Projecting a 3D part onto/around another part's face

lukas_brändli

Hey All

I have a part with a curved but continuous surface that will act as a diffuser/lamp shade.

I also have a planar litophane model created with this online lithophane maker. It is simply an .stl file.

I would like to use the planar litophane and project? wrap? …? it onto the existing diffuser part such that the functionality of the lithophane is preserved.

I have absolutely no clue how to approach this problem. Any hints would be greatly appreciated.😊

Thank you!
Lukas

MichaelPascoe

Hi @lukas_brändli we will need a link to your Onshape document so that we can have a better feel for exactly what you need help with.
Currently, Onshape doesn't have a flex, bend, or wrap feature for 3D parts and surfaces.

Here is one approach, you can use the Wrap feature to wrap a Sketch to a continuous surface, then thicken the resulting face.

If thickening a faces isn't complex enough for this project, there is a custom feature that may be able to bend your part:
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/82834#Comment_82834…

EvanReese

I'm not sure that you can do this in Onshape. I'd use Rhino's deformation tools for this (even though Onshape is my main tool by far). I bet Blender can do this too, but I'm not familiar enough with it.

S1mon

Plasticity can do some amazing things with "unwrap" and "deform", but it does have some challenges with more complex geometry.

If your main goal is to use an image to create geometry, you might want to do that more directly in Rhino (possibly with Grasshopper) or there's an old windows app (free) that may work.

https://www.alibre.com/forum/index.php?threads/zsurf4-convert-a-bmp-to-a-3d-nurbs-surface-to-iges.12365/

EvanReese

@S1mon That Deform tool is much like Rhino's Flow Along Surface which can be extremely powerful for certain things. Good to know Parasolid can handle it! c'mon Onshape devs! Christmas is coming 🤞