looking to create a small mould for precasting with a travetine like surface ie pitting etc. Each mould will be different and there will be most like 10 pieces required. I believe grasshopper would be the best tool...any pointers as to the most efficient/flexible way to do this...and has anyone any examples of something like this as a starting point.

Please see target surface picture...mostly smooth with pitting details.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Image_Engine on August 20, 2017 at 5:10pm

Am I asking something too hard or too easy? Just a starting point...

Cheers

Permalink Reply by ian mann on August 21, 2017 at 12:04am

Can you be more specific about youre trying to do? do you want to control the details? do they have to be non-uniform like your shown in the image?

one method could be to use the image (or similar) that you have above, use graph mapper to get the details from the image and use that to build a surface.

If you want to have more control (but uniform details) then you could use an attractor to push/pull points - array a series of straight polylines with several divisions, use attractor points to displace points of polylines on z-axis, loft the polylines together.

Again, all comes down to the level of detail and control you want. These are pretty simple and quick definitions to build.

Permalink Reply by Image_Engine on August 21, 2017 at 12:34am

Hi Ian

Thanks for your reply. I did have a good look at height maps etc in Rhino but wanted something a bit more procedural

I want to generate a large area of these details. I basically want the features to be generated with similar behaviours to the picture with a fairly high res for printing ie typically 0.1mm.

Reproducing the fractal nature of the details is important eg the traceable (but not visible) vein lines, relative scaling of detail, random depth and smoothness etc.

Cheers

Permalink Reply by ian mann on August 21, 2017 at 1:23am

the level of scale may be your problem. The attached screenshot uses image sampler to build a point cloud from the image. The higher resolution the point cloud the less smooth your final lofted surface will be (at the cost of performance). you could take this sample area and mirror/rotate etc etc or break it into tiles and move the tiles around so you have something that seems completely random. i dont think ive seen something with the "sharp" detail you want to achieve though... maybe someone with more experience can help...