Geodesic Dome

[Chame_liam]

Alrighty - first of all, sorry if I'm using any of the wrong terms here... definitely could have paid more attention in maths in school.

 

So, the company I work for has a custom half sphere structure that we build a light artwork over the top of. About a year back, the structure got stuck in transit and we had to replace our custom half sphere with a geodesic dome for that gig. Now the geodesic dome has made its way into our rotation as they're obviously much easier to procure and ship and today I had to draw the dome as the manufacturer didn't have a CAD for it and we needed to update our documentation. I got there but I feel like it took me so much longer than it should have so would love for any tips or ways to speed up my workflow.

 

Here's what I did:

• I drew a regular icosahedron using 3 idential golden rectangles intersecting each other and then drew the faces by drawing triangles from 3d polys using the vertices of the rectangles.
• 
• From there drew lines between the furthest vertices in the icosahedron that all overlapped in the centre of the icosahedron
• Hid all but one of the triangles and duplicated and rotated the lines so that I had enough points to draw my triangles in. I was drawing a 5v dome
• 
• Drew triangles in 
• 
• Spent a very long time working out how best to duplicate this set of triangles and rotate them to sit atop the other icosahedron faces (I drew lots of squares and extruded them to set working planes that would be helpful to rotate the set of triangles. I had to do each face individually which ate a lot of time). This is what I ended up with:
• 
• I then used my internal lines between furthest vertices to help rotate the whole thing so one of the clusters of 5 triangles was at the top
• From here, I removed the half I didn't need, scaled the dome up to match the size of the real life one, trimmed the bottom of the bottom row of trianlges so that it would sit flat and then had to use extrude along path with a circle for each of triangle (another very slow part, would love any other obvious way I could have done this. And it's also resulted in a lot of unneccessary overlapping geometry). I removed our doors by drawing a cylinder and subtracting solids. Then drew a nurbs curve in between the points of the remaining members and extruded a circle along those paths
• 

 

I definitely learnt some modelling lessons doing this but any other ways anyone would have approached this, I'd love to hear!

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I am probably missing something here, but is this what you are after.

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Upon reflection....my first cup of coffee, I think I have it straight.   Is this what your are interested in?

 

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by VIRTUALENVIRONS

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

I got thinking about a geodesic sphere.  The Dome was made differently, both about 30 minutes.  I added connecting spheres to this model.  There are a numbers of ways to go about this. 

 

 

[Chame_liam]

@VIRTUALENVIRONS not quite - difference between mine and yours would be that mine is a 5v geodesic sphere but I'm sure you could have achieved that with your methods.

 

Would love to know how you achieved that in 30 minutes though!

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Hi Chame

Not sure what 5V means?  Could you please explain?

I was thinking about this today.  I decided to make one where the connecting splines are also curved.  See below.  If you notice, the sphere is completely spherical, no straight lines.

 

I am a little busy tomorrow, but could make a video on my methodology later this week.

 

 

[mjm]

5 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Hi Chame

Not sure what 5V means?  Could you please explain?

I was thinking about this today.  I decided to make one where the connecting splines are also curved.  See below.  If you notice, the sphere is completely spherical, no straight lines.

 

I am a little busy tomorrow, but could make a video on my methodology later this week.

 

 

@VIRTUALENVIRONS: look here for 5V Geodesic definition

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

17 hours ago, Chame_liam said:

Would love to know how you achieved that in 30 minutes though!

Two images enclosed.

It dawned on me this morning that explaining the process would lead to more questions about enhancing the design to incorporate the finishing touches, so I went to work for a few hours.

The Geodesic sphere shown is completely spherical or in other words, no straight parts.  Even the connecting joints follow the spherical shape.  The second image is a close up.

If there is an interest in this type of construction, I can to a tutorial.

 

 

 

 

[mjm]

@VIRTUALENVIRONS—gorgeous

[jmcewen]

On 10/27/2023 at 12:02 PM, Chame_liam said:

Alrighty - first of all, sorry if I'm using any of the wrong terms here... definitely could have paid more attention in maths in school.

 

So, the company I work for has a custom half sphere structure that we build a light artwork over the top of. About a year back, the structure got stuck in transit and we had to replace our custom half sphere with a geodesic dome for that gig. Now the geodesic dome has made its way into our rotation as they're obviously much easier to procure and ship and today I had to draw the dome as the manufacturer didn't have a CAD for it and we needed to update our documentation. I got there but I feel like it took me so much longer than it should have so would love for any tips or ways to speed up my workflow.

 

Here's what I did:

• I drew a regular icosahedron using 3 idential golden rectangles intersecting each other and then drew the faces by drawing triangles from 3d polys using the vertices of the rectangles.
• 
• From there drew lines between the furthest vertices in the icosahedron that all overlapped in the centre of the icosahedron
• Hid all but one of the triangles and duplicated and rotated the lines so that I had enough points to draw my triangles in. I was drawing a 5v dome
• 
• Drew triangles in 
• 
• Spent a very long time working out how best to duplicate this set of triangles and rotate them to sit atop the other icosahedron faces (I drew lots of squares and extruded them to set working planes that would be helpful to rotate the set of triangles. I had to do each face individually which ate a lot of time). This is what I ended up with:
• 
• I then used my internal lines between furthest vertices to help rotate the whole thing so one of the clusters of 5 triangles was at the top
• From here, I removed the half I didn't need, scaled the dome up to match the size of the real life one, trimmed the bottom of the bottom row of trianlges so that it would sit flat and then had to use extrude along path with a circle for each of triangle (another very slow part, would love any other obvious way I could have done this. And it's also resulted in a lot of unneccessary overlapping geometry). I removed our doors by drawing a cylinder and subtracting solids. Then drew a nurbs curve in between the points of the remaining members and extruded a circle along those paths
• 

 

I definitely learnt some modelling lessons doing this but any other ways anyone would have approached this, I'd love to hear!

Is this your dome that is getting installed today in a shipyard in Ancona Italy?

[Chame_liam]

On 11/11/2023 at 2:50 AM, jmcewen said:

Is this your dome that is getting installed today in a shipyard in Ancona Italy?

 

Ours is currently seeing a very cold couple of months in Denver

[Chame_liam]

On 10/31/2023 at 2:57 AM, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Two images enclosed.

It dawned on me this morning that explaining the process would lead to more questions about enhancing the design to incorporate the finishing touches, so I went to work for a few hours.

The Geodesic sphere shown is completely spherical or in other words, no straight parts.  Even the connecting joints follow the spherical shape.  The second image is a close up.

If there is an interest in this type of construction, I can to a tutorial.

 

 

 

 

 

This looks stunning but unfortunately not quite what I had to draw. Our model needed to reflect the fact that all of the members of the structure are straight sections so the engineers could sign off

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

33 minutes ago, Chame_liam said:

 

This looks stunning but unfortunately not quite what I had to draw. Our model needed to reflect the fact that all of the members of the structure are straight sections so the engineers could sign off

Hi,   I made a version of this with straight segments.  But, the curved version was the most complex.

 

regards.....Paul

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

1 hour ago, Chame_liam said:

are straight sections so the engineers could sign off

If you look up onto the thread you will see the version with straight segments.....cheers.....Paul

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

@Chame_liam  Hi.  I build these things for fun to keep busy, as I am long retired.  If you would like any of the models on this thread that I made, let me know and I will post them.

[JackBuilt]

On 11/10/2023 at 10:50 AM, jmcewen said:

Is this your dome that is getting installed today in a shipyard in Ancona Italy?

Looks like outfitting for a Christmas cruise

[Tobias Kern]

Hi there,

 

@VIRTUALENVIRONS

I'm interested how you achieved the Geodesic Dome

both solutions (curved and straight).

 

Thanks for help!

Greetings from Germany

Tobi

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

Hi Tobias,

It will take a little time to do this, but I will put together a video showing the construction of both.

 

Would you like to have the files already created.  I can post them.

 

regards......Paul

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

On 11/30/2023 at 4:06 AM, Tobias Kern said:

'm interested how you achieved the Geodesic Dome

both solutions (curved and straight).

Hi Tobias,

The tutorial below should get you going on any type of Geodesic Dome.

 

 

[Peter Neufeld.]

H Paul,

Excellent movie tutorial!

This reminds me of a conversation I had in the Forum ages ago about 3D conversion resolution and I used a Sphere converted to a Mesh as an example. It seems apt to repeat the image as it affects the model:

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

5 minutes ago, Peter Neufeld. said:

It seems apt to repeat the image as it affects the model:

Hi Peter,

Thank you for posting that.  VW's only offers those four conversions.  I meant to talk about that, but the tutorial was getting long.

 

For C4D users there is another alternative.  You can create a sphere with the amount of 3 sided polygons you need and then import into VW's.  I looked at that before I made the tutorial.

 

So, what are you working on these days.  See some great posts from you.

[Peter Neufeld.]

Hi Paul,

I'd be hesitant to post about other program's intricacies seeing this forum is all about Vectorworks but I know you also use Cinema 4D. The majority don't however... 

 

File size and processing can be greatly affected by 3D conversion resolution as native Vectorworks objects adjust accordingly. However it doesn't affect the initial conversion of the sphere as once converted it stays that way. You can use the 'Simplify Mesh' command but it only goes in the one direction of course.

 

Thanks for your kind words - that movie you posted was very good.

 

Cheers,

Peter

[Tobias Kern]

Hi Paul,

 

greetings and thank you for your time to making this video!

 

Greetings

Tobi

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

You are welcome.  If this helps, I am happy.   If you create your own, please post it.

 

regards...Paul