3D-splines, sweep - or other?

henning_schmidt

S1mon

It all depends on how you want to be able to control/modify the design. I did something vaguely similar recently. Each path was actually just an intersection of a plane with the surface. Those planes where located by patterning 3D points parametrically along face curves. Plane intersections won't work for this design, but some combination of some face curves and 3D Points on your surface, and then @Evan_Reese 's Freeform Spline or even the built in 3D Fit Spline through those points for the sweep path might be good.

I'm assuming that one curve and then one sweep is enough to get this started, and then it's a matter of radial patterning and cutting into 1/4 and mirroring.

EvanReese

Here's a slapdash demo of how I might approach it. There are surely ways to make it more parametric and robust.

S1mon

I had to take a stab too. I'm sure there are things that I could do more efficiently, but this was a fun challenge. I ended up just using a helix to drive some ruled surfaces to create the groove.

S1mon

It all depends on how you want to be able to control/modify the design. I did something vaguely similar recently. Each path was actually just an intersection of a plane with the surface. Those planes where located by patterning 3D points parametrically along face curves. Plane intersections won't work for this design, but some combination of some face curves and 3D Points on your surface, and then @Evan_Reese 's Freeform Spline or even the built in 3D Fit Spline through those points for the sweep path might be good.

I'm assuming that one curve and then one sweep is enough to get this started, and then it's a matter of radial patterning and cutting into 1/4 and mirroring.

EvanReese

Here's a slapdash demo of how I might approach it. There are surely ways to make it more parametric and robust.

S1mon

I had to take a stab too. I'm sure there are things that I could do more efficiently, but this was a fun challenge. I ended up just using a helix to drive some ruled surfaces to create the groove.

EvanReese

daaaaang! looks nice!

henning_schmidt

Worked perfectly - and I just got a bit smarter ... Thx guys!