Flow on Revolved Surface

 From:  Michael Gibson
4549.28 In reply to 4549.27 
Hi Mario,

> is perfect but i have feeling that flow did it like a wrap
> around equator with longer side. i still expect it to work
> more equaly spread.

Flow will make use of whatever the structure is of the target surface - a sphere surface is a rectangular surface (all NURBS are based on a rectangular base shape) which has its top and bottom edges compressed down to a single point.

So because the sphere surface has compression in its structure, it follows that using it in flow will also generate compression.

If you don't want to have compression you'll need to use some other kind of surface structure than a sphere - possibly a sweep or something like that, a couple of ideas were mentioned previously here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4549.5
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4549.6


> is that flow script based on some sort of Buckminster Fuller type
> triangular teselation (geodesic dome type) perhaps .

The problem with that is that a triangular geodesic dome does not have a regular rectangular layout to it, so it does not map directly to a simple 2D plane.

In order for flow to be able to work, there has to be a mapping between the 2D starting object and its final 3D result.

Do you have any kind of examples that you could show for how you would rather have the 2D pattern mapped on to the sphere?

- Michael