smoothing nodes

by Javier Ruiz

Aug 1, 2010

Hi all,

 

I need help smoothing a big amount of nodes like this one.(4 and 5 directions..) I want just one single smooth surface. (All at once, not modelling with tsplines one by one..)

 

I tried to convert it into one single mesh and then use weaverbird but its difficult. ( spheres, booleans etc..)

 

I think this is the key point. Convert this pipes into meshes and then merge them withweaverbird or tsplines. The problem are the booleans..

 

Any idea?

 

Cheers!!

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  • up

    Wiktor Kidziak

    Hi! Did you find a solution to your problem? I need to something very similar and was wondering whether you could share what you have found out?

    Jan 1, 2011

    • up

      Jacek Jaskólski

      Hi guys,
       

      I am also investigating the subject of smooth joints in tubular (space)frames. I'm praticularily interrested in obtaining a parametric system, which allows for varied number of rods and their meeting angles in the nodal point.

      From what I've found on the web, the most popular solutions involve either mesh relaxation or T-splines. I have made some tests with both of these solutions:


      My thoughts:

      Mesh relaxation
      - the hardest part seems to be creating the base meshes in a parametric manner,
      (Gwyll has posted about this on his blog)
      - there's some tweaking required to avoid too concave, membrane-like forms, not sure how to achieve that yet...
      - there're a couple of ways/tools to do this mesh relaxation inside GH, ie. Kangaroo or StructDrawRhino.


      T-slpines
      - the first impression is very pleasant, intuitively the form is what I imagined, but:
      - different configurations produce different geometrical results, not necesarilly as nice
      - the typical section of the t-spline pipe seems a little squared, I haven't been able to get a round shape
      - the T-splines plugin for GH is not yet fully operetional (and since they were acquired by Autodesk, maybe never will be, sadly), so it'd probably be hard to use this method on many nodes at once, as Javier said.

      My questions to you guys:
      Does anybody know any different methods for creating this type of forms?
      Have you come across any sources of documentation regarding these or other methods?
      Any guidance is very welcome!

      Cheers,
      Jacek

      3

      Feb 8, 2012

      • up

        Jacek Jaskólski

        Hi Guys,

        I dug up this old project  from 2012, thought I'd share with you:

        More photos in the album "Connecting the Dots"

        I finally ended up using T-Splines and it's plugin for GH to get the smooth geometry of the connection nodes. The plugin was actually in it's very early stages (don't know if that's changed since then) so some manual steps where needed, but in overall, it was the perfect tool for the job.

        15

        Mar 8, 2015

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