Challenge for a Hexagon guru?

[Nate Owens]

Golf ball, anyone?

Maybe anybody can do this, but I have never been able to successfully model a golf ball in any application. Nope, I can't tell you how many dimples they have (probably a google search would tell).

I always end up getting a ready-to-go model from one of the on-line resources... I just feel that it would be an accomplishment if I could actually make one of the little buggers. The dimples are shallow and smooth and arranged in a peculiar pattern. - - I've tried array on surface, booleans, etc.... nothing ever looks right.

Any tuts out there? (none that I have found).

Thanks

[Grendel]

An easy way to do it is create a geodisic sphere, select all the points and then extrude them to form the dimples. The # of dimples varies for each maker so there is no magic number to set on your sphere when you make it. It may not be perfect but it's close.


I've also seen dimple maps on the net but I can' remember when or where. With one of those it would be simple to use it as a negative displacement map on a simple sphere.

[Nate Owens]

Thanks, Grendel... as usual, I try to make something simple complex.
Will play with this and see what I come up with.

How's things in Texas?

[bwtr]

I had a quick play with this in Hexagon but, as you can see, nowhere near as pretty dimples. Love some further advice.

[Grendel]

Nate - Weathers been nice, just got back from taking the kids to Sea World.


BWTR- how does it look with smoothing, I extruded in three steps. First axially just slightly to help keep a good boundary edge for the dimple, once a little more for depth and then radially for the concave dimple. I've attached the wire with no smoothing

[Corndog]

Just a little golf ball information I found

The number of dimples on a golf ball varies, depending on the manufacturer and may even be different for different models made by the same manufacturer. The dimples are usually the same size as one another, but some golf balls have several different sizes of dimple on the same ball. Any number between 300 and 500 dimples is reasonable, and 336 is a common number. Not just any number will do. Golf balls are usually covered with dimples in a spherically symmetrical way, and for many values of N, it is impossible to cover the golf ball uniformly without gaps. Symmetry is important or the ball will wobble or its flight will depend on which part of the ball is forwards or sideways as the ball spins. You can get an idea of how to space dimples uniformly around a sphere by thinking about the "platonic solids" -- the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron, and placing a dimple at the corners of an inscribed platonic solid. Variations on this theme give the corners of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, and also the possible symmetrical locations of dimples on a golf ball..

[bwtr]

Thanks Grendel, forgot to do that!

[bwtr]

I found a source to buy 3d files in various formats--prices ranged from $30 to 40 per "ball". I just had fun and saved money all at the same time!

[bwtr]

The only way I could find to do the golf ball was to use the selection 'Select over-4-points faces". Now this is surely not English, and I only tried it out to see what would happen. However there are several selection choices in the drop down also written in Non English? See attachment.

A proper understandable description of each would be welcome as nothing is written up about them in the Help (that I can find).

[Grendel]

For the selection I turned on transparency and point selection and then used a rectangle selection over the whole sphere to grab them all at once.

Select over 4 point faces just means where poles(5+ edges) meet.

[bwtr]

Grendell!!! Sorry, your explanation 4 etc still says nothing to me! Some people seem to live in another world to me, but Im'e sure there are many like me who still need things spelt out "real" english?

ps. Is there anything in the Hex Help which would explain the need to use the transparency please.

[bwtr]

Second PS, my way seems to work better than yours--but my way was a fluke which I also don't understand. Any chance of a detailed work flow on your way please?

[Grendel]

I turn on transparency so I can select the points on the other side of the model without rotating it. Without it turned on your selection stops at what is visible in your screen facing you at the time.

[bwtr]

Ahhh!! Thanks Grendel.